Children name ‘anxiety’ as their word of the year

Researchers suggest findings highlight impact of lockdown and school closures on the young

ANXIETY has been chosen by children as their word of the year, Oxford University Press (OUP) said, highlighting the mental health impact of lockdown and school closures. More than 8,000 pupils aged between seven and 14 were asked to select from a shortlist of 10 words the one they would use when talking about well-being and health in 2021.

The shortlist had been drawn up from the Oxford’s Children Corpus, an online database of material from stories and poems written by children as well as books written by children’s authors.

Lexicographers and researchers analysed which words had most frequently appeared in the past year as well as the prominence they were given in each work. The team then selected the following 10 words to be sent to schools across the UK: anxiety, challenging, isolate, well-being, resilience, bubble, kindness, remote, cancelled, empathy.

After discussing the words with their teachers, pupils agreed on the word most applicable to them. The feedback suggested that more than one in five (21 per cent) of surveyed pupils chose anxiety as their number one word. This was closely followed by challenging (19 per cent) and isolate (14 per cent). Wellbeing had been selected as the focus of the vocabulary research for 2021.

When the initiative was first launched in 2014 the word picked by children was Minions, in reference to the small yellow creatures popularised by the animated film of the same name. One year later, the word was hashtag. However, since then words for each successive year have grown gloomier in tone with refugee in 2016, Trump in 2017, plastic in 2018, Brexit in 2019 and coronavirus in 2020. Joe Jenkins, of the Children’s Society, said: “It’s concerning that ‘anxiety’ is the number one word but it isn’t surprising when you consider all the restrictions and changes children had to endure.”

The charity’s Good Childhood Report, which was published in August last year, found that more than 300,000 UK children were estimated to be unhappy with their lives in 2018-19.

Mr Jenkins added: “Having conversations and using the right language is incredibly important when supporting children if they are feeling anxious, isolated or going through tough challenges, and it’s also crucial children are able to express how they are feeling.”

Helen Freeman, director of early childhood and home education at OUP, said: “The research highlights the vital role language plays for children when it comes to self-expression, learning and well-being. It’s important now, more than ever, that we invest in supporting children’s language development.”