The pandemic and its impact on Children's mental health

Every parent want their child to be safe and healthy to prosper to the best of their abilities. The way in which kids are brought up by their parents depends upon a variety of factors including their culture, background, social environment, economic condition, etc. Education and health are almost certainly at the top of the agenda for any parent.

The importance of education – both on the literal and social side cannot be underestimated and is rightfully emphasized by the parents. But, when it comes to talking about the health side of things, the conversations almost always revolves around the importance and best practices for maintaining a good physical health and often ignores touching on the importance of mental health.

The reason for this can be attributed to several things but probably the most pertinent would be because people still aren’t fully aware of mental health issues and the impact it is having on young children. Social media is credited for the single biggest reason for developing mental health issues in children but there has been a surge in teens’ mental health complaints since the pandemic. The story of 13 years old Lisa is a very good example to understand how the pandemic has impacted so many young lives.

Lisa is a very bright and bubbly kid, who brings about a smile on pretty everyone’s faces in the colony. At 13 years of age, she is really enthusiastic about sports and represented her school in a tennis tournament, where she finished runner-up among players mostly well above her age.

All this was happening as the black clouds was hovering in form of the pandemic. As Lisa returned with the medal and her parents planned to celebrate it over a barbeque with her grandparents, the news went circulating around regarding an inevitable lockdown.

Little it was known to Lisa or any of her family or friends that this would be the last time she stepped on to the court for around 8 months.

A kid not being able to meet and play with her friends for this time might not sound such a big deal, especially considering that millions lost their lives and many more lost their jobs but, it is a big deal. This pandemic year represents only a tiny fraction of your life, but it is a much larger chunk for your teenagers or minors.

Online classes are better than nothing but when every day involves sitting in front of a laptop, alone, for hours on end, it becomes a lonely and tedious experience. Children might have schoolwork to complete but they miss out on playground games, gossip, friends, and fun.

All of this results in the change of mental state for the children and it is the main reason why there’s such a surge in the number of kids suffering from mental health issues. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, children’s mental health emergencies have increased substantially over the course of the pandemic.

It is important to take the mental health concerns more seriously. It is not good enough to expect those in distress to join waiting lists before they can receive professional support. But too often it seems that what we offer children is the worst of all worlds: we fail to help those in desperate need while, at the same time, creating problems in those who are simply dealing with the normal ups and downs of adolescence.

Lisa described her mental health throughout the year as “a roller coaster”, with ups and downs that meant she’d be fine some days, and struggle to get out of bed on others. The pandemic has exacerbated the lows. And at the same time the virtual learning has put more of a responsibility on her to reach out to the teachers, friends, and administrators – at school who help her cope.

What we need to know

An online questionnaire survey was administered to 359 children and 3254 adolescents aged 7 to 18 years during the spread of COVD in China. It showed 22.3% of youth had scores indicative of clinical depressive symptoms while anxiety symptom levels were also higher after the outbreak than previously reported.

An online survey was carried with 384 parents having children between the ages of 5-15 in Bangladesh. Children’s depression, anxiety, and sleep disorder scores were grouped into severity categories. Severity and percentages of mental health problems in the children were as follows: subthreshold (43%), mild (30.5%), moderate (19.3%) and severe (7.2%).

A similar survey was also carried out through 1143 parents having children aged 3-18 years in Italy and Spain to study the effect of quarantine on their children, compared to before the home confinement period. The study found 85.7% of parents reported changes in their children’s behavior during the quarantine. The most frequently observed changes were difficulty concentrating, boredom, irritability, restlessness, nervousness, loneliness, uneasiness, and worries.

What can we do?

The virtual learning setup means that the student’s struggles can be a bit of black box for staff as they don’t always know who’s struggling, particularly if those students are missing virtual classes, or attend but don’t turn their cameras on.

It’s vital that we have it clear in our mind that children may have missed part of the period when they learn the basics of social interaction, and may not have the same tools to build the relationships they need because of the forced isolation and disruption of the pandemic.

In the connectivist theory, learning is perceived as a special bond between the learner, other people or groups and the online learning media. Introverts prefer to learn and contribute to an online discussion forum while the extroverts would rather take part in the face to face classroom environment.

For introverts – asynchronous communication are less threatening than the face-to-face communications because they have more time for reflection. On the other hand, extroverts prefer to communicate directly with others in face-to-face environment and they interact significantly more in threaded discussions than introverts.

The parent’s and teacher’s information about learners’ characteristics has implications on selecting the teaching strategies, coping with the necessity of differentiating to the point of personalizing the online environment, depending on the locus of control, self-efficacy level, introversion-extraversion, cognitive style.

The Stigma…

All things considered, it’s easy to come to the obvious conclusion that mental health matters and the necessity to talk with related people being more important than ever, especially for children. But how can we expect the kids to talk about things that even parents struggle to talk about? And that’s where the problem lies.

People across all age groups find it difficult to talk about their diminishing mental health, primarily due to the fear of being looked as weak and vulnerable. Such feeling can be easily replicated in kids who might fear how they’ll be perceived by their friends and classmates if they find out that the kid is struggling due to one reason or another.

For children to feel they can express their weaknesses without any hesitation, a safe and friendly environment needs to be created. Parents need to make sure that not only they talk to their children about the importance of physical health and the habits they need to follow to maintain that but there also needs to be continuous discussion regarding the importance of mental health.

Coming back to Lisa…

It was not easy for Lisa in the beginning but her parents quickly realized that something just wasn’t right. The joyfulness she brought to the place was slowly fading away and she preferred to lock herself in the room and stare at her phone for hours.

Like many others, Lisa’s parents were too busy navigating around their own work from home schedules during the early stage of the pandemic. However, they quickly realized that if it was such a difficult situation for those as adults then it could not even be imagined the trauma that a child is going through at an age where face-to-face interactions simply cannot be replaced by virtual meetings.

This prompted them to come up with innovative ideas to keep Lisa busy with them and try to make her see the positive aspects of the situation. "we struggled in the beginning but slowly we realized it was important to be her friend as well as her parents", said her father adding that her mom even got her involved in cooking, which she absolutely loved. "we're so glad we talked to the right people and were able to help our child when she needed it the most", said Lisa's mother.

Conclusion

Children struggling with mental health are going to have a much harder time focusing on studying and learning new material, so focusing on the social-emotional pieces may have to come before getting them back on track with learning.

If you or your child is struggling with mental health, you are not alone. Latest researches show that 59% of parents have noted recent behavioral changes in their child ranging from outbursts or extreme irritability to drastic changes in mood, behavior or personality and difficulty sleeping/altered sleeping patterns as well as persistent sadness and more.

It’s important to realize that these kids are the future of tomorrow and they need to be protected to make sure that a year of this pandemic doesn’t alter their life and personality forever. There has been a positive change in regards to the awareness related to the importance of mental health and why talking about it matters the most.

Therefore, it’s our responsibility to make sure that we do not let a generation of talents just fade away into darkness of mental fragilities. As Lisa’s parents managed to help her get back to some form of normality, they should be looked at as an example because they understood the importance of helping their child despite their own struggles during the pandemic.

This horrible situation will surely pass away and we will hopefully get back to the normal life as it was before the pandemic, but some things might never be the same. Mental health matters more in these trying circumstances than it has ever been and it’s time that everyone can collectively kick this virus out of our lives.