Children’s Mental Health Response to COVID-19

The poll focused on how parents contextualize the impact of the pandemic on mental health on their child. For parents with multiple children, the survey asked parents to focus on the child they were most worried about.

“Children being impacted by the more serious effects of the virus, including loss of loved ones and the anxiety of instability of parental income, food insecurity and homelessness are more toxic stressors. Children experiencing toxic levels of stress or trauma are more likely to have longer-term impact from their COVID experience and require more specialized care and interventions. The factors that most parents from this sample identified represent factors that, while significant, are also beginning to shift as the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted,” said Colleen Cicchetti, PhD, Executive Director at the Center for Childhood Resilience.

Parents ranked what they believed to have the unhealthiest impact on their children.

While the pandemic has certainly had a wealth of negative impacts, there may be some positive impacts within the family unit.

Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Children’s Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic. May 27, 2021. Accessed June 11, 2021. https://www.luriechildrens.org/en/blog/childrens-mental-health-pandemic-statistics/