The alarming state of mental health among youth and children
How to break a virus: Keep your distance. Don’t touch anyone. Close off all social opportunities. Avoid gathering for birthdays and Christmas. Don’t see friends. Don’t see cousins. Definitely don’t hug grandparents. Shutter inside, even when it’s not safe to do so. Fear people. Lean into your anxiety as it will keep you vigilant. Close schools. Close churches. Cancel sports, art, and youth centre programming. Postpone needed surgeries and cancer treatments. Ignore your depression.
How to break a child: see above.
A poll released this month shows many Canadians are not coping well as the pandemic stretches into its 10th month. Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies found 21 per cent of survey respondents rated their mental health as bad or very bad, with an additional 45 per cent categorizing their mental health as middle of the road — not bad; but not good either.
The effects of the pandemic are even more striking among children. Children’s Mental Health Ontario argues the response to the pandemic has caused adverse and sustained mentalhealth impacts on kids and youth. Noted symptoms derived from emerging pandemic research consist of posttraumatic stress, uncertainty, confusion, anger and aggressive behaviour, with some effects lasting months and potentially years. Kids Help Phone services have surged since the pandemic began with nearly half of all calls providing support for mental and emotional health. According to the national charity, the top reasons children reach out include anxiety, depression, isolation and suicidal thoughts. Before COVID-19, more than 28,000 Ontario children were waiting for mental-health treatment. Current numbers are hazy, but mental-health experts agree this figure has undoubtedly increased significantly since March 2020.
Often coupled with mental-health concerns is a rise in alcohol and substance use. Recent data out of the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction suggest alcohol consumption has increased dramatically during the pandemic.
There are strategies to help mitigate mental-health conditions among youth and children. Researchers suggest maintaining open lines of communication with children and students and creating comfortable environments which encourage frank discussions around anxiety and other psychosocial impacts. Parents can request evaluations for their children which can lead to early-intervention counselling or other approaches. These interventions, however, are generally short-term in nature and often fall short of addressing the root causes. As a result, parents and advocates have stressed that increased attention, financial support and resumption of in-person counselling and therapy programs are needed.
It’s a sticky situation we find ourselves in. Limiting social contact mitigates the spread of COVID-19 but simultaneously wreaks havoc on mental-health scores. Sometimes the things we do to help are the same things we do to harm. Few are debating that mask-wearing, physical distancing and constant hand hygiene is essential. COVID-19 needs to be controlled and, in time, disappear.
But during this same time, we better start enhancing programs, adjusting policies, securing funding and increasing professional capacity for the influx of children’s mental-health issues lurking around the corner. Depression, anxiety, addiction and a host of other mental-health conditions will be here for years to come.