How to deal with your teenager’s depression
From exam worries to missing friends, research reveals the lockdown toll on the mental health of our young, says Leah Hardy
Like many parents of teenagers right now, my life feels very different to how it did this time last year. The “new normal” – the endless rounds of washing and cooking, the inability to plan a holiday or visit family – is becoming increasingly irksome. But most of all, we worry about our children. What are they doing in their rooms all day? Are they studying? What will happen to their exam grades, their university options and their friendships? When will they be able to go back to school? And most of all, are they happy?
Last week, Anne Longfield, the children’s commissioner, revealed new research showing the shocking toll that lockdown is taking on children’s mental health. Last month, her office asked 2,000 children aged eight to 17 about their experience of stress. She says: “Not surprisingly, many children told us that the virus was their biggest reason for feeling stressed.” Even more worryingly, a recent consultation found that a quarter of 15-year-olds were selfharming. No wonder more than half of parents reported worrying about their children’s mental health.
Last month, 30 organisations wrote to the Prime Minister, urging him to take steps to reduce the impact of coronavirus on the mental health of the young – “both now and in the future”.
The organisations, which include the charities Barnardo’s and Young Minds, as well as teachers’ unions and medical groups such as the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, say that the closure of schools to most students and restrictions of movement “will have consequences for young people’s mental health”.
“One in eight children and young people already has a diagnosable mental health condition and research suggests that the majority of those believe that the pressures created by the crisis are exacerbating their needs,” they said, calling for more money for mental health support and a national wellbeing strategy for young people.
The charity Young Minds says that “83 per cent of young people with mental health problems told us that the coronavirus pandemic had made their mental health worse”.
Psychologist Dr Angharad Rudkin agrees. “Lockdown has certainly accelerated mental health problems. Whatever problems young people had before are now even more obvious,” she says. But it’s not just those with pre-existing mental health issues who are suffering. Around the country many parents are becoming concerned as their previously happy, sporty and academic teens become increasingly dispirited and desperate to return to friends, routines and their classrooms.
Many are plagued with uncertainty about the exams they studied so hard for, worry about falling behind at school and miss their extra-curricular activities. They worry about their family becoming ill, and sometimes feel racked by loneliness.
Longed-for rituals such as end of school celebrations, sports days and proms have been cancelled. They have been stripped of summer jobs and, with them, the glittering prospect of independence. “My Year 12 daughter, 17, craves interaction with her peers and her teacher and is panicking about applying to university without guidance,” says one mother. “My 13-year-old is missing his friends and desperately wants to play football again,” says another. “He finds working at home difficult and says his brain is ‘fried’.”
“My daughter is leaving school for sixth-form college but hasn’t been able to say goodbye to her friends and teachers,” says a friend. “She could start on her A-levels, but she’s not motivated or accountable to anyone.”
My own 15-year-old daughter should have spent June doing her Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award expedition, taking her drama GCSE and doing work experience with the police. All have been cancelled. She hasn’t seen a single friend in person since the schools closed. While, fortunately, they seem to be coping mentally, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to persuade either of my teens to go outdoors. Rudkin says that teens can find lockdown particularly difficult because “adolescents are simply not designed to be with their parents all the time. From around the ages of 12 to 13, children move from being dependent on their family to prioritising relationships with their peer group,” she says.
Longfield says: “In our survey, when asked what they would do to manage stress, a quarter of those children who feel stressed said that they would normally go outside. Now, this option is only very limited.”
Dr Amanda Gummer, a child psychologist and founder of goodplayguide.com, says the pandemic has left many young people stranded in an extended childhood at home while worrying about their futures. “This is likely to have an impact on self-confidence and motivation. Days without any structure are also a massive issue.”
And while you might assume that digitally-savvy teenagers are happy to use technology to fill schoolwork and friendship gaps, Gummer says that may not be the case.
“Face-to-face interactions are very important in children’s friendship. Plus, teens often feel self-conscious about their looks when using Teams, Zoom or Facetime, and this can intensify body-image issues.”
Dr James Davies, a former psychotherapist and reader in Mental Health at the University of Roehampton, says even university students are struggling.
“I’ve seen many of my students become more despondent and pessimistic since the Covid crisis began. They hear a lot about an impending financial crisis and now face a hugely reduced job market.”
He points out the concessions granted as we edge out of lockdown – the opening of garden centres, DIY sheds and tennis clubs, and nannies and cleaners being allowed back to work – mean nothing to young people. “They feel completely neglected,” he says. But while Davies welcomes the call for more money for NHS talking therapies, he fears that too much emphasis on mental health conditions “can suggest that the problem is with the young people, rather than with the situation we are all in”, he says.
“It may tell them that their natural, human feelings of sadness and fear are dysfunctional and a sign that they have a medical problem or are defective in some way.”
Instead, he says: “As a society, we must take their concerns seriously and give them a message of hope.”
In particular, says Davies, “We should not medicalise their distress with antidepressants. He says up to 70 per cent of children and young people suffer side-effects from these medications, and studies show that people taking antidepressants are twice as likely to have suicidal feelings as those on a placebo. A result that Davies calls “very, very concerning”.
Rudkin, consultant editor on a new book, What’s My Teenager Thinking? by Tanith Carey (Dorling Kindersley) agrees that we must be careful not to confuse unhappiness with mental illness. “Some young people genuinely believe that they should be perfectly happy all the time, but that’s unrealistic. We all feel anxious or tense or sad sometimes, and that’s normal, especially now.”
Plus, she adds, “Let’s not forget that some teenagers are having a whale of a time. They are enjoying being with their family and building closer relationships with their siblings. If they were anxious about exams, schoolwork, bullying or peer pressure, then lockdown may even have come as a relief.”
‘Some young people believe they should be happy all the time, but that’s unrealistic’