Pandemic changes children’s imagination and bogeyman gives way to fear of death

The pandemic has taken the place of the boogeyman. The health crisis has changed children’s imagination and now the virus scares more than any other monster.

Instead of dragons and witches, children began to fear real things, such as the fear of being infected by the coronavirus, of other diseases, and losing their parents, reveals the master’s thesis carried out by clinical psychologist Geovana Figueira Gomes.

The study, carried out in the psychology department of the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of Ribeirão Preto, USP (University of São Paulo), aimed to investigate children’s fears, their nature, anxieties and the defenses used against them, in addition to observe variations according to gender and socioeconomic level, for example.

The dissertation began before the pandemic and was completed during the health crisis, noting a change in children’s fears. 40 children aged 8 to 11 years were followed, 20 boys and 20 girls, 14 of them from public schools and 36 from private schools.

The author asked them to draw and tell stories about their terrors – first in person and later through video calls over Whatsapp.

“In the beginning, characters from horror movies appeared, some urban legends, monsters, etc. With the emergence of the pandemic, they began to portray diseases, the loss of parents and even catastrophes, such as tsunamis”, says the author of the study.

If on the one hand imaginary terrors can be very frightening, on the other the little ones have more mechanisms to protect themselves from them. This is because, in the same way that they fantasize dangers through imagination, they also develop ways to face them.

With the help of those responsible, the ludic begins to enter as a tool to balance what is in the world of imagination with the real world.

“This transition from imaginary fears to more real ones happens gradually. If it comes all at once, she will still have difficulties understanding what she can access at that moment”, says the psychologist.

So real fears need to be faced with a lot of adult support.

“When we suffer this bombardment of information, sometimes it generates more anguish than we can bear due to the lack of resources to deal with it”, explains Gomes. “Parents and guardians should help with a lot of age-related dialogue so that it doesn’t turn into a trauma and trigger early symptoms of anxiety, for example,” she continues.

Hence the importance of filtering the information that reaches the youngest, and helping them to understand and process what they are absorbing. In the case of those evaluated by the researchers, bringing these issues to the fore helped to maintain protective measures such as the use of a mask and alcohol gel, for example.

While imagining, learning

Stimulating the imagination is crucial for developing language and creativity. “While imagining, the child also learns. When he creates unknown worlds, he develops his own vision of the world and expands it with the different possibilities. When he invents something, the child thinks of a problem situation and strategies to solve it, contributing for future actions in the face of the unknown”, says psychologist Caroline Nóbrega de Almeida, from Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein.

When you give vent to fears, fantasies can help you find the courage to deal with challenges. But the role of imagination does not end in childhood.

“At all stages of life, the creative process helps us to deal with problems, find solutions, build relationships. It allows us to have hope and makes us feel alive”, concludes Gomes, responsible for the study.