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Why is my child’s mental health declining and what I should do about it?

After two years of social isolation things are finally starting to go back to normal. School is back in person without or with minimal restrictions. You’d think that your child could go back to their normal selves and yet you noticed that something is wrong with them. They seem sad, anxious or they’re having a hard time making friends. You’re probably wondering what happened and then you realize that your child and all the other students in their class were in social isolation for two years. You were told that social isolation was the only way to protect your family from Covid-19 and yet they never said that it would affect your child’s mental health.

According to Andrea Petersen who is a reporter at The Wall Street Journal. Social isolation is when a person is not able to sufficiently interact socially. In April 2020, research was done on 1,784 elementary school students in Hubei province in China. 23% of children had symptoms of depression and 19% had anxiety symptoms after two or more months of social isolation. We are now two years into social isolation which means that mental health of children is probably so much worse than a few months of social isolation. From this data showing that children are developing depression and anxiety in just a short amount of time of being socially isolated shows that these children are at high risk of developing mental health issues as adults.

Emily Hards, who does research in clinical psychology and developmental psychology at the University of Bath, has stated that more loneliness leads to more stress. The function of stress response is to protect that person from danger in the environment. Since social interaction is a fundamental human need, being socially isolated causes the autonomic nervous system to become activated as the social deprivation is perceived as a threat. When the natural stress response is activated, the brain releases multiple hormones to alert the body, so that it can jump into action to do what is necessary to protect itself from danger. Releasing these hormones places the entire system on guard and forces the person to remain vigilant until the perceived danger and the threat of harm has passed. While meant to be protective, the incessant release of these hormones cannot be maintained indefinitely. Hards' study has shown that when the body is “stuck” in this active stress response over an extended period, a person is at higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease, elevated blood pressure, infectious illness, cognitive deterioration, and mortality. These physiological consequences of experiencing stress over time because of being denied social interaction. So, these raised levels of stress will not only threaten a socially isolated child’s health earlier in life but in adulthood as well.

According to Spence S.H. who has a P.H.D and does research for clinical psychology at Griffith University stated that over the past 12 months, mental disorders are one of the most common conditions affecting children, with 13.9% of 4- to 17-year-olds having a mental disorder. Children are vulnerable to developing mental illnesses from social isolation. These mental illnesses are something that could potentially affect them for the rest of their life. After socially isolating these children for extended periods of time they are now at high risk of developing mental illnesses as adults.

According to Marsha M. Linehan, who is a Borderline Personality Disorder clinician, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) happens during the developmental years, where the child receives the message that he or she should learn to cope with emotions internally and without support from his or her parents. As a result, the child never learns how to regulate or tolerate her own emotions and fails to learn how to solve the problems that are inciting these emotions. By not letting them feel the normal emotions of being isolated you are invalidating them.

Luckily there are things you can do for your child. Andrea Petersen from The Wall Street Journal suggests that if your child's school is still online, you could let them hang out with their friends. By letting your child socialize with others outside of school you are preventing the damaging effects of social isolation on their mental health. In addition to this you could prevent the development of BPD by letting them see their friends for their own mental health. By isolating them and telling them they can’t see their friends can feels very invalidating.

Social isolation has a lot of negative effects on children that could affect them for the rest of their life. Children who are socially isolated are at high risk of developing mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, and BPD. Luckily there seems to be some things we can do to fix the damage being done to children, like letting them play or hangout with their friends. This can help them get the socialization they are missing out on from having school online. Also validating and asking your child how they feel and allowing them to do things that they feel they need to do to help their mental health such as letting them play or hangout with their friend may prevent BPD. Children need to socialize to protect their mental health.

What are your thoughts on this? Comment below your opinion on this topic.