What impact has confinement had on our children?

Our expert: Sophie Marinopoulos is psychologist, psychoanalyst, specialist in childhood, founder of the association PPSP (Prévention Promotion de la Santé Psychique) and of its places of reception “Butter pasta”, author of “Un virus à deux tête, la famille au time of Covid – 19 ”(LLL ed.).

Parents: How has the health crisis, and particularly the period of confinement, impacted the youngest children?

Sophie Marinopoulos: The little ones took the brunt of this crisis. What allows a baby to settle in the world is the strength of the adult who takes care of him. However, when fear among us turned into anguish, this solidity was lacking. Babies have experienced and expressed it physically. From then on, at the “Pasta with butter” standard, we received a number of phone calls from parents confused by the somatic manifestations of their babies, who had become cranky, with mood, sleep and eating disorders. babies whose attention they had trouble getting. In addition, during confinement, each baby found himself isolated in an adult world, deprived of the company of his peers he had previously been used to meeting, at the nursery, at the nanny’s, in the park or in the street. We do not yet measure the impact that this deprivation of links has had on them, but when we know how much babies observe, listen to and devour each other with their eyes, it is far from trivial.

Some families have experienced real crises. How are the children doing?

SM : To say that the children were not impacted would be outright denial. They may continue to smile, but that does not prove that they are doing well! If the adult is destabilized, it destabilizes the whole family, hence a large increase in situations of marital and family violence. During our hotlines, we often took children directly online to try to appease them, and talked to adults to try to contain the violence, to prevent it from spilling out. Everyone needed a space for themselves, a bit of privacy, and ended up with too much “being together”. We have also observed many cases of separations following confinement. To return to a balance, the challenge is enormous.

What will our children need to get the best out of what they’ve been through?

SM : Today more than ever, babies need to be addressed to them, to be recognized in their condition as human beings. They need to be given the necessary space to grow, to play, to exercise their creativity, to take into account what they have just gone through. They are intelligent, they like to learn, let’s avoid spoiling everything by imposing on them contexts that they cannot stand. They need a lot of tolerance. What they underwent was of great violence: making everyone play in a box marked on the ground, of which he cannot cross the limits, that constitutes an attack because it goes against his needs. For those who are going to make their first return, you have to go in front of the school, show it to them. They have not had any awareness, no preparation. We skipped steps, skipped these essential moments. We will have to adapt the way they enter school, help them adapt, support them as best as possible, with tolerance, by supporting them, by welcoming what they say about the way they experience the situation.

And for the older ones?

SM : The 8-10 year olds were quite upset by the school context. They had to live with a confusion between the intimate space of the family and the school space of learning. It was difficult to accept, especially since there was a strong stake: the academic success of a child is a very important vector for the narcissism of the parents. There was a head-on collision, the parents were hurt that they were not always able to get their child to work. The teaching profession is very difficult … For parents to find a space for creativity, to invent games. For example, by playing when we are going to sell our house to English people, we do maths and English… The family needs spaces for freedom. We must allow ourselves to invent our own way of doing things, of living. The family will not agree to set off again at the same pace, they will demand policy changes.

Are there families for whom confinement has been a positive experience?

SM : The confinement has benefited parents in burnout, but also young parents: after a birth, the family lives in a fusional way, it turns in on itself, it needs privacy. The context met these needs. This highlights the need to review the organization of parental leave, so that both parents have time to come together around the baby, in a bubble, free from any pressure. It is a real need.