BERLIN (AP) – Dinner Pollina returned to school in Berlin for the first time this week after a two-month blockade. At the age of 9, the third grader was delighted to see her classmates and teachers again, but she worries about the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on her life.
“I’m not afraid of coronavirus, I’m afraid everything will go on like this – my school will close again, I won’t be able to see my friends and I can’t go to the movies with my family,” she said, touching finger blue medical mask and sighing deeply. “And wearing this mask is even worse than closing all the stores.”
Psychiatrists, psychologists and paediatricians in Germany have raised growing alarm that school closures, social restrictions and other precautions are increasing the fear, disruption and stress of the pandemic among 13.7 million children and adolescents in Germany, increasing the prospect of a future mental health crisis.
“We do not yet have long-term studies, but there is a lot of anecdotal evidence of the growth caused by the crisis of hospitalizations and overflowing practices of psychologists,” said Julia Asbrand, a professor of child and youth psychology at Humboldt University in Berlin. The Associated Press.
A recent survey by the Hamburg-Eppendorf University Medical Center found that about one in three children suffers from pandemic-related anxiety or depression or has psychosomatic symptoms such as headaches or stomach aches. According to the survey, children from poorer and immigrant families are disproportionately affected.
Pollina, who emigrated from Russia with her family in 2019, worries that she will forget much of the German language because she only speaks Russian at home. She is one of 150 young people from disadvantaged families who, before the pandemic. he regularly spent time after school in a youth support program on the eastern outskirts of the German capital.
Arche – Ark in English – is based in the Hellersdorf district of Berlin, a district of dirty concrete buildings built during the former communist regime in East Germany. Some children are still allowed to come in person, but only once every two weeks. The rest of the time, social workers and educators try to stay in touch through video chats, while helping their young clients learn at a distance.
“Many have completely withdrawn and do not want to leave the rooms. They have gained a lot of weight, play online games non-stop and have no structure in their daily lives “, said the founder of Arche, Bernd Siggelkow.
Germany’s second major blockade began before Christmas. Students in grades 1-3 were allowed to return to the classrooms this week with reduced classes and limited lessons. The government hopes to reduce further restrictions in the coming weeks and said reopening all schools is a top priority.
However, there is concern that the country is slipping into a third wave of infections due to more contagious variants of the virus. Virologists have repeatedly said that it is still unclear to what extent the virus spreads to school-going children in homes and communities. More than 2 million people have contracted the virus in Germany and nearly 70,000 have died from COVID-19, although only 10 under the age of 20, according to the country’s disease control center.
Even if children do not have as high a risk of severe COVID-19 complications as older adults, they may be more vulnerable to the mental health side effects of the pandemic, according to experts.
An analysis by the German health insurer DAK on the psychological problems of young people confirms the first-person observations of Arche staff.
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 in the first half of 2020, when schools were closed for more than two months during the first blockade of the country, with the first six months of 2019.
The statistics highlight the psychological tension that the pandemic puts on young people, but do not illustrate the purpose of the problem, said for dpa Christoph Correll, director of child and youth psychiatry at the Berlin Charite Hospital.
“Hospitalizations are the tip of the iceberg,” he said.
Adolescents, especially girls, are more prone to eating disorders and self-harm, and the psychological problems of many children remain undetected, 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 worries 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 address the needs of young people to be better addressed during the ongoing health crisis and to have priority when society reopens.
Immediate action that government authorities could take to help alleviate possible problems would be to allow groups to gather for school sports and youth, in accordance with hygiene measures and distance.
“We all don’t know yet how this will develop in the long run, but we need to focus now on the mental health of young people,” she said.
While attending Arche this week for help with homework assigned online, 16-year-old Robin Reyer said the inability to stay with friends was one of the heaviest parts of the pandemic’s restrictions.
“I want to celebrate my birthdays again, go out and play football with my friends in the park or meet them at Burger King,” he said as he took a break outside in the spring sun.
“Now I’m allowed to meet at most one friend,” he said. “That sucks.”