The large survey launched Monday, May 2 by Public Health France on the mental health of children “comes to fill a void”, estimates on franceinfo Professor Christèle Gras-Le Guen, secretary general of the French Society of Pediatrics and member of the scientific committee of this survey, named Enabee (national survey on the well-being of children). In concrete terms, 30,000 children will be interviewed. Investigators will travel to schools, from the small section to CM2. They will distribute questionnaires to children, teachers and parents, to get a “global” idea of the mental health of children. These will not be diagnoses, since the forms will be anonymized. This method is unprecedented, explains Christèle Gras-Le Guen. The professor adds that “we realized that we had no tools to measure the mental health of children” while there were “very spectacular signs, from the start of the 2020 school year” that they had been affected by the health crisis. “In all the consulting rooms in France, pediatric emergencies, we have seen hundreds of children in ill-being, whether young or old, with dark thoughts, suicidal thoughts, like never before. had seen in France”, she explains. “Some were affected by difficult family stories, since there were more than 100,000 bereaved families,” she recalls. The children also paid the price for a “general anxiety of the population” according to her. The purpose of this Enabee survey is to know the number of children “who are not well” and what makes them not well. And then propose support and prevention measures. “The idea is to be able to follow the evolution of this mental health over time in order to adjust and take stock of the proposals that have been made”. “Young patients are hyper curious and attentive to their environment”, indicated doctor Patrick Alécian, psychiatrist, child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Monday May 2 on franceinfo. “It is a survey that was missing in view of recent events,” added the specialist, for whom “it is very important to know how children evolve through these events”. “All the information that comes in about the Covid crisis or the crisis in Ukraine concerns them,” insisted Patrick Alécian. According to him, it is even “the anguish of the parents” which “precedes the discomfort which can appear in the children”. They then develop “anxiety disorders” which can be characterized through “nightmares”, disorders – which for some – had “already appeared before these crises” but which had not been treated with sufficient attention on the part of the adults. “Children are not so passive” in this process, continued the psychiatrist. “They are enough seekers of information from parents and adults to understand what is happening,” he analyzed. According to him, it is “very important that adults in schools are ready to respond and participate in discussions with children on these current issues”. He also welcomed the “efforts” undertaken in schools, “from the fall of 2021”, where the first confinement in March 2020 “had been managed as a family”. However, the means to support children in their request for understanding “have unfortunately been very much behind for several years now”, lamented Patrick Alécian who recalled the need to bring “attention” and “dialogue” to children who need it. , in particular thanks to “drawings and games”. These exchanges allow them “to understand that the adults are present and will protect them”, he concluded.