The number of kids who suffered from anxiety, depression or both soared by almost 26% from 2016 to 2020 — the first year of the pandemic — while the percentage in Massachusetts nearly doubled, according an annual assessment of child well-being in the U.S.
Nationally, the number of children struggling to make it through the day rose nearly 26% — from 9.4% (5.8 million kids) in 2016 to 11.8% (7.3 million kids) in 2020, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count Data Book.
And although Massachusetts ranked first in the nation in overall child well-being, the share of kids ages 3 to 17 who had a clinical diagnosis of anxiety or depression jumped from 12% in 2016 to 18% in 2020, according to the data book.
“So many things happened in that first year of the pandemic,” said Dr. Jacqueline Sperling, co-director of McLean Hospital’s Anxiety Mastery Program and author of “Find Your Fierce: How to Put Social Anxiety in its Place.” “We had to have a lockdown, so there was the removal of social interactions with their friends. They missed rites of passage like birthdays and graduations. A parent may have lost a job. And some kids lost parents or other loved ones to COVID.”
The pandemic has brought children trauma and tremendous loss over the past two and a half years. As of July 2022, it had killed more than 1 million people in America, including more than 1,600 children. Over the same time span, more than 200,000 kids lost a parent or primary caregiver to the virus, according to the data book.
All of these things have helped amount to what the U.S. surgeon general has called a mental health pandemic for youngsters.
“The pandemic exacerbated what was already worsening trends for children with mental health needs,” said Mary McGeown, executive director of the Massachusetts Society for the Protection of Children.
“At a time when the need was great, schools, clinicians, friends weren’t there to support them.”
Most children who receive counseling services get them at school, she said. So with the abrupt closure of schools, kids lost trusted counselors.
“Very quickly, clinicians were able to provide help virtually. For adults, telehealth made access to help easier,” McGeown said. “For many parents of autistic children, being able to use telehealth proved to be helpful. But for some kids, it wasn’t an effective way to talk. It simply was not enough.”
The good news is children will be going back to school, which is always in the best interests of the child, she said.
“The challenge is the workforce,” McGeown said. “There are simply not enough mental health clinicians.”
So without someone like that to talk to, many children reach a crisis point and end up in a hospital emergency room, where they may have to wait days to be seen, she said.
“If a child showed up with a broken leg, they would be seen right away,” McGeown said. “But if they show up with a mental health crisis, it’s not considered a priority in many hospitals.”
