TEENS ALOUD

Anxiety and Depression In Teens: the covid aftermath

LKNEXPERT

Wissam E. Nadra, MD, MHA, FAAP, AIHM, is the president and clinical director at Lakeshore Pediatric Center in Denver. He is a boardcertified pediatrician and is also certified in integrative medicine. For more information, visit www.lakeshorepediatric.com or call 704.489.8401.

IN THE 20+ YEARS AS A GENERAL PEDIATRICIAN,

I have never seen such a large number of children succumbing to depression and/or anxiety as much as I have witnessed this past year. Furthermore, it’s interesting to note that while most of us, and especially teenagers, love to bury our noses into social media, the COVID experience demonstrated that nothing trumps face-to-face interaction.

Overall, some children were unaffected by the online school year of 2020-21 and others maybe even thrived, but a portion of our children also felt alone and isolated with no peer support system. For the latter group, being stuck at home may have exposed them to parental discord that they otherwise would have been unaware of. Currently we are seeing a surge of newborns in my clinic as a result of intimacy fueled by the isolation/ quarantine conditions of COVID, yet at the same time learning of divorces/ separations amongst parents, which has created devastating psycho-social problems for their families.

Adding insult to injury is the sociopolitical “mask vs no mask” debate that has erupted during the current school year. As a physician, my stance is clear on this issue: masks are essential for everyone’s safety. However, for children they have been stuck between a rock and a hard place about what to do because of mixed messages from their families, the media, their school policies and most importantly, peer pressure. As a result, there’s been a surge in cyber-bullying directed at some children and they adamantly refuse to go back to school. These young people are scared and confused. In short, the pandemic and our response to it as a society have created the perfect storm for them to feel angry, anxious, sad, and in some cases depressed.

So what do we do now after we’ve all been psychologically affected by COVID? Exercising patience with ourselves and others, especially our children, is key. Be there for them, as a support system; listen to them and give them something as simple as a hug! Believe it or not, a hug can be more powerful than any medicine because oxytocin, a major “feel good” hormone, is passed along during a hug promoting feelings of trust, nurturing, and calmness. This hormone is also released by the body from a nursing mother to her baby to comfort them. So please hug your children and loved ones. We all deserve to feel happy, secure, and above all, loved unconditionally.

Keeping that in mind, there are children who will need additional care and nurturing. This is where seeking advice from a medical professional for support and guidance comes into play. Some children will benefit from simple prayer, meditation, relaxation/breathing exercises, or yoga; while others will require additional individual and/or family counselling +/- medication.

Finally, I leave you with a quote from one of my favorite writers and philosophers, Khalil Gibran, who summarizes what we’ve been through: “Thus, my child, man cannot reap love until after sad and revealing separation, and bitter patience, and desperate hardship.” w