paranoia

Saturday August 29, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday August 29, 2020

Fear around hugging, touching could be long-term consequence of COVID-19 pandemic, psychologists say

Janna Wiebe woke with a start recently, after dreaming her young son was surrounded by school friends who weren’t observing physical distancing.

July 25, 2020

She calls it a nightmare.

Wiebe’s family in Gretna — a southern Manitoba town about 100 kilometres from Winnipeg — have been practising the recommended distancing from others for the last month. They’ve gotten used to only being close to each other.

She thinks the public health directives and orders have gotten into her head.

“All I have wanted since this pandemic has started is for my son to be able to go back to kindergarten — to go back to school and finish his first year of school properly,” she said.

April 30, 2020

“Now I’m having a nightmare that he is going to school, and that’s obviously something deep down in my subconscious that finds that thought nerve-racking.”

Even Wiebe’s partner had a bad dream about a person being hugged by someone they didn’t know.

The Wiebes aren’t the only ones who are wary of touching others or getting too close. Psychology experts say the lingering effects of public health orders could have an impact on mental health long after those orders are lifted, and could increase phobias and obsessive reactions in those who already have anxiety problems.

Life in a Pandemic

That’s because fear-related learning is persistent, he says. For example, if a person has a bad experience getting stuck in an elevator, that might trigger a lifelong fear of elevators — a fear that’s maintained by avoiding them altogether.

The same could be true of the pandemic, says Bolster.

“This pandemic will end, and the threat of contracting this disease from casual social contact will diminish drastically,” he said.

“But to the extent that people avoid social contact that’s now not only benign, but necessary to feel emotionally and personally connected with others, they will likely pay a price in emotional health and social adjustment.” (CBC) 

 

Tuesday May 5, 2015

Tuesday September 8, 2009Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday May 5, 2015

Thousands of parents keep kids home from school in sex-ed protest

Parents of thousands of elementary students across Toronto kept their children out of class Monday to protest the sex-ed portion of Ontario’s new health curriculum.

The hardest hit school was Thorncliffe Park Public School, where only about 130 children showed up for class out of the usual 1,350 — or roughly 10 per cent. At nearby Gateway Public School, some 400 students were away, nearly half the usual enrolment. At Valley Park Middle School, some 590 students were absent out of the total 950.

Thursday, February 26, 2015At Fraser Mustard, an all-kindergarten school in Thorncliffe Park, only 90 of 650 students turned up. The sex-ed curriculum doesn’t actually kick in until Grade 1.

“In Grade 1 they should be learning about the ABCs, not sex,” said Thorncliffe Park parent Lubna Awah, who kept her kindergarten son home.

“Boys are boys and girls are girls — why should they learn about a third (gender) in Grade 1?” asked Awah, who said she believes children will be encouraged to question their gender identity as early as Grade 1.

Awah said she learned much of what she is concerned about regarding the new curriculum earlier this spring on a flyer circulated by what she called a “Chinese Christian group,” because she said the school did not educate parents.

The new curriculum, endorsed by a coalition of doctors, educators, mental health experts as long overdue in an age of sexting, easy access to online pornography and a falling age of puberty, includes references to anal and oral sex in the context of warning students these alternatives to intercourse can also be risky because they can spread sexually transmitted disease, yet many protesters said they believe the curriculum encourages such behaviour. Critics have seized onto this, as well as possible explanations about masturbation that teachers would offer if asked by students, as encouraging all these behaviours — something educators have insisted in not the case. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)