A recent study suggests Canadian parents are less aware of their children’s mental-health struggles.
According to data from the Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth, children are more likely to perceive their own mental health negatively than their parents. In 2019, the difference between parent-reported ‘poor’ or ‘fair’ youth mental health and child-reported mental health varied by nine percentage points. Four years later, this gap had grown to 19 percentage points.
There are multiple factors that may contribute to this phenomenon, according to University of Ottawa clinical psychology PhD candidate Somayya Saleemi. Most prominently, she said, the COVID-19 pandemic caused major disruptions to youth development.
Saleemi, who works with children in a clinical setting, says she has seen the effects of the pandemic on mental health first-hand.
“It significantly disrupted social development, education, family dynamics, a whole bunch of things in children’s lives,” she said.
Saleemi says factors from the pandemic such as prolonged isolation, increased screen time and the elimination of extracurricular activities may have caused a deterioration in mental health that youth have yet to recover from. Statistics Canada studies have shown post-pandemic youth are using screens for four hours or more a day compared to the recommended two hours or less per day.
As youth grapple with the lingering effects of isolation during the pandemic, Saleemi said it is likely that children are hiding their distress from parents because of fear of burdening them or not being understood.
“I think the generational difference can result in parents misinterpreting signs of anxiety, depression, or burnout as typical teenage behavior rather than indicators of deeper struggles,” said Saleemi.
She added that recent technological changes have also changed the way children socialize. When kids engage in their peer groups, it is often through social media, online chats, and other virtual means.
“Parents have sort of a limited window into their child’s social world,” Saleemi said. “If their children were hanging out with their friends in person, and they could see those social interactions or potential stressors.”
And the data points to a steep rise in mental-health challenges across age groups.
While a general increase in poor mental health may seem alarming, Saleemi says the figures from Statistics Canada could be viewed positively. An increase in mental health awareness and readiness to seek help could also be driving up the number of “poor” mental health cases recorded.
Now that the state of youth mental health is more clearly documented, Saleemi said it is time for parents and institutions to prioritize long-term solutions. While the availability of emergency one-time resources such as suicide hotlines can be helpful, there must be funding for services that facilitate recovery, she said.
“Accessing services doesn’t always mean access to the right services,” Saleemi said. “It may be a temporary sort of solution.”
On the individual level, parents should keep open minds and be ready to seek help for themselves, she says. In working on themselves, parents can better understand what their children are experiencing.
“Parents might also come in with a lot of perceptions or stigma related to mental health,” Saleemi said. “I think that’s something that also needs to be worked on by parents, is accessing their own mental health services and improving their own mental health.”
