SHIJIAZHUANG, April 9 (Xinhua) -- At 12:30 a.m., Chen Hui, a family education expert in Shijiazhuang, capital of north China's Hebei Province, received a call for help from a student's parent saying the rebellious 15-year-old was losing his temper.
"Teenagers have been restricted at home for over two months in a nationwide prevention measure against the outbreak of COVID-19. Both children and their parents are under stress from being stuck at home," Chen said talking about a counseling session that he gave last week.
He said many parents called him for family therapy recently, saying they were distressed because their children did not take online classes seriously at home, which triggered more serious family disputes.
"The boy's mother had a suicidal tendency. After a fray with her son, she burnt his books," Chen said.
He said he often focused his efforts on parents when helping families solve teenagers' problems.
"Generally, problem children come from problem parents. Parents' emotional and psychological state is the first thing I need to relieve," he said.
Song Zhenshao, an associate professor at Beijing Normal University's Student Psychological Counseling and Service Center, said that since the outbreak of the coronavirus, he has received a rising number of family conflict counseling cases.
Civil affairs departments in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, and the city of Dazhou in Sichuan Province, saw the number of divorce applications set records in March, as family disputes rise amid home quarantine.
Song said the concentration at home has tested family relations. Parents work from home. Children take online classes at home. Some families have three generations living under one roof. People begin to explore how to better handle family relations.
"In a closed environment, the boundaries between family, work and school are blurred. Parents play the role of parents, teachers and workers. Children are both children and students at home. Role conflicts sometimes cause anxiety," Song said.
"The higher the grade is, the stronger the students' parents feel the sense of losing control of their children," Chen observed.
The role of psychological counseling has been highlighted in China in the fight against COVID-19. The State Council inter-agency task force for epidemic control released a work plan in March on sustained psychological counseling services for those affected by the epidemic.
Social service organizations and mental health facilities nationwide are mobilized to provide bereaved families with social support and psychological counseling services as a way to help them handle their grief.
Beijing has opened four free psychological counseling hotlines for overseas Chinese to help relieve emotional stress caused by the pandemic.
The United Front Work Department of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China has worked with four universities in Beijing to launch the hotline services, inviting more than 600 psychological counseling experts to participate.
The government of Tongzhou District of Beijing has sponsored a program inviting psychological counselors to serve in communities. The experts have provided a total of 500 hours of psychological counseling services and more than 1,200 hours of online services.
"The counseling helps soothe down my fidgetiness and find my self-awareness. My teenage child can only listen to me when I speak with him calmly," said the woman who solicited Chen's counseling.
