Is anxiety and stress on the increase in children?

An article I read recently by Tegan Bennet, really struck a chord with me. Being the same age and having taught for the same amount of years I was interested to read her thoughts on whether children nowadays are more anxious than we were at school. Undoubtedly the numbers have risen as more and more children are referred for help with depression and stress. This is in part due to the difficult couple of years with Covid but was on the increase before the pandemic. The article refers to the fact that there are a few reasons for this. One being that they have access to phones and therefore “carry bad news in their pockets every day” , whether it is seeing what someone thinks about them to notifications about what is happening in the world. We as parents are more anxious for our children- are they keeping up or failing at school? Are they being included? Do they have friends? Children can pick up on our anxieties and therefore without realising it, perhaps we make it worse for them.

Perhaps we are more aware of anxiety today compared to when I was growing up because we have an increased rate of diagnosis. As teachers we can recommend different avenues for help. Something that was not readily available when we were at school. I think we were probably anxious but there was no name for it and no informed conversations about it, we just “managed.” Perhaps our anxiety was not as acute as we were not constantly bombarded with breaking news and information from phones. Our parents didn’t tend to question our schooling,leaving us, and the school, to get on with it.

Whatever the argument, anxiety is definitely an issue for some children and we need to help them navigate through it. Even though Tegan’s article blames social media for adding to children’s stress she doesn’t think we should remove it all together. She reflects on how cross she was when her parents tried to alienate her from her own culture by not allowing her to watch certain TV programmes such as Grange Hill or The Young Ones! We should listen to our children’s anxieties, taking them seriously and help them to realise there will be others experiencing the same worries. Sometimes children don’t know why they are anxious. That’s ok too. Sometimes this coincides with growing or hormonal changes. Reassurance and consistency really helps. We need to manage our own anxieties about our children. As parents we sometimes over compensate about wanting to make sure that our children are happy all the time. Accept that our children’s lives are their own lives, not ours and that their challenges and pleasures are different to ours. Trust you child more. They might just surprise you!

Sarah Taylor