The Pandemic is Hurting Students' Mental Health

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• School closures and social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic have harmed America’s kids and damaged their mental health. 
• Children’s hospitals have reported increases in mental health emergencies and cases of self-injury and suicide among young people.
• The American Academy of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital Association, and American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry have declared a national emergency in children’s mental health. 

The fallout from the pandemic includes an increase in mental health problems among America’s children. The lockdowns, months of virtual learning, time away from friends, and effects of the pandemic on close family members have taken a staggering toll on our children’s mental health. Children’s hospitals saw mental health emergencies among 5- to 17-year-olds increase by 14% in the first half of 2021 compared to 2019. There was a 45% jump in cases of self-injury and suicide for children in this age group over the same time period.  

The Toll of Pandemic Isolation on Kids

Students have described the anxiety and frustration they are experiencing due to the pandemic and repeated disruptions to their learning. One recent high school graduate from Alaska told senators how the pandemic intensified and caused new problems for her and her classmates: “During Zoom classes, I stared at a screen of gray squares. Questions from the teacher were met with silence. Teachers found fewer opportunities to ask, ‘Hey, are you okay? How are things going at home?”’

After months of remote learning in the 2020-21 school year, one eighth-grader in California told the Wall Street Journal: “it’s been a lot harder to make friends and talk to new people. … I feel like a lot of us drifted apart. It has set in that I’m alone.” In Dallas, one staff member who counsels misbehaving students remarked to the paper: “In that year off, we lost a lot of social maturity. So, [students] don’t know how to express their emotions.”

When students came back from the recent winter break, NPR quoted a school superintendent in the Boston area saying, “From the beginning, we’ve seen elevated levels of stress, anxiety, different behavioral issues in students.” Schools are also seeing more students misbehaving and fighting.

“During Zoom classes, I stared at a screen of gray squares ... Teachers found fewer opportunities to ask, ‘Hey, are you okay? How are things going at home?” – recent high school graduate from Alaska, before the Senate HELP Committee, 02-01-2022

Adding to the toll, “more than 167,000 children – roughly one in 450 of all children in the United States – have lost at least one of their caretakers to COVID,” according to a December 2021 report. Researchers found that more than 70,000 children have lost a parent and “more than 13,000 children have lost their only in-home caregiver.” This kind of loss severely undermines children’s sense of stability and is associated with mental health problems such as depression and anxiety, as well as higher dropout rates and less academic success.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Children’s Hospital Association declared a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health late last year. Trends in children’s mental health were already a concern before the pandemic. The organizations said that “rates of childhood mental health concerns and suicide rose steadily between 2010 and 2020 and by 2018 suicide was the second leading cause of death for youth ages 10-24.”

Recent congressional action

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee held a hearing February 1 on mental health and substance use disorders among children and adults. It highlighted bipartisan efforts to respond to the challenges and ways federal programs can better use resources for mental health and substance abuse needs. 

The hearing followed the committee’s passage of two bills related to suicide prevention last year. On February 8, Senators Patty Murray and Richard Burr announced additional bipartisan work to reauthorize and strengthen several mental health and substance use programs, including those designed to improve suicide screening and prevention, address opioid abuse and overdoses, expand access to mental health care. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Jacky Rosen also have introduced legislation to allow the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to provide funding to help K-12 schools’ mental health response and suicide prevention efforts.