Children's Mental Health Hotline

The children's mental health hotline is currently the most widely covered, lowest threshold, and fastest response channel for children's psychological support in China. As long as the wiring team is qualified, it can solve more than 70% of children with mild to moderate emotional distress. It can not only provide immediate guidance for children who have fallen into an emotional dead end, but also provide parents who are confused with practical parenting references. It is the most effective universal tool to fill the gap in children's psychological services at this stage.

Three years ago, I worked as a hotline volunteer at a youth psychological assistance center affiliated to the Youth League Committee of a sub-provincial city. What impressed me most was a 10-year-old boy who called in at 11 o'clock in the middle of the night. As soon as the call was answered, he was crying hard, saying that his parents threw all the Lego sets he had saved for three years into the trash can downstairs because he scored 80 points in the math test. He is now holding on to the balcony railing and feels that "living is so boring." I didn't dare to say anything serious at the time, so I just followed his mood: "If the treasure I had saved for three years was thrown away casually, I would be so angry that I would tremble all over. If it were me, I would be wronged. ”I just kept talking to him for 22 minutes before he was finally willing to walk away from the balcony and promised me to go back to the room to sleep first. A week later, his mother called specifically to express her gratitude, saying that she had never realized that her child valued those Legos so much more than his grades. It was only after that day that he finally learned to ask his child "what do you think" instead of judging right and wrong.

However, the industry has actually had different opinions on the role of children's mental health hotlines. Most scholars who do clinical psychology research in universities prefer the "limited function theory". Their core argument is that the hotline only has immediate intervention properties and cannot do long-term case tracking. For example, for children who are prone to depression or have self-injurious behavior, calling the hotline once can only temporarily bring their emotions back to peace. Across the board, if parents do not cooperate with long-term consultation or medical treatment, there is a high probability that emotional crises will reoccur. In the past, a 12-year-old girl in China called the hotline three times to express thoughts of self-harm. In the end, because the parents refused to admit that the child had psychological problems, they were unable to follow up on the accidental case of intervention.

However, most front-line practitioners working in children's social workers and wiring services support the "universal benefits and rigid needs theory". To be honest, less than 20% of domestic families can afford psychological counseling fees of several hundred yuan per hour on a long-term basis. Many counties and towns do not even have full-time child psychiatrists. For children in these places, calling a free hotline may be the only channel they can find to talk to children who will not take the side of adults and scold me. Just because it can't cure serious illnesses, you can't deny its role in reducing fever for common colds, right?

I have counted the 317 valid calls I received, and nearly 40% of them were even a bit trivial: some complained that their parents peeked at their chat records and refused to admit it, some said that the teacher favored the monitor, even though others started the trouble first, and only punished themselves in the end, and some complained about breaking up with their best friends and not knowing how to reconcile. When I first started working as an operator, I also wondered, should I make a special call for such a trivial matter? Only after receiving more calls can you understand that there are no big or small emotions for children. Those little things that are not worth mentioning in the eyes of adults are the focus of their entire world at the moment. When they call, they often don’t want any solutions at all, but they just want someone who can listen to them carefully and will not deny themselves casually.

Many parents also have deep misunderstandings about this hotline. More than once, I have encountered children who just said a few words, but parents grabbed the phone and scolded us for "inciting children to fight against their parents." In fact, the first rule of training for all formal operator operators is "Don't judge, don't take sides." We never tell our children, "Your parents are wrong." We will only help them smooth out the unspeakable emotions stuck in their hearts: "Are you angry because your parents threw away your things without asking you, and you feel that you are not respected? ”He will also give practical advice to parents who are willing to communicate: "Next time you encounter this kind of thing, you can first ask your child what he thinks of the score, and then work with him to find the reason for the loss of points. It is much more useful than throwing things directly. ”

If you want to find a reliable child psychological hotline, you should first choose one hosted by official units such as the Education Bureau, Health Commission, Youth League Committee, or Women's Federation. Operators of such hotlines are required to hold psychological counselor qualifications or social work certificates. They will receive special child psychological intervention training before taking up the job, and will not give blind advice. Try not to touch the toll-free hotlines run by individuals or unknown commercial organizations. Many operators have not even received basic ethics training, which may cause secondary harm to children.

In fact, to put it bluntly, the children's mental health hotline is an "emotional buffer zone" for children. It cannot replace good family education, nor can it replace professional psychological treatment. It is like a convenient umbrella placed at the door of a community. On a sunny day, you think it takes up space and is of no use. But if you catch it in a sudden heavy rain, you will save yourself one less rain and one less illness. After all, for many children who have nowhere to talk, it is enough if someone is willing to listen to them and say "I am not happy".