Depression in children since covid

Whilst waiting at the hospital to visit my mum I picked up on an article of the notice board.....

" Is your child suffering covid depression"?
made me realise how many children were going through this with no fault of their own.
children were withdrawn and starting to have changed personality problems. So scared to face school friends and yet
the professional s couldn't work out how to help them expecting the parents to practically force them into school.
Those who didn't were fined by the Councils education department.
It went on to say this depended where you lived for What help you got. Some areas like Manchester and Liverpool were lucky. Whilst Sheffield was at the bottom of the list.

Reading this disgusted me,
Is this happening in your area?

 

Some children are more affected than others. We live in a small rural town, so there are still a lot of things you can do (although the favourite party spots and everything sport related was closed down). I mostly pity the children living in a small apartment in the cities. Without school their social shrank into almost nothing. Modern technology helps to keep the contact but it can't replace real world interaction.

Back to the question: are they depressed? Some surely are. But I think the number is not as high as some parents want to believe. Children are rather resilient and there is a lot that can be done by parents to help them. A lot of the parents tend to project their own feelings onto the kids. So if they feel depressed, they can't understand how the children could be content. They can't imagine their children might find joy in reading, playing video games and simple board games because they themselves don't understand those things.

 

Until covid came along, both my kids were happy attending their clubs, and would fairly regularly hang out with friends after school.

Covid came and all that stopped. My kids seemed fine. They understood that they can't do much socially, but they seemed happy enough.

Everything reopened, and my kids didn't want to go back to their clubs. No problem I thought, interests change rapidly at their age. But I started to notice they also weren't engaging with their friends. I encouraged them to do something social, but they expressed no interest in anything.

Then one day, I told them, if they won't do anything else, then I will hire a local hall for an hour a week, and we'll go and practice our martial arts. Just our household. I thought that would gently get them back used to going somewhere away from home to get a training routine re-established. I was shocked by the reaction. My eldest son literally had a meltdown. It's like I'd just told him the world had ended or something. It was awful to see. His body just went limp and he started crying and muttering some unintelligible rant. He'd shown no sign of anything wrong prior to that moment. Clearly he'd be suppressing a lot of feelings.

The reason I'm sharing this is that it seems it's very easy to assume all is well, when it might not be.

Fast forward, we do now hire the hall once a week, and have been since about September last year. Sometimes it's just me and my lot, sometimes some of our friends join in, and every time we all have fun. The kids confidence seems to be coming back nicely. They still haven't shown much interest in other social gatherings yet but the eldest is going with his friends to watch the junior rugby next week.

 

Thank you Clueless , I'm pleased that gradually your children's confidence is coming back. My own grandson ended up withdiabetis type one during covid. Doctor says he is one of many whom this has happened to they are associating it with covid through the worry, the stress and m any other things many that he knew at school got covid even though they followed all advice given. He is now going to a school l believe which has started up as so many schools cannot offer help and advice . there is not enough staff.

 

@Purple Streaks sorry to hear that your grandson has had a difficult time.

I'm afraid that from my perspective, the pandemic brought out the worst in many people, specifically the grown ups. By that I mean there was lots of publicity about the risk of killing a loved one just by breathing near them. Nobody seemed to pause to remember how kids take everything in, and often take things very literally. It didn't help that the news, and even dramas portrayed the worst aspects of everything.

We tried to protect our kids from it. We tried not to talk about it in front of them, tried to avoid letting them watch the news, but it's the 21st century, kids just know everything nowadays. You could cut all access to their media, then one conversation with someone who still has access to a mobile and they're up to speed with all the horror stories.

At the worst point, I struggled a bit to hold it together. There were ambulances on our street pretty much every day at the worst point, mostly outside the more elderly neighbors houses. It felt very, very real and I found myself worrying about the kids if both I and their mam die. But in front of the kids, it's brave happy faces all round. We'll follow the guidance and we'll all be fine, is the position I was trying to portray. But kids pick up on everything. I think grown ups often forget that in times of stress.

The schools can't help. There's not really anyone qualified to do so, and as you say, they're under staffed anyway. I'm in no way qualified to advise. I can only share my own experience and hope others can pick something useful from it. Apart from setting up the regular training sessions at the hall, we've also been going to outdoor events, museums, garden visits, anything where there are lots of other people, but not crowds, with the idea that we gradually build back to normality. We pick stuff specifically that the kids will like, and that we can easily walk away from so there's no sense of being trapped there. We've given the kids their own bottles of hand sanitizer. I know that's not much, but it seems to give them a sense that they have some control for themselves. I think there's still a long way to go, but it's one step at a time.