Raising Resilient Kids

At the beginning of the 21st century the belief was that the general health and well-being of children and adolescents was the best that it has been. This is due to the significant improvements in access to healthcare and education, as well as the introduction of social support systems and agencies that regulated and reviewed the lives and the rights of children.

However, what has become quite apparent in the recent years is that we are facing a very different form of challenge in regards to our children and adolescents, in particular their mental wellbeing. For the first time it has been noted by the World Health Organization that child and adolescent mental health has reached crisis levels. Interestingly, it has much less to do with finances and access to food, water and sanitation than one would expect. It has in fact got to do with the changes in the psychosocial networks, evolution of technology and the breakdown in the conventional family and community support systems. In particular, the introduction of social media and access to screens which are challenges for families, mental healthcare practitioners and children themselves.

Of particular interest is why it is that children and adolescents particularly, have been most impacted by these changes in environment since the beginning of the 1980s/1990s. They are particularly vulnerable because of lack of autonomy at home, their requiring emotional input, support and nurturing from their parents, and similarly having neural structures (brains) that are particularly immature. As a result, they are often quite impulsive, reactive and impressionable. There is a significant desire and need to be part of a peer group, so they are particularly susceptible to social pressures as well as the negative impact from the likes of social media and the internet. Accompanying this has come a significant rise in anxiety, and particularly in the last 10 years, predating the COVID pandemic of 2020.

Anxiety presents in many varied ways in children and adolescents, with increases in suicidal ideation, deliberate self-harm, as well as an increased use of illicit substances to self medicate. The concern around anxiety is that their lifestyle also does tend to perpetuate this. Our children are under much bigger academic stresses than they have ever been before. That, with the general belief that children of middle to higher income families need to follow the tertiary education route and greater competition in the workplace, results in our children being burdened by this expectation. Similarly, their days have been filled with more sporting and culturing activities and our children are no longer playing.

Play remains one of the most important components of neurodevelopment, an opportunity for children and even adolescents in particular to self regulate, to explore and have an opportunity to develop skills. So our children are playing less, they’re working harder, they’re sleeping less, possibly because there has been a general decline across the board how parents review things like a fixed bedtime. There is very little supervision, often of older primary and high school children in their sleep routine. Children are using screens later into the evening and sometimes working into the early hours of the morning. As a result we have very, very tired children who then often will tend to self medicate using caffeine and nicotine.

In addition to the anxiety is the challenges around difficulties with lack of exercise. Many schools have chosen to remove physical exercise during the day and have implemented more academic activities. As a result the one form of healthy physiological relief and release for many of these children is now absent. Furthermore, kids exercise has become something of a competition rather than something of enjoyment. Anxious children are avoiding exercise because of this. For those children who aren’t doing exercise, many of them choose to spend their afternoons on screens. Often this is unsupervised. There are unfortunately greater
numbers of younger children impacted, and researchers note the detrimental effects of extensive screen time usage and access to inappropriate content as well as the impact on socialization, regulation, sleep and appetite. Our children have become more sedentary and they’re often failing to learn important social development skills and behaviour. We have children who are then shying away from social environments because of lack of confidence and the capacity to do so.

So unfortunately, whilst we are trying to as adults embrace the technological age and the change in what modern society and families may look like, our children are battling silently onwards. Our children don’t have the capacity to moderate and regulate themselves in this very, very unfortunate system. So it is our responsibility as a community to make active plans to support them. Such would be ensuring adequate sleep, appropriate diet, regular fun exercise and limiting screen time. New parent based support and action groups are calling for a decrease in social media access and internet and screen use at schools, as well as later introduction of personal cell phones and smartphones for children.

The issue remains vast, with the need for vigilant, interactive parenting in all spheres – to allow for early detection and support.