Kids struggling with lockdown, study finds
Majority of respondents say they’re going outside less than once a day
Kids and teens may be at less risk of contracting COVID-19 than adults, but their well-being has been affected by the lockdown measures, according to a just-released study.
Last May, in the middle of the pandemic that has forced people into lockdown for weeks, Maximum City surveyed some 356 young people ages nine through 15 in the GTA. The results show the effects of COVID-19 are different and unevenly distributed among the kids, said Maximum City’s director, Josh Fullan.
There’s a group of kids who are “doing just fine,” even some who are “thriving” under these new circumstances — with freedom away from school and more time with parents. But there’s another group of kids who are “really struggling.”
“This is the group that we need to be concerned about,” Fullan said. “They’re showing a confluence of negative factors such as less time outside, more time with technology, less physical activity, less engaging school and less social connections.”
Among the findings, the study showed that the majority of respondents — 72 per cent — are going outside their homes less than once a day. Seventy-three per cent reported spending more time with technology, and nearly half of the respondents admitted to spending “too much time” with screens.
Only 28 per cent of those surveyed said they’re feeling happier now than before the pandemic, something Fullan said is “concerning” from both physical and mental health aspects.
Maximum City, a multidisciplinary group of designers, teachers and urban planners who work on issues of youth and engagement in urban settings, is still sorting through the various components of the data to pin down the factors that contribute to how children and youth are feeling during these pandemic times. They have yet to do a deep analysis of the findings based on socio-economic factors such as household income or ethno-racial background of respondents.
But in a general sense, a study that’s in the works looking at children and youth nationally shows that kids in large Canadian cities, particularly Toronto, are affected more negatively by the lockdown measures than their peers in smaller towns and rural areas.
That makes sense for Fullan. Compared to elsewhere in Canada, young people in Toronto have fewer places to play outside of their home and less space inside their homes. They feel less safe when they go outside, they’re less physically active and the feelings they report since the pandemic tend to be for the worse, he said.
“I think that’s concerning for an urban nation like Canada,” he said, noting nearly two in five people in Canada live in the 15 largest cities.
As various parts of the country continue to ease into reopening phases, Fullan said it’s clear that kids need more support to be physically active and outside, away from screens. They also need more collaborations and interactions with their teachers and peers. That’s one of the key ingredients that’s missing from the current online school experiences, he said.
Toronto Public Health recently released its map showing the city’s neighbourhoods that have been the hardest hit by the COVID -19 pandemic. It showed the areas stricken by economic and social inequalities were the most vulnerable. Fullan would not speculate if further analysis of the findings from the Maximum City study would show similar trends.
Last year, Maximum City did a study for the city of Toronto children’s services looking at the child friendliness of nine communities. The highest score any neighbourhood received for kids’ safety and wellbeing was 64 out of 100. The average was 52.
“That was the time before the pandemic,” Fullan said, noting there was already a sense of lower safety and well-being among Toronto kids.