“My children couldn’t make sense of what was happening”

How did the pandemic and the lockdown affect the children in India? A panel of five people throws light on an epidemic of a different kind – mental health of children. In the panel are Dr. Debanjan Banerjee, Psychiatrist at NIMHANS, Bangalore, Dr. Prama Bhattacharya, Clinical Psychologist from Kolkata, Rashi Dhilla, who holds a Master’s in Psychology, Ramkumaar Shanker, IT professional and father of two, and Vrinda Srivastava, a standard 12 student from Gurgaon. 

Pandemic forces children indoors

The coronavirus pandemic has been with us now for more than a year, and what with the second wave of infections in the country, it does not look like disappearing any time soon. While “mental health” has been a subject of focus throughout the lockdown and even now, in our restricted spaces, mental health of children is something that is not acknowledged, its existence denied, and quick-fixes suggested to treat it. 

As a species, children are used to open spaces, meeting friends, socializing, playing in the open – all of which were curtailed during the pandemic and continue, to a large extent, even now. These restrictions can be stifling. “The routine of going to school, physically meeting people, that was something that was affected on a very huge scale,” says Vrinda Srivastava, “we only had social media to guide us and talk to our friends”. Adds Dr. Prama Bhattacharya, “For the children, I think it has been a massive change – from going to the school in regular fashion, going to the playground, – to becoming absolutely secluded within the household with only the parents, you don’t have cousins, you don’t have siblings, you don’t have the people of the same age to play with that has created a huge impact on the children’s life on a day-to-day basis.”

Unprecedented Parenting Challenges

For Ramkumaar Shanker, father of a seven-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son, the challenge was even bigger. Ramkumaar says his children couldn’t make sense of what was happening. He says, “Everything was online, the kind of attention deficit that my daughter underwent, I think it was tough to manage in the first few months.” About his son, he says, he never could adjust to “going out and meeting people” as it was an alien idea to him. Completely defensive when in open spaces, he settled down only when they came back home. Ramkumaar adds, “That’s when we realized it was a world of change for even a toddler who was probably in his formative years. And then it took a lot of efforts, daily efforts to go out for walks, and get him used to that.”

Spike in cases of abuse during lockdown

Rashi Dhilla worked with the pandemic helpline last year. She received calls about abuses and self-harm. She says, “We got a lot of calls from 15–16-year-olds, saying -I was living in a hostel, or I was a college student living in a PG, and then they had to come back to an abusive household, where they obviously were not comfortable. There were also actually, quite a few calls of adolescents discussing suicide and suicidal thoughts, it was definitely something that was triggered by the lockdown and while moving back home.”

Confinement to physical spaces of families that have never been in such situations before, exacerbated the situation. Dr. Debanjan Banerjee, agreeing with Rashi, says, “We call it chronic entrapment, because many families were not in the habit of staying together in confined spaces for such a long time. So, it did increase the risk of various kind of abuse, alleged incest, and even both child abuse and elder abuse were on the rise, that were reported by different kinds of domestic helplines, including the child protection helplines.”

The tell-tale signs to watch for

While mental health issues among children may be much more prevalent than we think, most parents still are unaware of what the tell-tale signs are. Says Dr. Banerjee, “People from 15-18 years old when they start feeling extreme kind of sadness, bitterness, not feeling like going to work, complete social exclusion, not even virtually communicating with each other, and having thoughts of self-harm, those are the red flag signs we call. And they are the preventive signs that need to be detected if we have to prevent self-harm or suicide.” 

Behavioural issues have manifested in a few other ways as well. Children are seen to spend more time online, and eating habits have gone haywire as well. Ramkumaar says, “I think for some strange reason, their connection with food in this one year, and the lack of exercises,has just gone haywire. They don’t understand what is happening with their body. But it is all mindless eating that we would put it across.

Physical activity gets restricted

Not going out has had an effect of physical activity as well. According to Vrinda, “I have myself stopped exercising for a while. I was very active when school was there, and physical activities were happening in school. We were having physical education and all, but then, when the lockdown struck, everyone went lethargic.”

Mental health knows no urban-rural divide, and for people in the rural areas, this could be a body-blow. Dr. Banerjee is worried about the after effects of this pandemic period. He says, “Let’s think about, people who stay in rural areas, let’s talk about people who are below the poverty line, people who are homeless, people who do not receive nutrition, a large majority, for them, this one year has taken off significant amount of normal, physical and mental, emotional growth. And that I am not sure we will be able to bring it back because this is a lost year. And this is that one missing year, which will affect them for years to come. “

Lessons from the pandemic

Has the pandemic taught Indians enough about mental health in the country? Says Dr. Bhattacharya, “It took a pandemic for us to identify the mental health gaps in the country in various sections, including marginalized sections, children with special needs, mental health populations, mental illnesses, it took a pandemic to be so open about mental illness. But I doubt how much effect it would have on long term awareness, in mitigating the crisis of mental health problems. We think once the pandemic is gone, mental health issues will vanish into thin air. No, it won’t.” 

Ramkumaar suggests slowing down a bit, in the mad, mad rat-race. He says, “To me, as a society, we first of all, learn how to slow down, how things have to adapt and change to more such epidemics that may happen. Today it is Covid, tomorrow it could be something else. As much as we talk about all our therapies, support systems and so on, unless we have the space to think through, and ruminate through, a visible change could be a very tough thing.”

Mental health, in children, can be silent manifestations of the times we live in. As all the participants in the panel pointed out, these times can be best put to use by reconnecting, rejuvenating our family ties, and make sure, none of us gets lost in the debilitating times we live in.