Pandemic takes mental health toll on US youngsters

NEW YORK: Anxiety, depression, self-harm and even suicide: a growing number of children in the United States are struggling with their mental health during the coronavirus pandemic, doctors, teachers, parents and the government are all warning.

Millions of students have been attending school virtually since March last year, spending hours in front of computers, without playing games or chatting with friends in person and missing out on sports and face-to-face art or music classes.

“There’s a lot of loneliness for me and other teens,” said Sarah Frank, an 18-year-old from Florida, who has not left home since March because she lives with relatives considered highrisk if they contract Covid-19.

“I have days I feel really sad, and a bit hopeless. It feels like a never-ending nightmare,” she told AFP.

Frank co-founded the State of Mind Project in July, a website with mental and physical health tips for teenagers.

“I missed a lot of a high school experiences that I’ll never get back. I never went to a football game, I never got to go to prom,” she said.

Deanna Caputo is a psychologist and mother of two children who says she sees signs of depression in her 10-year-old son since his class in Arlington, Virginia became virtual in March.

“He’d wake up in the morning and go back to sleep until noon. He was moody. He started saying things like ‘I am not smart, I’m not good at anything’,” said Caputo.

She says knows of other children even worse off.

“All I hear is about medication starting. They (parents) can’t find therapists,” because of high demand, said Caputo.

Caputo, who is a member of the Arlington Parents for Education association that is actively lobbying for schools to reopen in Arlington County, says schools are being held hostage by teachers’ unions.

A recent CDC report said that schools are safe if proper precautions are taken, such as wearing a mask and social distancing.

But many teachers’ unions resist going back to classrooms. In Chicago, the mayor ordered elementary schools to reopen but unions refused, demanding vaccinations for all teachers and threatening a strike.