Youth Mental Health in the Pandemic

It goes without saying that the Covid-19 Pandemic has been one of, if not the worst global health crisis the majority of us will have ever experienced. But perhaps one of the most hidden effects of the pandemic is on youth mental health.

Here at OLIP Therapy, formerly the Hampshire Hypnotherapy and Counselling Centre, our enquiries about counselling for children and young people has doubled since we reopened after the first 2020 lockdown, with children as young as seven now receiving help from our therapists and counsellors.

In addition to missing out on birthdays and holidays, young people have missed out on vast amounts of education, big life events such as graduations and proms, as well as facing the exam season with such uncertainty.

At the beginning of the March 2020 lockdown, 32% of young people said the pandemic has had a detrimental effect on their mental health. However, by the summer of the same year, this number had risen to a staggering 80%. Looking forward to January of this year, and nearly 7/10 young people believe they will suffer in the long term from the effects of the lockdowns – whether this be from loss of education and uncertain exam results, isolation from their friends, or the loss of a loved one.

Young minds, 2021

College and University students

In 2020, the exam results for A-Levels just under 50% of the grades were downgraded, causing a huge amount of anxiety and stress for students. Alongside this, the students that then went on to university faced a year of online learning at no reduced cost, and without having the key opportunities to meet new people.

A study carried out by The National Union of Students (NUS) found that 80% of students at university had become worried about finances during the pandemic. This may be due to the lack of income from being furloughed, still paying rent at university for properties that were vacant whilst they were at home, or the concern about what the future may hold for employment. 

Young children

After children have spent long periods of uninterrupted time at home with their parents and siblings, now having to return to normal life, we are seeing a rise in separation anxiety. Children are having to go back to school and potentially return to childcare if parents are back in the office – and this change is proving difficult for their mental health. Symptoms of separation anxiety can include an increased need for attention from their parents, resistance in going to school, or fear of something bad happening to one of their parents.

We are also seeing a spike in children feeling scared or worried around new people that they don’t know, or who they may not have seen for long periods of time due to the lockdowns.

Children may be concerned about trusting anyone new, people getting too close to them or the risk they may bring to their family and safety at home. It can be concerning for children if they start to think that other people may not be as safe as they first thought they were, and this can increase the worries of being away from their parents.

Depending on the child, it can take 2-4 years after experiencing a traumatic event, like living through the Covid-19 pandemic, for a mental health problem to develop. This means that the increase in mental health concerns in young people may continue to rise until at least 2024.

A child’s routine in the day is key to maintaining their mental wellbeing as it maintains consistency. When something is constantly changing, or unexpected things keep happening, anxiety can rise and the production of cortisol, our stress hormone, is increased. So, keeping a routine in a child’s life really is more important than you might think.

Things like school, bedtimes and dinnertimes are some of the main parts of a child’s routine – so it’s no surprise that these were interrupted when the country was locked down. So, although it may have been a fun novelty to stay up late and not have to go to school at first, after a while this change in routine may have caused more harm than good. 

We spoke to Brogan Pierce, Mental Health and Pupil Development Lead in a UK Primary School about the mental health of the children in her school, aged 3-11.

“I’ve seen a particular spike in anxiety from those children who were already prone to it, but very few children have come away from the pandemic entirely unscathed. For all of us, there was a sense of enormous anxiety which came from the complete loss of control throughout the lockdown. For children, this was amplified tenfold. Their lives were turned completely upside down and it was really difficult for them to understand why. They couldn’t see their friends, couldn’t go to school, and all the adults they would usually turn to for safety and strength were just as scared and confused as they were. Those with no siblings at home have particularly struggled with loneliness, especially if a parent was still needing to work full time.”

“In the long term, these children will recover. But it won’t come easily, and it won’t come without hard work from the adults in their lives. These children have been told time and time again that we won’t be locked down again, their schools won’t close again, and each time this has proven very quickly to be untrue. They’ve lost trust in the routines that always held safety and inevitability for them, and regaining that trust won’t come easily. They need reassurance, communication and, above all, they need people to listen to their emotions and value them, not just shake them off as being ‘just kids’.”

 Signs your child’s well-being may be suffering:

• Are they seeming to be a bit more irritable or short tempered?

• Has their sleeping pattern changed, either sleeping in more or having trouble getting to or staying asleep?

• Are they becoming overly worried about things, for example being separated from people?

• Have their concentration levels changed whereby small things seem to be distracting them?

If you can recognise this in your child, or you are concerned in any other way about their mental health, it’s important to get them talking. Whether this be to you or someone else, starting up a conversation about mental health can break the stigma surrounding it, and may be the push your child needs in the right direction of getting help.

“The brain won’t learn unless it feels secure” – Dr Kate Penry, Psychologist