THE PARENTING BIZ
Help Turn That Frown Upside Down!
Area mental health experts are here for your child and family By Matthew St. Amand ne thing people likely will not miss, once the COVID-19 global pandemic has passed, is most of the news being “All COVID, all the time!” The coronavirus outbreak has been the O.J. Simpson trial of public health events. Pandemics have occurred throughout human history, many more catastrophic than this current strain of the coronavirus. Each event had its own, unique historical footprint, and COVID-19 will be no different. Aside from the technology used to treat those infected, and to create a vaccine to fend it off, there is another aspect of the current crisis that is unique to our time — the focus on mental health. The toll of open-ended lockdowns on the human psyche is an ongoing conversation. People are social creatures and the isolation of “sheltering in place” for prolonged periods, comes with a cost. In the realm of criminal justice, the subject has been studied and debated at length. In a 2018 edition of Psychology Today, UN Special Rapporteur Juan E. Mendez’s report is quoted: “Solitary confinement, [as a punishment] cannot be justified for any reason, precisely because it imposes severe mental pain and suffering beyond any reasonable retribution for criminal behaviour and thus constitutes an act defined [as] . . . torture.” Sheltering in our homes is not fully comparable to solitary confinement in prison, but its effects should not be minimized. At the beginning of the COVID-19
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© Can Stock Photo/Bialasiewicz
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As the lead provider of community mental health and addiction services, the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA Windsor-Essex County Branch) has introduced supports for individuals and families during these unprecedented times.
pandemic, during the first lockdown, memes were rife on social media, downplaying the effects, speaking of previous generations that endured World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II, and people of today simply being asked to sit on their couches all day watching TV. Soft-pedalling our collective experience in that way is neither accurate, nor is it helpful. While adults struggle with the effects of limited social contact with the outside world, balancing bills with altered work schedules and interrupted income, it’s easy to forget
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the effects the pandemic has on our kids. Books on parenthood stress the need for structure and routine in the lives of children. With the school year interrupted for those attending, and with thousands of children learning online, at home, structure and routine are two more casualties of these unprecedented times. Biz X reached out to mental health experts in Windsor and Essex County to learn what parents can do to identify if their children are suffering. More importantly, to discover what strategies can be used in the home,
