Read this blog post till end for some insight on the mental health of the children within our communities and how you as a parent guardian or any type of caretaker can help to ease their experience.
Although there are many factors to address, children are particularly vulnerable due to their limited understanding of the current pandemic. Because of this many of them are also unable to physically and mentally escape the harms of the situation as they have little to no coping strategies and it is hard for them to communicate their feelings easily unlike adults.
Although their understanding is minimal, children can pick up on unverified information through social media or word of mouth as adults communicate which can aggravate mental distress and feelings of uncertainty as misinterpretation is bound to happen.
Children are also in a continuous and critical period of development as they require special care in order to preserve and promote their mental health which has been primarily affected by a drastic change in routine. The suppression of all class activities and learning as well as a shift to an online schooling has led to the creation of an isolated learning environment.
Essentially, schools are responsible for providing structure to a child's daily activities. Many articles have postulated the importance of physical activity during the quarantine as it is associated with a decline in symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Research has also argued that schools play a primary role in providing a consistent daily calorie intake to ensure that children are getting their nutritional needs. These basic requirements have been drastically reduced because of pandemic.
A nationwide study in Canada conducted by the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, found that children and youth were actually less active, played outside less, were more sedentary engaged in more recreational screen time and slept more in comparison to before the covid19 restrictions. But special needs are extremely vulnerable to the psychological impacts that come along, for example shifting to an online learning environment has disrupted their daily routines and therapy sessions.
Children with autism or neurocognitive disabilities are more likely to show problematic behaviors such as irritability aggression and social withdrawal.
Online learning has also led to a decrease in assistance to these children as parents cannot replace special education teachers. There is also a lack of technology to assist with this transition. In addition to that, social distancing and its effects are extremely new and difficult to understand especially for children that are experiencing developmental and intellectual delays. For these reasons spreading awareness of the mental health of children with disabilities needs to be done on a global scale.
It is also no surprise that the pandemic causes parents and caregivers to become fearful of their own concerns. Research shows that fear can be contagious as children are sensitive to the emotional state of the adults that surround them.
To make matters worse, parents are also unable to alleviate the stress through familiar mechanisms that were established prior to the pandemic, such as visiting family and friends or going on excursions can actually decrease in frequency as there are limited ways for children to flee from perpetrators, as schools usually act as an avenue for children to report issues.
Regardless, the frequency of children experiencing abuse at home may increase due to continuous contact with perpetrators in quarantine. Additionally, browsing on online social media platforms and lack of supervision over the internet access has also increased vulnerability to online offenders, attempted fraud and sexually inappropriate content.
Due to these circumstances, issues such as deteriorating performance, aggression and regression may escalate. These are all examples of environmental impacts that impair a child's mental health and physical perception of the world around them. Despite any of the negative impacts the internet has been a critical tool for children and youth in learning, entertainment and even social interactions since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In particular research has shown that video games offer a temporary escape from real life, but they also provide a fair amount of social engagement. One of the greatest digital game distributors known as STEAM, reports that since the pandemic started the number of users has increased significantly. This report indicates that weekly users has increased from 19 million to 23.5 million.
So what can you do to help your child during this pandemic.?
Well, there are several avenues of support that can be offered for children to ensure that their mental health is being addressed.
One of the main technique that is The CARD system provided by the hospital for sick kids for parents and caregivers. this system provides strategies that parents can play to help their children cope with stressful situations.
CARD is an acronym that stands for Comfort, Ask, Relax and Distract.
The COMFORT aspect involves:
- Talking to your child about what they can do to cope with their anxiety.
- Try to empower your child to overcome their negative thoughts by saying things like "you are stronger than you feel".
- Also be sure to validate your child's concern by saying things like "it's okay to be upset".
- Avoid focusing on the worry.
- Limiting exposure to the media and news
- Be mindful of the conversations that you have around family members
- Creating daily routines that give your child predictability and control.
Next by ASKING questions your child is given an opportunity to open up. Some questions you can ask your child include:
- What questions do you have?
- How are you feeling?
- What are your friends saying about this?
- What fun things can you do today?
Thirdly by RELAX this means:
- To do things that you and your child enjoy to help them feel more secure and connected.
- Listening to a mindfulness or relaxation activity together.
- Practicing positive self-talk.
- Engaging in an enjoyable physical activity.
Lastly a great thing to do is DISTRACT:
- Try to talk about things that are important to your child such as sports or exercising or art.
- Reading books.
- Watching movies.
- Playing board games.
- Working on puzzles.
- Helping your child with their homework.
Using CARD you can make a personalized system for your child to make their routines during the pandemic a little less difficult and hopefully this benefits your mental health in return. Because mental health is inclusive to all.
