"This is Mr. Tao's hotline. Is there anything you want to talk to me about?" "I haven't talked to anyone lately. It's very uncomfortable." In 1992, Mr. Tao's hotline provided free answers to minors' psychological confusion, professional psychological counseling and crisis intervention.
Over the past 30 years, it has received nearly 170,000 calls.
After the "double reduction", has the burden of young people eased?
What other problems are bothering them?
Has parental anxiety eased?
Banyuetan reporter walked into the hotline to investigate.
After the "double reduction", have children's anxiety reduced?
"When he has a sense of despair and grievance, the child needs you to invite him again and again..."
One morning in March, after hanging up another phone call, Mr. Zhu Mei apologetically greeted the reporter Banyuetan.
"It's been a long wait. 60% to 80% of the calls are relatively long. Like the call just now, the answering timer shows 54 minutes." She briefly explained the consultation ideas just now, and she looked up at the "Incoming Calls" hanging on the wall of the office. ” display.
"Sorry, I have to hurry up and sort out the records just now and take the next one. The answering rate today is only 30%, which is a bit low, generally more than 60%."
Mr. Zhu Mei has been volunteering at the hotline for 15 years.
There are 144 such volunteers at Teacher Tao's workstation (terminus), and 5 full-time consultants are also provided, who answer the hotline more than 5,000 times on average each year.
The data shows that in July 2021, the "double reduction" policy was introduced, and new changes occurred.
From September 2021 to the end of February 2022 after the school started, a total of 2,383 calls were received, a year-on-year decrease of about 300.
In addition to the obvious decrease in the number, the content of anxiety in the above statistical time period also showed a new trend.
First, the consultation rate of "learning difficulties" and "learning attitude" declined.
Learning difficulties refer to the caller's report of difficulty in being competent and controlling learning, heavy homework burden, high learning pressure, test anxiety, etc.
Learning attitudes include reactions to learning weariness, fear of learning, and refusal to learn.
Professionals analyzed that the implementation of the "double reduction" policy has significantly improved the reduction of academic burdens, and students' campus life experience has improved.
The second is a decrease in the number of calls related to suicidal impulses.
Although the data accumulation time is still short, it has decreased from 32 to 18, also showing a significant downward trend.
The third is that due to the extended time in school, the problem of peer relationship has increased.
Professionals analyzed that home-school education has not paid special attention to the cultivation of children's interpersonal skills, but frustration in peer interaction will directly affect school life experience and learning attitude.
Fourth, among the emotional and behavioral control problems, addiction problems such as mobile phones and games have increased.
Professionals believe that after the learning burden and off-campus learning tasks are reduced, children are in a state of confusion and idleness and need guidance.
70% of the phone calls are from parents
"I found out that he recently went to an Internet cafe to play games" "I am so troubled why he can't understand"...
A hotline dedicated to students' psychological problems is now attracting more and more parents to connect for consultation.
Before 2020, the number of calls from students and parents was basically the same, but after 2020, the number of calls from parents increased significantly.
Taking 2021 as an example, the hotline received 7,867 calls throughout the year, of which 72% were calls from parents, a record high.
Among the hotline calls at the 12 substations, more than 50% of the calls were from parents.
"The academic participation of Chinese parents, or the educational involvement of Chinese parents is very high." Chen Zhenzhen, a full-time consultant, said that parents pay attention to their children's studies, which will promote their children's mental health and academic progress, but if parents are anxious, It will continue to put pressure on the child, increasing the child's frustration.
Xu Hongmin, deputy director of Tao's workstation and deputy dean of Nanjing Xiaozhuang College's Psychological Research Institute, said that after the withdrawal of off-campus training institutions, the way parents express their "emphasis on children's education" is worrying.
Many parents regard family education as an extension of school education, choose remedial classes for their children, send their children to classes, and then hope that their children will honor this kind of contribution with "good grades".
The correct way to get involved is to communicate effectively with the children, to have a positive influence on the children, to warm the children’s family, and to cultivate the children’s good character.
"As far as homework is concerned, homework is just the fuse. The deep-seated crux of the adolescent's psychological crisis is the parent-child relationship, which is the misalignment of the psychological needs of parents and children." Xu Hongmin said.
To this end, in January 2022, Teacher Tao's workstation officially opened a "Parents Hotline" to help parents grow from a psychological perspective, relieve their parenting pressure, and provide parents with psychological support.
Two high-risk periods worthy of attention
Tao's workstation also undertakes the task of assisting adolescents' crisis intervention.
From October 2021, the workstation will form a linkage with the Nanjing 110 Police Response Center, 24 hours a day, 365 days, as long as the life safety of young people is involved, this crisis intervention team will immediately "go online" to form a "three-way dialogue" to help children and families get away Fog, rekindled hope for life.
"We need to pay attention to two high-risk periods." Ren Qiping, honorary dean of the Institute of Mental Health of Nanjing Xiaozhuang College, introduced that one is in the second grade of junior high school.
Students are faced with the pressure of the senior high school entrance examination and adolescence. Once the parent-child relationship is not good, the conflict will become more acute.
After this stage, parents and children will reach a certain balance and enter a relatively stable state.
The other is the week before school starts.
In the winter and summer vacations, the number of calls to Mr. Tao's hotline will plummet, but it will increase sharply from a week before the start of school.
Because of the winter and summer vacations, everyone will be tense in front of the upcoming school, and families will be more prone to friction and conflict.
The survey found that from schools to society, there are problems such as unclear understanding, scattered power, and insufficient capacity for the power and institutions that provide mental health services for young people.
Education experts suggest that we should strengthen the construction of a unified psychological consultation line, optimize and upgrade the existing youth service hotline, focus on building a "all-day on duty, one-key response" psychological consultation hotline, and promptly deal with teenagers' psychological calls, especially high-risk clues, and strive to achieve "" Professional advice is just a phone call away.”
"It is not difficult to meet the standards in terms of hardware. The key is that there is a large shortage of consultants." Xu Hongmin suggested that in the short term, various professionals can be selected to join and form a youth mental health volunteer alliance; in the long term, clinical psychology and applied psychology professionals should be continuously strengthened. Cultivate and provide public services for young people.
Source: "Ban Yue Tan" 2022 Issue No. 8 Original title: "Seeing the Changes of "Double Deduction" from the Psychological Hotline"
Banyue Talks Reporter: Jiang Fang Xia Peng