HEALTH PLUS MED­ICAL CON­SUL­TANT

COVID-19 has test­ed our emo­tion­al grap­pling as adults, but how has it af­fect­ed our stu­dents, es­pe­cial­ly those prepar­ing for a new school term or re­ceiv­ing re­sults from SEA ex­ams? Un­for­tu­nate­ly, COVID-19 has am­pli­fied the men­tal strain stu­dents ex­pe­ri­ence, more so with­in the “dig­i­tal” aca­d­e­m­ic walls of school. Par­ents may not be fa­mil­iar with how to help their chil­dren cope, if they them­selves are hav­ing a dif­fi­cult time ad­just­ing and cop­ing to the new re­al­i­ty which COVID-19 presents.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­cent Na­tion­al Sur­vey of Chil­dren’s Health, CDC stat­ed that

• Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 4.4 mil­lion chil­dren aged three-17 years have been di­ag­nosed with anx­i­ety re­lat­ed dis­or­ders.

• Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1.9 mil­lion chil­dren aged three-17 years have been di­ag­nosed with de­pres­sion.

Anx­i­ety wors­ens in stu­dents as they may not al­ways com­mu­ni­cate their wor­ry or fears di­rect­ly to their par­ents.

It is well doc­u­ment­ed that par­ents miss the symp­toms when they them­selves are en­veloped in their dai­ly strug­gles and are not open-mind­ed to no­tice short-term be­hav­iour­al changes.

These symp­toms such as ir­ri­tabil­i­ty, mood swings, act­ing out, changes in sleep pat­terns, can be per­ti­nent hints of a “stressed out stu­dent”. Oth­ers have trou­ble com­plet­ing as­sign­ments or con­cen­trat­ing on ex­ams. Some ado­les­cents have phys­i­cal ef­fects, in­clud­ing stom­ach aches, headaches, asth­mat­ic events, skin al­ler­gies, alope­cia or dis­rup­tions in their men­stru­al cy­cles.

Many anx­ious stu­dents keep their wor­ries to them­selves and thus, the symp­toms are missed or de­te­ri­o­rate in­to de­pres­sion.

Par­ents | Teach­ers | Care­givers, here are a few ben­e­fi­cial strate­gies to help your stu­dents con­quer these anx­i­eties.

1. Be an in­ten­tion­al lis­ten­er.

Be avail­able to just lis­ten and find out what is on their minds. Lis­ten to un­der­stand their con­cerns. As you lis­ten to their sto­ries of the day's events, be sure to ask what your chil­dren think and feel about what is hap­pen­ing. If your ado­les­cent seems to be wor­ried about some­thing, ask about it. En­cour­age them to put what is both­er­ing them in­to words. Be will­ing to ex­plore those emo­tions and con­cerns, val­i­dat­ing what they feel. Some­times just shar­ing the sto­ry with you can help light­en their load.

2. Of­fer re­as­sur­ance and com­fort.

Some­times when ado­les­cents are wor­ried, what they need most is a par­ent's re­as­sur­ance and com­fort. It might come in the form of a hug, some heart­felt words, or time spent to­geth­er.

It helps them to know that, what­ev­er hap­pens, par­ents will be there with love and sup­port.

3. Show your care and un­der­stand­ing.

Be­ing in­ter­est­ed in stu­dents’ well­be­ing shows they are im­por­tant to you, too, and helps chil­dren feel sup­port­ed and un­der­stood. Re­as­sur­ing com­ments can help — but usu­al­ly on­ly af­ter you've heard your child out.

Say that you un­der­stand your ado­les­cent’s feel­ings and the prob­lem.

4. Keep things in per­spec­tive.

With­out min­imis­ing their feel­ings, point out that many prob­lems are tem­po­rary and solv­able, and that there will be bet­ter days and oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties to try again. Teach­ing ado­les­cents to keep prob­lems in per­spec­tive can lessen their wor­ry and help build strength, tenac­i­ty, and the op­ti­mism to try again.

Re­mind your ado­les­cents that what­ev­er hap­pens, things will be okay.

5. Don’t fix every­thing.

You can help re­duce wor­ries by help­ing your chil­dren to learn to deal with chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions. When your ado­les­cent tells you about a prob­lem, of­fer to help come up with a so­lu­tion to­geth­er. In most sit­u­a­tions, re­sist the urge to jump in and fix a prob­lem for your child — in­stead, think it through and come up with pos­si­ble so­lu­tions to­geth­er. By tak­ing an ac­tive role, they learn how to tack­le a prob­lem on their own. Prob­lem-solve WITH your chil­dren, rather than for them.

Most im­por­tant­ly, keep in mind they mir­ror what be­hav­iours they ob­serve so the fi­nal and most im­por­tant strat­e­gy is:

Demon­strate Re­silience

The most pow­er­ful lessons we teach our chil­dren are the ones we demon­strate. Some­times chil­dren need par­ents to show them how to let go of wor­ry rather than dwelling on it. Know when it's time to move on, and help chil­dren shift gears. Your re­sponse to your own wor­ries, stress and frus­tra­tions can go a long way to­wards teach­ing your chil­dren how to deal with every­day chal­lenges.

Be aware that your own re­ac­tion to glob­al events or news af­fects your chil­dren, too. If you ex­press anger and stress about lo­cal or glob­al events that are be­yond your con­trol, chil­dren are like­ly to re­act that way too. But if you ex­press your con­cern by tak­ing a proac­tive ap­proach to mak­ing a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence, your chil­dren will feel more op­ti­mistic and em­pow­ered to do the same. Be­ing a role mod­el for your child is pos­si­bly the best way of help­ing your ado­les­cents cope with un­nec­es­sary stress, so recog­nis­ing your own deficits and seek­ing help if nec­es­sary is cru­cial. The best way to teach re­silien­cy is to mod­el it.