Address Children’s Anxiety Over Their Future

By Bob Kisiki

Those people are stressed. And no, I don’t mean it the Ugandan way, where someone waiting for a person who’s terrible at timekeeping will say, “I am stressed; Nakigudde has refused to arrive!” I am talking about real standard stress which, when unattended to, can culminate into something dangerous.

My sister told me she had been observing her daughter — a little girl in upper primary school — become gradually withdrawn. Under normal circumstances, the girl is the jovial and playful kind, but she had begun retreating to the reading room most of the time. If she wasn’t in the reading room, she would hide further in her bedroom, which had become her cave. Then her mother noticed something else: the girl had begun biting her nails, something she had never done before.

That’s when she felt that something was the matter. She talked to a few people she knew were into counselling psychology and, without conferring together before responding to her, they all told her the girl was responding to anxiety.

Look at yourself as an adult; time and, perchance, some degree of education, have handed you coping skills that ensure that you do not crumble in the face of helplessness and hopelessness, the kind many people are experiencing, owing to the COVID-19- induced lockdown. So when thoughts about the security of your job, what you are to feed your family in August and other such cares assail you, you can encourage yourself one way or another.

Yet, despite all these coping mechanisms, you still catch yourself giving in to fear and worry and sheer despondency. How much more little children, who look at the situation and wonder where it’s taking them! Many watch the news and read the papers and see videos on social media and witness what’s going on around them and they get scared.

Many know they have been in the same class for now two years, and there is no sign that the situation is about to change, and they are concerned. Many more know their parents’ businesses (from the common vendor who scrounges for kikumi off the roadside, to the boda rider who used to ride through the night, but now does so only up to 5:00pm; to the school teacher who is outside the classroom interminably, to the mother whose printing business on Nasser Road in Kampala has not opened in months…) They see all these things and, little as they are, work it out that times have changed; they wonder if things will ever be the same again.

With such forces playing out, you need to help your children fight off the resultant tension and anxiety. When you, like my sister, see your child develop habits they have not been having, it’s time to talk to them.

When they begin wetting their bed or chewing the hems of their dress or shirt or becoming withdrawn or rowdy or whatever else, you need to intervene. Assure them that no matter how long the night is, daytime will come.

Tell them that though the fi replace might be cold for a night, the following day there will be a raging fire. Assure them that come what may, you will always have their back and it’s alright.