Spike in anxiety cases among children

One therapist has recorded a spike in the number of anxiety cases among children recently.

During an interview with The Barbados Advocate, Tricia Hercules, Director of Bright Life Family Centre, revealed that the organisation saw a rise in the number of children with anxiety, which she believed was a result of the online learning platform and the fact that children needed to transition to such an impersonal platform.

“Even though yes, you see persons there, it is nothing like being in person and interacting with your friends and it being such a big change and transition,” she said.

“I think in the beginning when they first relaunched school we had some kids getting anxious. When they were going back into schools as well, we had some parents reaching out because their kids could not handle it, and I think it was mainly thoughts of getting sick.”

Hercules advised parents to reach out to mental health specialists if they found that they could not help their child cope with their anxiety and reminded that virtual online therapy was still an option available to them.

She encouraged parents to aim to make things as normal at home as possible.

“Yes the pandemic is real but at the same time, how you behave is how children will grapple with this thing,” she said.

She noted that it was important for parents to be mindful of their emotions, but urged not to hide them from their children.

She believes that it would be important to have a conversation with your children about how you were feeling about the whole pandemic as this would help the child to be able to get a grip on their own emotions.

She said that a few may see having this conversation as a sign of weakness, however, she noted that a conversation such as this would empower your child and assist them with their anxiety.