Long before a pandemic changed our lives so profoundly, plans for the annual children’s mental health week (May 3-9) began. The theme for 2020 is Bringing Children’s Mental Health into Focus: Perfect Vision in 20/20.
This year, anxious adults, disruptions to daily life and separation from friends and favorite places are causing stress among the youngest in our community. Awareness of emotional well-being is more timely and important than ever.
COVID-19 continues to impact our community’s youth in many ways. Just as the 9/11 attacks rocked our nation 20 years ago and became a defining moment for a generation, the world is now grappling with the influence of a pandemic.
Our children will look back on this year as a time when everything seemed to change. It’s important to give children and teens the opportunity to express how they feel about these changes.
Adults with different personalities express themselves in different ways, and so do children. Whereas one child in your family might want to talk in detail about fears, loneliness or boredom, your other child might express these feelings through music or drawing.
Very young children’s emotions might come out in the way they play. Some youths might want to write rather than say aloud how they feel.
Acknowledge young people’a feelings as real and valid no matter how they’re expressed.
The Dallas County Public Health Department’s COVID-19 dashboard includes a section on Mental Health Resources. The listed hotlines and websites include help both for adults and children.
Fortunately, treatment options now include telehealth. You may call the Southwest Iowa Mental Health Center (formerly Genesis) at 712-243-2606 to set up phone or online individual counseling sessions for your child or family counseling for everyone. Many insurances are waiving co-payments for telehealth.
Ann Cochran is the health navigation coordinator in the Dallas County Public Health Department.
