A report from the surgeon general spells out how the mental health of children has suffered during COVID.
A report from the surgeon general spells out how the mental health of children has suffered during COVID.
T he U.S. surgeon general Dr. Vivek H. Murthy has issued a 53-page report on a burgeoning mental-health crisis among American youth, exacerbated by the pandemic. Emergency-room visits for depression, anxiety, and other conditions have been rising for a long time. But emergency-room visits caused by suicide attempts by adolescent girls jumped 51 percent in 2021, according to the report.
While the report touched on increased mental-health issues before the pandemic, it does not shy away from looking at the effect of the pandemic and the public-health strictures on the lives of children in the crisis. Here is the key paragraph:
Since the pandemic began, rates of psychological distress among young people, including symptoms of anxiety, depression, and other mental health disorders, have increased. Recent research covering 80,000 youth globally found that depressive and anxiety symptoms doubled during the pandemic, with 25% of youth experiencing depressive symptoms and 20% experiencing anxiety symptoms.43 Negative emotions or behaviors such as impulsivity and irritability—associated with conditions such as ADHD— appear to have moderately increased. Early clinical data are also concerning: In early 2021, emergency department visits in the United States for suspected suicide attempts were 51% higher for adolescent girls and 4% higher for adolescent boys compared to the same time period in early 2019. Moreover, pandemic-related measures reduced in-person interactions among children, friends, social supports, and professionals such as teachers, school counselors, pediatricians, and child welfare workers. This made it harder to recognize signs of child abuse, mental health concerns, and other challenges.
Of course, being a government report produced by the incumbent political class, it folds in other political assumptions that we might instantly reject. For instance, it cites the national reckoning over the death of George Floyd as one potential contributor to youth mental-health problems. (Perhaps a conservative administration would have cited the fallout from the subsequent riots.)
But there is also a no-nonsense, commonsensical thread running through this report that is surprisingly fresh. In advice to parents, it holds out that they must model good habits and behaviors, including getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, eating healthily, and “taking time to unplug from technology or social media.” It emphasizes the importance of connecting young people with stable, mentoring adults, and dependable friends. The report lays out a very commonsensical way of weighing the risks and benefits of the Internet for children and adolescents, emphasizing that while the Internet can enhance real-world friendships, it cannot replace or substitute for them. Similarly, it is poisonous for a young person’s mental health if it replaces time that would be spent doing real-world social activities, or takes any from sleep.
This may all seem quite basic. But the fact is that many parents don’t take the connection between physical and mental health seriously enough. The reminder to set, or reset, daily routines for themselves and their children is salutary after nearly two years when many institutions that provide routine have themselves disintegrated, or have been subject to hostile public-health diktats that make routine impossible.
The overwhelming thrust of the report is that children desperately need real-world, in-person, face-to-face socialization with peers and mentors and quality time with stable parents. They need to be outdoors in the sun, and get good sleep. There is no guff in the report whatsoever about how parents should reconcile themselves or try to reconcile their children to a different, individualized, private sense of “health” that is at odds with common sense.
The only problem with the report — and it is a big one — is that it stops short of directly calling for the rollback and dismantlement of the COVID strictures put on children and the institutions that serve children. There is nothing about masking, or social distancing, or the completely unneeded sense of danger that putting plastic barriers between children can communicate to them.
And yet, it is impossible to read this report and not begin to question it. The surgeon general’s report should slay for good the taboo against talking about how the pandemic strictures are affecting children and their mental health. This report arms us with facts to confront people who simply, and stupidly, try to dismiss these concerns by saying that “kids are resilient.”
For those parents who are still wrestling with school administrators, or local departments of health, this report implies that “normality” — real-world interaction with peers and mentors — is not a luxury for children but a necessary component of their mental well-being. Coming from the Biden administration, this is a document that should help progressives and conservatives start talking about a reality that we can all see: our kids are struggling.