Managing kids’ anxiety, learning and wellbeing during COVID-19

Back at the start of the year, few would have foreseen the dramatic changes to school, work and our overall lives that we’ve experienced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The shift between learning in the classroom and online learning is a source of stress and anxiety for kids, teachers and parents alike.

In June 2020, Gheorg’s CEO and founder, Dr Louise Metcalf, shared her expertise on the “Healthy Students: Mind, Body + Soul” panel with other startup founders which was run by Future Minds Accelerator. Gheorg is a proud participant in the Future Minds Accelerator that empowers EdTech startups to prepare Australia’s young people to thrive in the jobs of the future. And Gheorg was created to support young kids with anxiety.

Mental health has an undeniable effect on learning.

As highlighted by Dr Louise, the brain is busy if you’re mentally unwell – the mind is constantly ruminating and is unable to focus. This has a particularly significant impact on memory. We need to manage and support kids’ mental health so that they can continue to grow and learn despite the disruptions of the pandemic.

Social anxiety is one of the worst types of anxiety impacted by COVID-19. With online learning, kids lose the exposure and familiarity factor of going to school. It’s important for kids to get that as much as and as often as they can.

Let’s unpack some of Dr Louise’s key insights and tips on how parents and teachers can help kids handle anxiety, continue to learn effectively, and maintain their wellbeing during these challenging times.

“A little bit of risk-taking is healthy.”

As Dr Louise explains, there’s currently lots of therapies that involve talking to people about risk and getting them to experience risk. One such therapy is cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), which focuses on getting people to challenge and change unhealthy thoughts, behaviours and feelings.

Parents and teachers should encourage kids to challenge themselves in their everyday lives. Taking a small risk can help children slowly become comfortable with the things that they may be scared of or anxious about, whether it be dogs or public speaking. Get kids to start out small, such as presenting in front of a couple of classmates in a small group setting.

Kids rarely do things they can’t manage. By stepping out of their comfort zones and overcoming a number of challenges over time, kids realise that they are in fact capable of facing and conquering their anxieties. This builds confidence and helps ease anxious thoughts.

“I would love ‘perfect’ to be deleted from the English language.”

As Dr Louise puts it, “perfect” is the “worst word invented and completely inhuman”. Anxiety can result when kids are overly self-critical and set high expectations of themselves that are very difficult, or even impossible, to achieve.

With COVID-19, we’ve had to adapt to changing situations. Realistically, we can expect hurdles and bumps along the transition – not everything will go as planned. As a parent or teacher, it’s important that you recognise this yourself and express it to your children or students. Letting kids know that it’s okay and completely normal to be imperfect helps relieve pressure on themselves and improves their mental wellbeing.

“When parents and teachers normalise difficult feelings like worrying, it shows kids that it’s ok to feel that way and the feelings will eventually pass”

Kids don’t always realise that their feelings of worry and anxiety happen to all of us. They may feel like they aren’t normal, and even experience shame and guilt. As adults, we need to let children know that it’s human to be anxious at times and that it’s good to open up about your worries. The best way to do this is to show by example, so Dr Louise encourages adults to talk about worries with kids.

While we want to normalise worries, we don’t want to amplify them. So, when talking to a child about worries, it’s important to focus on the positives and the aspects that we can take charge of to ease our anxieties. The number of COVID-19 cases in Australia are out of our individual control, but we can choose the angle from which we view our situation and approach our daily activities.

“A little bit of movement during the day helps you to refocus and get more energy for work or study.”

We all know that physical activity is good for your body, but many don't know it's also good for your mind. Strong physical health improves blood flow to the brain, helping kids learn more effectively. Many opportunities to participate in organised sport have been reduced due to COVID-19, so it’s important to continue to find ways for kids to remain physically active, whether that be going for a run in the park or dancing at home.

In addition, role models in professional and club sports have a big impact on kids and are a huge loss to children’s lives during lockdown. While some sporting associations have continued to engage its members online, this is only a minority.

How Gheorg can step in to help

If a child is struggling with anxiety, chatting to a psychologist is always recommended. However, to see a psychologist, there are often six-month waiting lists, and COVID-19 has made the wait even longer. To produce enough psychologists to meet demand, we’d have to quadruple study options to create more psychologists.

Gheorg, our friendly robot, serves as a virtual psychologist friend for kids, and as an expert helper for parents. Without having to wait, kids can open up about their feelings to Gheorg on a daily basis and manage their stress through meditation exercises as they navigate life through COVID-19.

It’s important to remember that no one thing works for every child. Each approach should be very individualized. It can be hard to make things flexible enough for the kids who aren’t in the “normal” range or standard bell curve.

One of things Gheorg does is work and co-create with schools to figure out how to help kids work more individually. To chat with the Gheorg team about this, please get in touch here.

Learn about how Gheorg works here or download the app to trial Gheorg for free via the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.