How COVID-19 is affecting children’s mental health,
Survey found 60% of parents have seen changes in behaviour
He flies into rages at the drop of a hat, slamming doors and yelling at the top of his lungs, mom and dad looking on stunned.
This isn’t normal for their child.
A new survey by Ipsos finds that nearly 60 per cent of Ontario parents have seen changes in their children’s behaviour since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, including outbursts, extreme irritability, drastic mood changes, difficulty sleeping and persistent sadness.
The poll shared with the Star, commissioned by Children’s Mental Health Ontario and Addictions and Mental Health Ontario, found that 34 per cent of parents said their children were stressed to the point of not coping last year and 24 per cent said the children are feeling this way more often since the start of the coronavirus outbreak.
Similarly, one-quarter of parents said their child felt “sad or hopeless” for a few weeks or more last year, but this is happening more frequently since the outbreak, 14 per cent said.
“Ontarians are right to feel that the impact of COVID-19 will be serious and lasting to their mental health,” said Kim Moran, CEO of Children’s Mental Health Ontario. “I am especially concerned about the severity of mental health experiences of Ontario’s children and youth leading into and during COVID-19.” Moran said more funding needs to be directed to services such as long-term therapy and counselling.
The Ipsos Public Affairs Annual Mental Health Index survey was conducted online April 28 to 30, with 1,002 respondents. Results are considered accurate to within plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The survey examined Ontario adult, children and youth experiences with addiction, mental health and mental illness in 2019 and since
COVID-19 began. CMHO and AMHO are using the research to determine how profound an impact the pandemic is having on families and how many families need immediate support. Mara Howard knows about the importance of getting enough support. Like many Torontonians, Howard has been in self-isolation during the pandemic, remaining indoors in the one-bedroom basement unit she shares with her boyfriend. But she has to be careful. Howard, 26, has been struggling with mental health challenges, including grinding depression, since she was 15, so quarantining and being inside a lot can be tricky for her.
To deal with her illness, she takes the medication Cipralex, which helps with her anxiety, including attacks that have been so bad she would become disoriented and so nervous she doesn’t know where she is.
“Sometimes I have night terror. I wake up in a huge sweat. My heart is racing. My room is rarely pitch black because I’m too afraid to sleep in such darkness. The act of even getting out from under the comfort of the blanket and bed to now go and deal with the anxiety can be frightening. I don’t know what’s scaring me, but I’m terrified,” she says.
About six years ag,o she selfharmed, cutting herself over a period of about 12 months. She has also had thoughts of suicide.
She traces her depression to a catastrophic knee injury during a soccer game when she was a teenager. The injury shattered her dreams of becoming a professional Canadian soccer player.
After graduating Ryerson University in social work in 2018, she’s currently studying animal training and behaviour, and wants to train service dogs that help young adults with mental health issues.
She wants to help young people who may be stuck at home and feeling stressed because they’re out of school or jobless during the pandemic. She’s offering some coping strategies she uses to diminish stress.
Getting into a solid routine is important.
“I found the first thing I decided to do for myself during COVID was not sleeping in. I know for me I feel worse sleeping in than I do waking up super exhausted. I know myself and what works for me. Even if I take a nap midday for an hour, I’m much more functional, I’m much happier than when I sleep in,” Howard says.
Getting creative with living space, even small spaces, is another important tip she passes along.
“Space for me, I get very anxious around being in a space for too long. We’re forced to do that during COVID,” she says.
She recommends dividing up space in your home so certain areas are for certain activities.
“If you have a desk or place you do things like work, do art or read, try to break things up so maybe a chair in one corner is for reading, and maybe another corner is for relaxing or texting.
“I recommend splitting up your apartment as much as you can into activity corners. So you have to move from corner to corner so your view, your perspective is different. It’s something I’ve learned from my dog training … and it’s something I have done with my place.”
She’s also been spending time on her hobbies such as art — she loves doing watercolours — and singing.
She uses supports offered at Stella’s Place, a mental health support service in Toronto for young adults 16 to 29 that is reporting a noticeable increase in demand over the last six weeks.
Among the services offered there during the pandemic is a secure mobile “chat app” that enables young people to connect with a trained peer support worker. Use of the app has jumped 300 per cent in the last six weeks, Stella’s Place says.
“I’m absolutely blessed to have been connected to Stella’s Place. That was the key to my successful journey back to myself,” Howard says.
An expert familiar with the Ipsos study, Enid Grant, offers more tips. Grant is a social worker and senior director of children’s mental health for Skylark, a Toronto charity that serves children, young people and their families dealing with complex mental health needs.
She says maintaining daily structure during the pandemic is key for young people.
“Eating regular meals is very important. What you eat can impact how you feel emotionally,” Grant says.
“That means cooking simple meals if you have to, healthy nutritious meals, in 30 minutes or less.”
Exercise is another useful weapon against the demons of loneliness and sadness while in isolation, Grant says.
“We know exercise is important. There are online dance routines and workouts, simple workouts. Walking and riding you can do outdoors, safe social distancing of course.”
Seeking out support from friends and family is also helpful, Grant says.
“Finding important people in our lives we can connect with by phone, Zoom, texting, or reestablishing important connections can be helpful now.”