Covid, school and youth distress. Pellai: we adults at the helm of this stormy ship

• Council of Psychologists: it is good to reopen the school, but we need to help the children to overcome the malaise

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March 27, 2021

The schools will partly reopen in Italy immediately after Easter and even earlier as in Lazio as early as 30, also because the region will return to orange on Tuesday 30 March.

A relief for over 5 million Italian students and their families.

The

welcomes the decision of the executive: "Finally, words of clarity on the school by the Government. Draghi, Bianchi and Speranza said that school must be a priority, last to close and first to reopen ".

Indeed, experts say, "Our investigations had shown the negative psychological fallout of a school closed for too long and the criticalities of Dad. The need to find a balance between virus protection and psychological health."

"Now - says President Lazzari - we must help children from a psychological point of view to overcome the great malaise that has been created to prevent it from turning into more serious disorders and affecting the quality of development.

We talked about it with Alberto Pellai, psychotherapist of the University of Milan

It is no longer enough to know that it will be possible to go back to school in the presence, but there will also be a need to recover from the malaise created by the pandemic, how?

At this moment there is a need to accelerate a re-socialization of adolescents, to return to consider the relationships between peers that remain fundamental for them, especially after a time as challenging and difficult as that marked by this pandemic.

So the imminent reopening of schools is good news.

There is a part of them psychologically tired but with specific support we could help them to cure that malaise like for example, strengthening the psychological helpdesk in schools with short-term interventions.

It is true that the counter is not new but I believe that at this moment strengthening the offer of this measure can be fundamental, I would enhance the figure of the school psychologist and increase the listening hours available to the children.

The school psychologist could be a key turning point figure not only for help but also for directing concrete assistance projects across the territory.

This seems to me now to be the greatest need.

You see, in my opinion it is necessary to distinguish: in many cases the children already have their resources, and they must be followed in any case.

When we talk about developmental age we must always keep in mind that in this age group we need experiences with a high level of excitement or strong emotions, we live with sport at all levels or scouting for example, experiences that give strong gratifications.

If these fail or are removed, that need for strong arousal shifts into virtual life.

That's why our kids move to virtual territory because that real territory has been desertified, so we have to help them rebuild that stolen space.

Let's try the summer centers, in Lombardy summer oratories are being prepared, in Varese 30 adolescent boys for almost a month have begun to build a real community, with the consent of their parents.

Knowing that vaccines will help us get out of the pandemic we can work with greater confidence, we need to design in the 'outer space', just so we will not be overwhelmed by anxiety.

Yes. Covid has exposed a series of sacrificed aspects within our society. In the last 10, let's say 20 years, the school has sacrificed a lot of its distinctive meaning, students have been forced into chicken coop classes, with teaching staff always too small. We Italians have paid dearly for all this in recent times, but we can fix it. We need an aggregative vision within the community, an evolutionary vision, we need structures, we think of the schools of the Canton of Ticino that have never stopped even for a day. There is obviously another way of understanding investment in training. 

The answer is to see psychology not only as a weapon but as a resource that creates ease and well-being in collective and individual life, to see psychic discomfort not only as a clinical fact but as a promoting and preventive possibility of our identity and therefore of the our structural well-being.

I see that too many adults have begun to give up, if this happens the boy implodes because he no longer has a secure base, but I also see many teachers who, even within Dad, have continued to keep their students' involvement high. You see, we adults must consider ourselves as brave captains in this storm, understand that our teenagers see us at the helm of this ship and that our role is to never stop being at the helm, only so they can believe that there is still a tomorrow. .