Pathologically, the Coronavirus has been easy on children. Psychologically, it has been mighty hard on them. The second wave has left an alarming number of children grappling with the loss of family members, often a grandparent and sometimes, a parent. In the lowest of lows, both parents. Quarantining norms leaving the extended family out of the picture, immediately after being bereaved, children often receive emotional support only through video-conferencing tools. Though inadequate, this form of support would be a timely balm.
Dr. Anuradha Mahapatra, founder of Manam Foundation, describes the sudden loss of a parent or a grandparent as “a lifetime trauma”, but timely intervention checks the hold the event has over the child.
“Its intensity can be reduced in the early stages, making sure it does not scar them for life. The pain and the fear and the intensity of that pain can be reduced if the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is addressed immediately after the death. If that does not happen within the first one or two months then the intensity of the trauma can remain for a very long time. It can affect their social interactions, cause existential crisis, and erode their trust in life, and these factors can be compounded by their own personality problems,” explains Anuradha.
Champa Saha, an emotional well-being counsellor and inclusive practices consultant, alerts us to the scope for social intervention inherent in the issue. In fact, in extreme cases of bereavement, it would signify Part I of the remedial process, even superceding the psychological healing process. It is particularly true of cases where both parents have fallen to COVID-19. And where the misery is intensified by the lack of support from the extended family. Champa suggests that by pressing the relevant departments into action, the government should collect data about such children, for a lot might need to be done for children orphaned by COVID.
- “My grandfather N S Srinivasan was around seven years old when he lost both his parents to the last pandemic — the 1918 Spanish Flu,” says Akila Vaidhyanathan, founder of Amaze Charitable Trust, which defines itself as “Helping families navigate the Autism Maze”.
- “So, he was literally orphaned by that pandemic,” continues Akila, and goes on to narrate how he was able to salvage positivity out of an unenviable situation.
- “He has always told me stories about that pandemic, but very positive ones. He said that the whole village — Lalgudi — would feed him, as they had decided to take care of him. He would say he could choose which house he would have his breakfast, and which house, his tea and so on,” recalls Akila.
- “Having learnt from these stories, I have grown up with the positive belief that the universe would take care of you.”
“One can see Facebook flooded with posters, personal posts from God knows who about so-and-so child having been orphaned and left with no support from the extended family,” says Champa. “The amount of emergency support — physical and psychological — that these children need is humongous, but let us not even look at that. What is the immediate logistics that controls the custody of these children now? What happens to these children? Who regulates that? What should an ordinary citizen do if they come across such children. Do they call up the police, the women’s cell, the Child Welfare Committee? There are no directives from government agencies. Even if there are, no projection of that. That requires visibility, a huge awareness campaign from the media, completely deriding all these private appeals because any fostering or any adoption, it is clearly stated, has to go through CARA, which is the Central Adoption Regulation Agency. Its counterpart at the states level is State Adoption Regulation Agency (SARA). They have to go through CARA or SARA alright, but how do they do that? How does the ordinary citizen reach CARA? Are there helplines? If we have knowledge of a child in a hospital or a home or somewhere else, whose parents and grandparents are dead, what is the next thing to do?
“This is the scariest part of children being impacted by COVID deaths. It is an emergency, and disaster, and we need to have ‘first-aid’ protocols in place. These protocols need to be disseminated widely across the country through community radios, newspapers and FM channels, the television and the works.”
On the question of supporting these children immediately, Champa points out that “CARA and SARA already have a list of people who have been fostering children for adoption purposes and they are already tried and tested, they are people who have already been checked, because in a COVID situation it is difficult for these bodies to come for home checks. Can schools be drawn into this? Can school authorities open up their schools to create hostels and dorms for these children who have been left completely orphaned. There are also children who have family members who are willing to take them over, but somebody is in America; somebody is in Jaipur; somebody is in Srinagar. How do they travel and pick up these children? So, it has to be a state-driven initiative.”
Manam Foundation offers a “free mental health COVID service” in collaboration with FICCI for people across age groups, including children suffering from PSTD. Online, the service is not location-specific.
“The primary thing is about PTSD and psychotherapy — that is absolutely necessary. We are trying to coordinate with the rest of the relatives and family members because the trauma is for everybody in the family. Children are unable to accept and adapt to the new situation. For each child, a minimum of 6 to 7 PTSD sessions are happening because that is the kind of trauma they are going through. This is second wave-specific. We have had 8 to 9 children in the last one month. There were absolutely no such cases during the first wave,” says Anuradha.
“In the second wave, the rapidity in the progression of the disease leaves people with little time to prepare themselves for the loss. If a person is in the hospital for 10 to 15 days, a little bit of preparation is possible. A lot of young and middle-aged people are going away in two to three days. When there is preparation there is less trauma. When there is no preparation it is sheer trauma and shock.”
Dos and Donts
Be alive to the signs of PTSD.
“Extreme grief that confounds a child can manifest in these ways: People have to be prepared for regressions in these children — bed-wetting, not eating, crawling, being uncommunicative,” says Champa.
The future has to wait.
“The last thing to talk to the child about is the future. It should be in terms of: I am here. I am not going away.”
The need for overcommunication.
“If the child is in a hospital, the next of kind should arrive at an understanding with the hospital management that they could do video calls with the child.”
Managing information is key.
Says Champa: “If the child is battling the disease in the hospital, this is not the time to tell it that the parents are gone. It however depends on the child’s age. It it is an older child, it has enough psychological maturity to join the dots.”