As clinical psychologists working with children, young people and their families, we are concerned about the impacts of the pandemic on the mental health and wider psychological development of our children.
While we acknowledge that there will have been some positives to the experiences for many children and families, our concern is about the negative impacts which are set against the background of a pre-pandemic increase in children’s mental health difficulties.
The scale of the negative impact(1) on children and young people’s mental health is already becoming clear(2), giving us an early wakeup call. We also need to remember that most mental health problems experienced by adults have their origins in childhood.(3)