Why family matters for children’s mental health
by Sophia Worringer, CapX:
Benjamin Disraeli described the rich and the poor as ‘two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets’. Today, with the widening gulf between mainstream society and those living in poverty, British society is as divided as it was in the Victorian era.
Nothing shows this more clearly than the prevalence of mental ill health. A new report by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), Two Nations, reveals that while 13% of the general population report having a mental health problem, this rises to 40% for the most deprived cohort. The report projects that, if trends continue, by 2030, over a quarter of all children will have a probable mental health condition.
I have spent the past year as part of the CSJ’s Social Justice Commission travelling the length and breadth of Britain, meeting the people behind the statistics. Hearing their stories has been at times desperately sad. But the work of frontline charities, volunteers and community groups who transform lives for the better has also given me hope.
A group of brilliant, articulate young women in Gateshead at Young Women’s Outreach Project (YWOP), a local charity, told us about the challenges they were facing. One told me that almost two years after the first lockdown, she still had friends who wouldn’t leave the house. Another said her anxiety had become much worse after the pandemic. Talking about school, a third revealed that ‘after lockdown I really struggled to go to school, I was off most of the year because of my anxiety’. A few confessed that the initial lockdown provided relief from socialising, but in the long term, the impact on their mental health had been devastating.
The roots of the deep hopelessness that seems to be gripping so many of our children goes back further than the lockdown. As I travelled the country it was clear that family underpins everything – good and bad. The data would appear to support this. Family relationships continue to be a top reason young people contact Childline. More than half of children seen by the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services cite family relationship problems as a cause of their mental ill health. And children from dysfunctional families have higher levels of mental disorders than the overall population.
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
