BBC broadcaster Kate Silverton has spoken about her fears for children’s mental health over the coronavirus school closures.
The mother of two told the Daily Mail that she believes children and parents have suffered ‘chronic stress’ as a result of lockdown – and that they now need help to avoid a mental health ‘time bomb’.
Journalist Ms Silverton is in training to become a child psychotherapist and will be qualified as a counsellor to work in schools by the end of the year.
She said: ‘The combination of home schooling and home working is not working for parents and children. Even teachers who home school have told me they have struggled. Parents have been forced into the invidious position of being at home with their children but constantly having to shoo them away as they sit working on their computers or phones.’
BBC journalist Kate Silverton is in training to become a child psychotherapist and will be qualified as a counsellor to work in schools by the end of the year
The BBC newsreader warns that this creates a sense of rejection in children.
‘When we send our children away from us, in their own home, by the very people they are so dependent upon and need the most right now, they feel a deep sense of rejection. Work has to be done, of course, but we do not want to do it at the expense of the relationship we have with our children.’
She reveals her own challenges with home schooling her children Clemency, eight, and Wilbur, five, as well as juggling her job, and warns that being physically present at home but ‘emotionally unavailable’ could have profound long-term consequences on all children.
‘I am a far better mummy than teacher. I feel immense gratitude that after weeks of home schooling I was finally able to send my kids in to school part-time as keyworker children.
‘But every day I think of the parents who have not had that support and respite and continue to have to try to home school and work under what some have described to me as “horrific” pressure.’
She didn’t manage more than two hours a day of schooling while Wilbur and Clemency were home
She didn’t manage more than two hours a day of schooling while Wilbur and Clemency were home, with former Royal Marine husband Mike Heron, who runs a security firm.
Ms Silverton said: ‘I joked that I was “surviving not thriving” but it is still true for so many. Lockdown is subjecting us to chronic stress. It creates uncertainty, lack of information and loss of control. The physical impact of this disease has been very visible – but the invisible impact it has had, and will continue to have will possibly be for decades to come.
‘We need to heed the warning signs and not wait for the mental health time bomb to explode.’
She is concerned about the ‘profound consequences’ of lockdown on vulnerable children, adding: ‘Stress sits in our children’s bodies as well as in their heads. I’ve seen it in Wilbur and Clemency. When we played together at the start of lockdown there was more talk from my son of wanting to “kill monsters” and both of them asked more about death. Through play they can establish some control when so much is out of kilter.
Ms Silverton is concerned about the ‘profound consequences’ of lockdown on vulnerable children. Pictured with Prince William at the Tusk Conservation Awards in London last year
‘Our children articulate how they feel through what they “do” –through their behaviour. If they feel pain or confusion inside they express it in the only way they feel able, sometimes by lashing out, sometimes by “killing monsters”.’ She wants to speak out now after talking to many working families who have told her of the guilt they feel as they work upstairs while children ‘run feral’ downstairs.One mother she knows believes her children – aged ten, seven and three – are now so at risk that she has been forced to take unpaid parental leave to put things right.
Ms Silverton said there were still family-bonding opportunities to be had in lockdown
Ms Silverton added: ‘Some mothers have told me that they are drinking too much and shouting too much. Fathers have told me – with shame – that the pressure of an uncertain future and trying to home school young children has “pushed them to the brink”. Ms Silverton, who studied psychology at Durham University before going into broadcasting, began training as a child psychotherapist in 2018. She will be qualified to work as a counsellor in schools by the end of the year and then plans to study for a post-graduate diploma in psychotherapy, combining her work as a counsellor with broadcasting.
She explained: ‘One of the reasons I decided to train as a psychotherapist is because I know how early trauma in children can cause long-term harm if it is never dealt with. During lockdown, children already experiencing abuse, neglect, and fear will see this amplified.’ On school closures, she said: ‘On balance, I believe our children are far better in school than out. Children need their friends, their physical presence, and the social interaction, too.’
Ms Silverton said there were still family-bonding opportunities to be had in lockdown. She and her husband camped with Wilbur and Clemency in their courtyard back garden, sleeping under the stars.
‘My husband and I have tried to make the memories of this time as joyful and positive as we can. And all they need is our time.’
- Ms Silverton will qualify to work as a children’s counsellor in schools with charity Place2Be this year.