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Examining the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on children

Posted at 6:33 PM, Jan 21, 2022
and last updated 2022-01-21 19:20:53-05

(WXYZ) — In tonight's 7 UpFront segment we're examining the continuing impact the COVID-19 pandemic is having on our children.

Joining us to talk about it is Dr. Lori Warner a behavioral psychologist at Beaumont and director of the Center for Human Development.

You can see the full interview in the video player above.

"It won't surprise anyone to learn that families and children are suffering. We just talked about the latest CDC numbers and all the guidance and at this point out families are really in what some psychologists are calling Pandemic Flux Syndrome," Warner says. "Which is not an actual, diagnosable syndrome but it's really a way of describing what all of us are feeling at this point, going into the third year now, soon, of the pandemic where guidance changes, as it must, and what we can do safely changes and sometimes we feel more hopeful and sometimes we feel more despairing and that sense of flux or fluctuation is really draining on us. Our minds don't like it. It's very difficult to tell our children what we can be doing, so families and kids are really struggling at this point. That is the tough news, I also have some good news. To be perfectly honest, we're in a difficult place right now with rates of anxiety, depression, food insecurity, school disengagement, all those things have increased over the course of the pandemic and we're really trying to get our feet back under us right now."