01/06/2020
"Children, families, and whole populations in our own and many nations are facing three mental health challenges. All of them require us to face truths.
The latest of the three challenges is continuing clarity of evidence that black people are being killed by police. The whole world's children see this truth for themselves. The truth is on modern videos made by witnesses to the murders. Protests and riots are happening as thousands of people see those videos and are outraged. After four hundred years have passed since the United States was founded with African American slaves as cruelly used helpers, the effects of that cruel history are still with us. Some estimates are that a black man in the United States has a one in one thousand chance of being killed by a policeman, and that is a greater cause of death than many diseases. This injustice cannot be tolerated by white, black or any citizens, yet it keeps happening. That is the truth.
A second challenge is that millions of mostly older people they love are getting sick, and many are dying from a Covid-19 pandemic. Many of us know that the pandemic has been warned against for decades, but our current government was unprepared. It even used denial and avoidance of truth. An awful mental health aspect of the children’s need to cope is very hard on adults. That is the children must ultimately recognize that this pandemic was foreseeable, preventable and hundreds of thousands of deaths could have been reduced by honestly acting grownups. That painful recognition of adult shortcomings is required so we can prevent future pandemics. That is the truth.
The third mental health challenge is that preventable climate change threatens the lives of all future generations. Again, this second dreadful stress was foreseeable, preventable and damage to our planet and its many forms of life could have been reduced by honestly acting grownups. To help children with these two enormous stressors, there is one necessary remedy without which little else will work. The remedy is that adult acceptance and advancement of scientific knowledge and honest adult leadership are required about both the pandemic and climate change. Adult honesty and facing facts will help children become more resilient and mentally healthier. That is the truth.
While the world’s politicians struggle to bring justice to our nation, and while pandemic scientists search for better tests, treatments, cures and vaccines, parents, teachers and caregivers everywhere have the opportunity to improve their children’s knowledge and mental health. At the same time, our children deserve to know that their planet can probably be saved by listening to historians, honest leaders and climate scientists. Adults cannot seem to do this listening very well, especially at governmental levels. Children will have to grow up in a world whose races, resources, climate and all its living creatures have literally been threatened by the mistakes, ignorance, deliberate denials, greed, political motives and even selfish dishonesty of grownup leaders. That is the truth.
Unaccustomed as adults are in helping children face painful truths, we must do just that. With small children we can begin with pediatric doses of truth. We need the spread of truth from protests, government, school and family sources in order to inspire trust in children. Children will usually be frightened by protests. Usually and fortunately they will be the least physically sickened by the new virus. They will suffer mentally as they see violent protests, lose loved ones, often becoming orphaned and especially losing grandparents. Surviving grownups will have to help the children mourn while growing up. In some nations, children will grow up caring for bereaved younger siblings. That is not an easy psychological task. That is the truth.
Although the skies are filled with smoke from burning buildings in many cities, they are also temporarily cleared by the sheltering in place of adult motorists. The children are beginning to know that they will live through the epidemic and yet be living in a planet damaged by racism, dishonesty, injustices, inequalities and climate change. We hope they rise to the challenge of becoming mentally active, curious, and educated. By mastering severe world-wide stresses, children can grow up to lead the world into political scientific and medical progress. We will need their help as well as current adult world-wide cooperation to overcome our planet’s problems. That is the truth."
Gilbert Kliman, M.D., Medical Director, The Children’s Psychological Health Center, Inc.
