- Ian Alves
- BBC News Brazil in Sao Paulo
image source, Francesco Carta/Getty Images
Laura* was 10 years old when she started wearing a mask for the same reasons we all wear: to protect herself from covid-19 and stop the spread of the virus.
Now, following almost three years and at the beginning of her puberty, the mask has taken another place in her life: that of an object that hides her face and helps her deal with social insecurities.
Her sister says that on a trip to the beach Laura wore a mask, even to enter the sea.
At times like this, the sun marks the outline of the mask on her face, making it even more difficult for her to stop wearing the accessory in public.
The story of the young woman is one of the hundreds of accounts of Brazilian youth on social networks, especially adolescents, who say that it is difficult for them to go out without a mask because it gives them shame to show your face.
In many cases they are the only students in the class who continue to use the accessory rigorously, and they are harassed by classmates who question their use and even try to remove it by force.
Others say that the mask helps them go unnoticed and reduces social interactions, including drawing less attention from teachers.
The situation acquires complexity at a time of recurrence of coronavirus cases, in which the mask is recommended to stop the spread of the disease.
At what point, then, does the rigorous use of accessories by adolescents become worrisome? And how can parents and teachers deal with this situation?
image source, SDI Productions/Getty Images
For parents and educators it is often difficult to understand the reasons that lead young people to try to hide.
an old habit
The habit of wearing accessories that distract other people’s attention is not something new among teenagers.
Baggy sweatshirts, hats and long hair on the face are some of the “mechanisms” that young people use to deal with insecurities related to body self-image, explains the psychologist and doctor of education Alessandro Marimpietri.
The singer Billie Eilish is an example of this behavior: when she was 17 years old, she declared that she preferred to wear baggy clothes so that fans and the press would not sexualize her because of her large breasts.
Marimpietri explained that forced confinement and decreased social contact imposed due to the covid-19 pandemic have aggravated this problem.
image source, Getty Images
The American singer Billie Eilish has confessed that she wears baggy clothes because she fears being judged by her fans and the media.
“A teenager who entered the pandemic at the age of 13 and is now 15, for example, has changed very substantially from a physical point of view.
Many were no longer sure how they would present each other from an image point of view and the mask appears as a symbolic shield of protectionas if the image itself were protected by a border that protects me from the gaze of the other”, he adds.
The expert claims that body image issues were inflated during the pandemic, when our resource for social interaction was often digital.
“Seeing yourself all the time on screens and in the angles of digital cameras changed the self-perception of all subjects: children, adults, the elderly,” he says.
What is lost in hiding the face
Marimpietri explains that facial expressions are “important non-verbal signals for the development of the subject’s life, from the psychic point of view, social interaction and even cognition”.
image source, Getty Images
The mask has become for many boys and girls in Brazil a resource to avoid being judged by their peers for their appearance.
By hiding part of the face with the mask indefinitely, adolescents also hide these fundamental keys to coexistence and socio-affective interaction.
This loss is perceived by Simone Machado, a Portuguese language teacher in the Sao Paulo public education network.
“Teachers read to students all the time, even when they don’t say anything. They are expressions of doubt, for example, that make us repeat an explanation. Masks make that exchange difficult“, he states.
The teacher reports that those students of hers who continued to wear the mask even when the measure was relaxed already had introspective behaviors and socialization difficulties.
One of them, Machado said, was even more timid following the pandemic. “It’s like the mask is another wall in his socialization with the world. Even his gaze has become less expressive, and when I ask him questions, he only answers with a nod; I can’t even remember howanaba his voice“, reveals
He adds that this situation is especially delicate with the increase in cases of coronavirus infection. “How do you tell the parents of a student that their child ‘wears the mask all the time’?” he asked.
image source, Getty Images
In Brazil, teachers have confirmed that those students who continue to use masks already showed problems in socializing in the past.
How to handle the situation at home
Laura’s mother, the character that opens this text, describes her daughter’s behavior as something temporary, according to the girl’s sister. “My mom says it’s just a phase, and that Laura* is ‘playing’.”
She recounts that an uncle already forced Laura to remove her mask at a family event, but that the young woman was visibly uncomfortable.
“I tell my mother to take Laura to a psychologist, but she doesn’t listen,” adds the girl, who explains that her sister spends most of the day on the computer, playing RPG, a game in which each player is represented by a fictional character, with its own narrative and characteristics.
Fabiana*, another mother whose son also has a hard time leaving the house without a mask, says that this behavior can be difficult for parents to understand.
As they lost two close family members to covid-19, she associated her son’s strict mask wearing with fear of becoming infected and spreading the virus.
image source, Getty Images
Many young people are choosing to hide their insecurities instead of dealing with them.
Over time, he realized that the accessory had acquired other connotations. “He went through puberty in the pandemic, now he has pimples and he got braces. More than once he has told me: ‘I’m ugly, mom’“.
The woman admits that she has lost patience with her son’s behavior. But she says that, in general, the subject is talked regarding and that he himself has already decided to make that use more flexible next year.
“This is one of the most important strategies that parents can adopt,” says Marimpietri.
“There is no recipe. But, in a world that is built with words, it is necessary to access young people through them: understand what motivates this behavior and think, little by little, in alternative ways of dealing with these feelings,” he explains.
in the school environment
At school, the geography teacher Luciana Cardoso highlights the importance of conversations between teachers.
“It was at ‘class council’ that I found out, from another teacher, that a student of mine always wears a mask. out of embarrassment due to missing a tooth“, comments.
image source, Getty Images
Experts recommend that parents and teachers make efforts to talk to teens who wear masks to help them overcome their insecurities.
If a Physical Education teacher, for example, observes that the student practices sports with a sweatshirt and a mask, this triggers a different alert for teachers who only see them in the classroom, Cardoso indicates.
For Machado, an interesting strategy is not to talk directly regarding the insistent use of the mask, but rather try to encourage socialization of these students in other ways, transmitting group work inside and outside the classroom, for example.
The pediatrician Evelyn Eisenstein recalls that, among young people, it is more common for there to be negligent behaviors with respect to sanitary measures to combat covid.
“We are in a moment of caution, in which the mask must be used in crowds such as public transport, shopping centers and also in schools,” he concludes.
The original names were altered to preserve the identity of the interviewees..
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