ANN/THE JAPAN NEWS – More than six months after the Noto Peninsula Earthquake, some kids are still complaining of physical and mental illnesses due to stress. Several primary schools in disaster-affected regions have started giving them a unique form of homework: hugs from family members to support children’s mental health.
“She became sensitive to noise and scared even of small tremors after the earthquake,” a 40-year-old mother of her daughter, who attends an elementary school, said of her daughter in Wajima, Ishikawa prefecture. They had to smash a window to escape their wrecked home due to the earthquake. She said that because of her daughter’s recollections of the catastrophe, she still has a fear of the dark and is unable to use the bathroom by herself at night.
The Ishikawa prefectural board of education opened a telephone consultation service to provide emotional care for children in mid-January, just after the quake hit the prefecture.
By the end of March, the service had received 109 calls. At present, counsellors are assigned mainly to elementary and junior high schools in the northern part of the peninsula, and by the end of June a total of 907 counselling sessions were provided to children.
At the municipal Sanno Elementary School in Nanao, Ishikawa prefecture, students have been encouraged to make physical contact with their family members as part of their homework since February. The school asks students to talk with their parents and choose from four types of physical contact: hugging, sitting on a parent’s knee, holding hands for more than one minute or shaking hands.
The idea for the assignment came from Kimiko Koura, a nurse at the elementary school. A survey conducted soon after the school reopened at the end of January showed that many children were experiencing trauma. Symptoms included being unable to leave their parents’ side or throwing up if they saw collapsed houses. Given the survey results, Koura thought that close physical contact might help children feel safer.
While many children still complain about mental and physical problems due to the lack of progress on rebuilding, more than 100 children and parents have given feedback such as “The hugs made me feel much better” and “My daughter looked embarrassed but I felt very happy.”
The initiative has drawn interest from other disaster-hit areas, and elementary schools in Suzu in the same prefecture has followed suit.
“I hope the homework gives children time to be comforted and to charge up with the energy needed to move ahead,” said Koura.
Psychological trauma from earthquakes affects children over a long span of time.
According to an annual survey conducted by the Iwate prefectural board of education since the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, 15.8 per cent of children needed support due to stress and other reasons in severely affected coastal areas in fiscal 2011, which was higher than the 14.3 per cent in inland areas. Since then, the figure has remained higher in coastal areas than in inland areas.
“Since children have difficulty expressing their feelings in words, many suffer from headaches or insomnia and begin complaining about such symptoms about six months after something has happened,” said a psychiatrist who cared for children in Miyagi and other prefectures after the 2011 disaster Norihiko Kuwayama.
“It’s good for children to have physical contact when they start to feel insecure. Even though children may not like it, I want parents to hug their children and tell them they are on their side.”
