We need to stop treating adolescence as a mental health disorder
Experiences that were once thought of as routine parts of growing up have been recast as potentially traumatising
Many parents knew instinctively just how damaging repeated lockdowns and school closures were for their children’s emotional development and mental wellbeing. But now there is data to substantiate the anecdotes. Findings from a study released this week reveal a huge increase in the numbers of children and teenagers suffering from mental health problems.
The rise is apparent in children of all ages but is most notable in older teenagers. Before the pandemic, one in 10 of those aged 17 to 19 experienced problems; today that figure stands at one in four. Older girls have been most badly hit: a third of girls, compared to just under a fifth of boys, are suffering. Anxiety, depression and ADHD are the most commonly reported disorders and more than 12 per cent of people aged 17 to 22 report feeling often, or always, lonely.
Researchers have linked these problems to a locked-down adolescence. Almost two years of isolation meant teenagers missed out on school trips, scout camps, parties, part-time jobs and exams. Many did not get to do the everyday things we take for granted: taking public transport, going shopping and arranging to meet friends on their own.
It is not at all surprising that having to negotiate university, employment, relationships, alcohol and concerts for the first time as an older teenager, without having experienced any of the milestones that normally build up to these events, should prompt feelings of anxiety. Realising what you missed out on is depressing. And having spent your early adolescence almost entirely online, it is hardly a shock if your attention span is shot.
But it is adults, not teenagers, who now need to get a grip. We urgently need to remind ourselves that feelings of worry, sadness and distraction are perfectly normal adolescent emotions. Lockdown isolation undoubtedly heightened a sense of despair. But anxiety, depression and especially loneliness were normal responses to an incredibly abnormal situation.
To label a quarter of young people as suffering from mental health problems is unhelpful. It tells them that their feelings are not a normal part of being a teenager or a typical response to lockdown. Such statistics prompt calls for more mental health provision to be made available, but turning adolescence itself into a mental health disorder causes more problems than it solves.