The care of words

The alarm becomes more and more pressing and the numbers continue to rise: every day requests for care for adolescents in serious crisis, prey to anxiety and depression, with social withdrawal and interruption of school attendance, eating disorders and addiction by various technological means, they increase dramatically. Families are increasingly disoriented and confused, they look for help everywhere and often confess that they no longer know what to do. The post-Covid distress of our children is emerging with evidence everywhere.

Is it just a consequence of the pandemic? Probably not: there were strong signs of concern even before (as we have often denounced from the same pages of this magazine in recent years), but there is no doubt that Covid has made worse and then come to the surface forms of suffering that were previously under trace, more or less contained and stemmed by families and various educational agencies that have always been involved with the youngest.

Those who already had a precarious balance suffered a lot, but even those who seemed to be well now show signs of severe stress. The problem is that unfortunately, in recent weeks, the anguish deriving from the atrocious reports and gruesome images of the war in Ukraine, which comes to our screens every day, has been added to all this. We all feel fear and dismay, also because we clearly perceive what a serious threat that conflict is for the security of all of Europe. More or less veiled we fear that the generation of some of those who govern the world really want to do everything to destroy it and lose it permanently.

This climate of tension and precariousness is turning into another collective trauma, which adds to that which has just been experienced - and by no means concluded - of the pandemic. What to do? "Networking", teaming up, joining forces is now more fundamental than ever: any adult who revolves around the adolescent can in fact play a decisive role in her health. It is very important that initiatives - of any kind - multiply, which go in the direction of listening, understanding and welcoming so much fragility and mental suffering of our children.

An example? I read a few days ago that the cultural association FulgineaMente of Foligno, very active in Umbria in the research and promotion of new writers and writers, last year promoted a national literary competition aimed at upper secondary school students. Here is the title: "Under the sign of Covid: life, love, school, family, friendship at the time of the pandemic". The many texts of the children received by the association were then published in a volume published by the Bertoni Publishing House in Perugia. This is a collection of 101 short and very short stories written by teenagers: encouraged by the teachers, they took the opportunity to give voice to their emotions and tell how everyone's life has changed during the first lockdown phase. The competition was won by a student from Ascoli Piceno, who imagined writing a letter to the fifteen-year-olds of the future, those who will study in the history books what happened in the world in the years 2019-2020.

A small initiative born from a good, indeed excellent idea, that is to offer a wide audience of people the opportunity and the right stimulus to apply one of the most widespread and ancient "self-care" techniques in the world : the profound re-elaboration of the experiences lived on one's skin through writing, narration, words.
Effective for many.


Gabriella Delpero
NP April 2022