{"id":48318,"date":"2020-11-25T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-25T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.highspeedtraining.co.uk\/hub\/?p=48318"},"modified":"2024-07-17T09:41:59","modified_gmt":"2024-07-17T08:41:59","slug":"child-mental-health-in-lockdown-findings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highspeedtraining.co.uk\/hub\/child-mental-health-in-lockdown-findings\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Findings: How Do Parents Think Lockdown Has Affected Their Children?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have witnessed unprecedented changes to our society in the past months. Local and national restrictions have affected what we can and cannot do in our lives \u2013 disrupting our routine activities, jobs, holidays and education. Additionally, lockdowns have restricted our ability to socialise with our family and friends who we do not live with. These measures are all necessary to keep us safe and slow the spread of COVID-19, allowing our health services to cope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, these changes have undoubtedly affected us all both mentally and physically \u2013 not least the children who are growing up in these strange times. So, how is lockdown affecting the mental health and wellbeing of children? Here at High Speed Training, we surveyed 1,000 parents of children aged 4-16 years old in October 2020 and came to the following conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1. Children are well aware of mental health.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One thing is clear \u2013 this generation of children appear to have a good awareness of mental health as a potential issue in the lives of themselves and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our findings showed that an average of around half (51%) of children across all ages (4-16 years) <\/strong>brought up the topic of mental health with their parents during lockdown, with older children bringing it up slightly more than younger children (47% of 4-7 year olds brought it up compared to 58% of 15-16 year olds). While it is great to see that children do feel able to talk about mental health and show such an early awareness, it is concerning if they are experiencing negative mental health at this young age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Children talked about mental health at a similar percentage with either their father (51%) or mother (52%). Our findings did also show that children with older parents bring up the topic of mental health less than those with younger parents, suggesting a generational difference may be a potential barrier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly, during 27% of these conversations, children raised concerns about the wellbeing of their peers, either separately or in addition to themselves. This just goes to show how intuitive kids can be with regards to their friend\u2019s feelings, as well as their own.<\/p>\n\n\n

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2. Lockdown has had a varied impact on children\u2019s mental health.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, we found that a quarter of parents thought that the mental health of their child has got worse<\/strong> in lockdown \u2013 this was similar for children across the whole range of 4-16 year olds. This is understandable considering the challenges and disruptions faced, especially when it comes to schools. Fortunately, there is lots of help and advice available for young people who are struggling. For example, a children\u2019s guide to coronavirus<\/a> from the Children\u2019s Commissioner and a children\u2019s book<\/a> from the Inter-Agency Standing Committee explain the global changes due to COVID-19 and how they might feel and worry. Older children can be encouraged to access dedicated help websites such as Young Minds<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It isn\u2019t all bad news though: just over half of parents thought their child\u2019s mental health stayed the same<\/strong> and, interestingly, 14% of respondents thought their child\u2019s mental health had improved.<\/strong> The age range with the highest percentage of improvement were those children aged 8-11, and overall seems that London is the top place for kids to feel happy in lockdown \u2013 34% of London parents reported an improvement. This just goes to show that sometimes we may find hidden silver linings, even in times of crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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3. Parents have confidence in schools.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Schools have had a tough time during the pandemic. In March 2020, the first lockdown led to the closing of schools to the majority of pupils and there was a sudden transition to remote learning for teachers and pupils alike. Even with schools open now in subsequent lockdowns, this remote learning still has to continue if bubbles are sent home to self-isolate. These changes have posed new challenges for teachers and safeguarding, as you can see in our survey of teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reassuringly, it seems that parents are confident in school support for the safeguarding and mental health of their children: two thirds<\/strong> of parents were either very satisfied or somewhat satisfied about their child\u2019s school\u2019s approach, with only 6.5% of parents unsatisfied in some way.<\/p>\n\n\n

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We have seen huge changes to the way schools have had to be run, so this really is a testament to all the hard work by teachers and leadership teams in schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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4. Top safeguarding concerns for parents.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Parents always have worries about their children, and lockdown is no different. But what exactly are the biggest safeguarding concerns parents have at the moment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We found parents were concerned about:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n