BERLIN (AP) – Pollina Dinner returned to school in Berlin for the first time this week after two months of blockade. The 9-year-old third-year student was thrilled to see her classmates and teachers again, but is concerned about the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on her life.
“I am not afraid of the coronavirus, I am afraid that everything will continue like this – that my school will close again, I will not be able to see my friends and that I cannot go to the cinema with my family,” the girl said, touching her blue medical mask and sighing deeply. “And wearing this mask is even worse than all the closed stores.”
Psychiatrists, psychologists and pediatricians in Germany have expressed growing alarm that school closings, social restrictions and other precautions are increasing the fear, disruption and stress of the pandemic among 13.7 million German children and adolescents, raising the prospect of a future mental health crisis.
“We don’t have any long-term studies yet, but there is a lot of anecdotal evidence of an increase driven by the crisis in hospitalizations and an over-approach to psychologists’ practices,” said Julia Asbrand, professor of child and youth psychology at Berlin Humboldt University. The Associated Press.
Recent research by the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf found that about one child in three suffers from pandemic-related anxiety or depression or has psychosomatic symptoms such as headaches or stomach upset. Children from poorer families and immigrants are disproportionately affected, according to the survey.
Pollina, who emigrated from Russia with her family in 2019, fears to forget German a lot, as she only speaks Russian at home. She is one of 150 young people from needy families who, before the pandemic. he regularly spent time after school on a youth support program on the eastern outskirts of the German capital.
Arche – Ark in English – is based in Berlin’s Hellersdorf district, a neighborhood of monotonous concrete buildings built during the former East German communist regime. Some children can still come in person, but only once every two weeks. The rest of the time, social workers and educators try to keep in touch through videoconferences while helping their young clients with distance learning.
“Many have retired completely and do not want to leave their rooms anymore. They have gained a lot of weight, are playing online games non-stop and have no structure in their daily lives, ”said Arche founder Bernd Siggelkow.
The second major blockade in Germany started before Christmas. 1st to 3rd grade students were able to return to classrooms this week with small classes and limited classes. The government hopes to ease additional restrictions in the coming weeks and said that reopening all schools is a priority.
However, there is concern that the country is entering a third wave of infections due to more contagious variants of the virus. Virologists have repeatedly said that it is not yet clear to what extent the virus spreads from children who attend school to homes and communities. More than 2 million people contracted the virus in Germany and nearly 70,000 died of COVID-19, although only 10 under the age of 20, according to the country’s disease control center.
Although children are not as much at risk of serious complications from COVID-19 as older adults, they may be more vulnerable to the side effects of the pandemic on mental health, according to experts.
An analysis by German health insurer DAK on the psychological issues of young people confirms the first-person observations from Arche’s team.
The assessment, obtained by the German news agency dpa, showed that the number of children and adolescents hospitalized for psychiatric treatment in Berlin almost doubled during the first half of 2020, when schools were closed for more than two months during the country’s first blockade. , compared to the first six months of 2019.
The statistic highlights the psychological pressure the pandemic is causing on young people, but it does not illustrate the extent of the problem, Christoph Correll, director of child and youth psychiatry at Berlin’s Charite hospital, told dpa.
“Hospitalizations are the tip of the iceberg,” he said.
Teenagers, especially girls, are more prone to eating disorders and self-harm, and many children’s psychological problems go unnoticed while parents are overwhelmed and teachers, social workers and pediatricians do not have regular contact with students, clients and patients, experts warn. . .
Psychology professor Asbrand fears that the mental health of children and adolescents did not receive enough attention during the pandemic. Together with other professionals in the field, she wrote an open letter to the government this month to push for the needs of young people to be better met in the ongoing health crisis and prioritized when society reopens.
An immediate action that government officials could take to help mitigate possible problems would be to allow groups to come together for school and youth sports, in accordance with hygiene and detachment.
“We all don’t yet know how it will develop in the long run, but we must focus on the mental health of young people now,” she said.
While attending Arche this week for help with homework assigned online, 16-year-old Robin Reyer said that not being able to go out with friends has been one of the most difficult parts of the pandemic restrictions.
“I want to celebrate birthdays again, go out and play football with my friends in the park or meet them at Burger King,” he said during an outdoor break in the spring sunshine.
“Now, I can only find one friend at most,” he said. “This really sucks.”