More than 40 days have passed since the start of the lockdown. From 9 a.m. on April 26, minors under 14 years of age may go out with an adult.
After having listened to numerous parents and children of different ages, I have been able to observe that both ordinary situations and certain pre-existing pathologies have changed, to a greater or lesser extent..
As there is less physical fatigue and in many cases relaxation in sleep habits that were already internalized in many families by both adults and children.
Young children complain of early insomnia, with difficulty falling asleep.
But what is worse, fears that they already had more or less overcome, such as the fear of the dark, have reappeared, which prevents them from going from one room to another alone or falling asleep without the presence of an adult, with a corresponding increase in insecurity and also producing a false sense of failure in parents.
There is a total change in rhythm, falling asleep at dawn and getting up practically at lunchtime. As they say they are their hours of freedom without anyone controlling them. After what it had cost the parents to convince them that they had to sleep for a few hours!!
This is due to excessive exposure to light at night and to light-emitting diodes, LEDs, present today in televisions, computers, tablets and mobile phones. They emit a blue light that alters, among other things, the melatonin production, hormone that helps you fall asleep.
In those under 10 years of age, anxiety is manifested as fear that something will happen to their relatives and in some cases, a refusal to go out, not even to throw out the garbage, for fear of getting infected.
Several minors have already told me that they with a mask and without being able to do their leisure routine, will not go out.
Now it's up to parents to instill confidence that they can go out and dismantle the fear of contagion, which they have been talking about for a long time.
There are many adolescents and young people who present, in their day to day, personality traits (insecurity, perfectionism, self-demand, desire to have everything under control, excessive worry ...) that lead them to have anxiety in its different manifestations.
In the current situation, where doubts about the future increase and the difficulty of having everything under control, anticipatory anxiety and different anxiety disorders, especially anxiety disorders, are enhanced. anxiety crisis.
Conduct disorders occur at all times of the year, both on vacation and during the school period, because there are always rules that minors reject. The advantage of vacations is that there are no homework and exams, which reduces some reasons for discussion.
In my casuistry I am receiving, above all, calls for help from parents of minors between 6 and 9 years old with a clear worsening of your oppositional and oppositional defiant symptoms:
Parents should try to prioritize orders, accompany them without dramatizing and before these outbursts do not get into circular discussions with them and, if there is no risk to them or others, ignore such behaviors.
It is also convenient, if possible, for the minor to have a place where they can isolate themselves.
If you are receiving psychiatric treatment it is important not to suppress it at this time. I am thinking of those minors diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, because the treatment will not only help them to concentrate on their studies, but also to focus on all the activities that are still at home these days.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder occurs when an abnormal thought is repeated and repeated and, sometimes, you have to do a repetitive behavior so that the thought does not come true. Of course, confinement is not the ideal situation to control this disorder..
Patients with this pathology report a clear worsening of your symptoms, in part, because they don't now have the evasion tools they had before confinement.
It is very important that they do not stop drug treatment and that they insist on psychotherapeutic measures of relaxation, visualization and control of obsessive thinking..
But luckily, not everything is negative in this situation. The minors discover us many positive things:
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