From Covid Kids to Generation Grit

How the pandemic has had a positive and negative impact on anxiety and depression amongst children.

A teacher from Earlham Primary School, London, checks the temperature of a pupil before school begins. (Photo By Getty)

As children returned to school on 8 March, parental relief that home-schooling was over in England has been replaced by a new fear: of an increase in mental health problems among young people. The headline is that the pandemic is causing anxiety and grief in children and teenagers. But the situation is more complicated and, in some cases, more positive.

Research about young people’s well-being is minimal. As a Lancet Psychiatry article acknowledged in April 2020, “few studies around the world cover children”; most evidence about the effect of Covid on mental health concerns adults.