Adolescents and mental health: an increasingly topical issue. An extensive meta-analysis that included 29 studies conducted on over 80,000 young people and recently published in JAMA Pediatricshas shown in fact that one in four adolescents today has the clinical symptoms of depression And one in five signs of an anxiety disorder. Cases that would have doubled compared to the period before the pandemic.
The risk is therefore that this widespread mental distress could seriously compromise the future health of the boys.
“All the research agrees: with the pandemic an alarming percentage of very young people are showing signs of mental distress – he explains Claudio Mencacci, co-president of the Italian Society of NeuroPsicoPharmacology and emeritus director of neuroscience and mental health at the ASST Fatebenefratelli-Sacco in Milan – a discomfort that occurs in boys with different behavioral modalities. From closure to the difficulty in re-leaving the house when there were opportunities to do so, up to a series of symptoms such as sleep disturbances, which have increased exponentially, or even difficulty concentrating, cognitive disorders up to lack of energy and to the reduction of vitality. To these are added typical signs of depressive symptoms such as i progressive feelings of self-depreciation, emotional dysregulation, eating disorders as far as gestures of self-harm. In all this, it should be remembered that there are always two concomitant enemies, namely alcohol and drugs, which permanently accompany the life of our adolescents and are always lurking “.
THE rates of depression and anxiety registered in recent years would be, according to experts, directly related to the restrictionsthat is, they would have increased in moments in which sociality, school in the presence, relationships with peers were prevented.
At the root of the boys’ discomfort, the not having been able to live in normality those that are fundamental moments for growth. The first lovefor example, through which children experience affectivity outside family ties for the first time and that it is one necessary evolutionary stage towards adulthood. Or even i moments of sharing with friendsindispensable for acquire interpersonal skills, up to important milestones how the entrance to the high school or the final examination which represent fundamental stages of transition, denied, with the pandemic, to many children.
«We have to consider that it is precisely in adolescence that relational and affective skills are defined as well as skills in dealing with situations – explains Professor Mencacci – in the last two years, however, the situations of sharing and social interaction, the dynamics of growth, the moments of transition, they have all been stages that have vanished. And at the same time the boys lived in one condition of hyper alarm, hyper vigilance and fearwith great difficulty in building trajectories for the future as a result ».
The question that many are asking is whether these important moments that the kids have lost can be recovered. If we can at least hope for the resilience of young people. «We must first of all invest in their future – underlines Mencacci – by carefully monitoring the emotional evolution of this situation. If we want to make sense of these two years, they must be considered as lost or at least linked to an experience that has had mainly negative implications from the point of view of growth, we have to invest in kids, because they badly need them. The current condition of recovery is certainly a positive turning point, just as the return to school was very important. But we must act as soon as possible to prevent it from becoming a lost generation ».
What can change in the future of a teenager today who experienced the pandemic, compared to those of previous generations?
«Making predictions is difficult. However, I believe that the most important action must be to promote a message of gradualness. There is the possibility of recovering certain experiences and of reconstructing. However, we must go back to training ability to delude oneself, or to go back to thinking that there may still be worlds to which we can aspire. Our young people need to go back to dreaming, not only virtually but through their own body and living their loved ones. The consequences ofhaving lived the experiences of growth only virtually is a topic that remains open and which will certainly be the subject of research from a clinical and scientific point of view. In fact, the human being learns and lives through sensory experiences, which are also made up of smell and touch and not just sight and hearing as happens in virtual interaction. In light of all these considerations we must therefore act to avoid losing a generation“.
What Parents Can Do e what measures should be taken to provide adequate support to children who are going through a phase of discomfort?
«The first important thing is that a climate favorable to listening is created within families boys. After that, we need to help young people by relying on scientific criteria. The proposal of generic bonuses does not help much. We must aim on preventive screening systems, which exist and which make it possible to recognize those young people who, individually but also perhaps due to family predisposition, have higher levels of depressive or emotional risk. And then, based on the results of these screenings, to direct the children towards methods that have scientific validity. There are psychotherapy courses, both cognitive and interpersonal, that are very effective. But scientific and not generic criteria are needed“.
Below the 5 factors that according to experts have had a major impact on children’s mental health.
Source: Vanity Fair

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