They are difficult to get away from the smartphone. And as soon as the opportunity arises, they sit at home in front of the screen and play Fortnite: Many teenagers have increased media consumption during the corona pandemic. The counseling center for parents, children and young people of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt (Awo) in Unterschleißheim is feeling this. Appointments from those seeking help have increased significantly. When there are conflicts in the family, the most important thing is to keep talking to the young people, says family therapist Jutta Joseph-Wallasch, and to get outside advice.
When the pandemic peaked last year and the now well-documented homeschooling dramas were taking place at home, many counseling centers experienced a strange period of calm. The numbers are now increasing significantly.
The silence was deceptive and had a lot to do with the fact that care facilities and schools were orphaned for a long time last year. The educators and teachers did not notice much about how the children were doing at home. And they couldn’t find any abnormalities either. There was no conversation with the parents and no appeal to go to a counseling center. This is reflected in the annual report of the counseling center in Unterschleißheim. Many parents sat desperately at home, but the total number of cases fell to 315, a low since 2016. Of the 1286 counseling contacts, 487 were on the phone.
The therapist Jutta Joseph-Wallasch says that some legal guardians who would certainly have needed help would also have thought that the counseling center could not be reached or that it could no longer provide its services in the corona pandemic. One was actually “always available”. Many consultations should have taken place online or over the phone. They also met for so-called advisory walks in order to be able to assist those seeking help in compliance with the corona restrictions. A telephone consultation had been introduced, but unfortunately it was rarely used.
From the perspective of the therapist Joseph-Wallasch, the pandemic hit the students in particular. According to her observations, the digitalisation boost required for health protection reasons has not only led to the fact that schoolchildren have learned how to use school laptops. Many social contacts also ran over the net. Streaming movies and computer games became a hobby because so much else had broken down. No sports club, no meeting with friends: you cannot make a diagnosis, says Joseph-Wallasch. But many children and young people still find it difficult to find the old rhythm. Many would have withdrawn.
Families as a whole were also under pressure. Separation is a big issue at the counseling center in Unterschleißheim, which sometimes helps couples to get through a separation situation for everyone at an early stage. But you also work with the family court. A look back at the past year shows that conflicts in the partnership and separations are the most common problems with which Awo employees have to deal with 35 percent. Followed by: abnormalities in social behavior with 21 percent, development deficits with 18 percent, parenting behavior and emotional abnormalities (17 percent each). Fifteen percent of the cases were about coping with anxiety. The “emotional and financial burdens of many families due to the consequences of the pandemic” have become clear, the head of the advice center, Gaby Kittel, looks back.
The Awo works closely with other aid agencies, although appointments with psychotherapists are difficult to get due to the increased number of inquiries. 68 percent of the counseling cases come from Unter-, 17 percent from Oberschleißheim; the rest from surrounding communities. According to Awo, the advice is voluntary and free of charge. Last year, the advice center moved into larger rooms on the first floor of an office building at Carl-von-Linde-Straße 40. They are still too small, says Joseph-Wallasch; although online advice is also well established.