Why are so many children suffering from anxiety?

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I'm watching an episode of 'School' where the Head is saying the number of children with anxiety is increasing every year, seems to be backed up by research too.

I don't have children yet but I'm aware of how debilitating anxiety can be and so guess I am wondering out loud why so many more children have anxiety these days?

What part of this is in the control of parents? What can we do to try to build more resilience in children?

Do any of those with DC who have anxiety have thoughts about what has caused it?

I think it’s a mix of increased recognition and diagnosis of anxiety- (in theory a good thing so long as there are enough resources to help anxious children and adults deal with this.)

A lot of otherwise typically emotionally calm and happy adults that I know are now noticeably more anxious than they used to be (financial pressures, job competition, climate change news, 24h news, social media pressures). I feel that too. Very understandable unfortunately that greater numbers of kids and young people exposed to many of these things will become stressed or anxious as a part of that.

Education pressures were huge in my kids school. Only 'options' go to uni ... thick if you weren't academic. Total crap system

Not being as carefree. Having to record everything on social media. Having too much alone time.

I think many social aspects like phoning a friend or spending quality time together with friends without phones or it being just to tale pictures has made life much more restricted and miserable. Also kids grow up so much faster.

Also body image. Plastic surgery, hair extensions and super white teeth are so normal now. No longer are you comparing yourself to celebs but scrolling through perfect image after perfect image on sm. Then apps to change pictures makes your own image unobtainable! ! Reality tv has made unhealthy relationships look ok with cheating ect. It's all so messed up.

I get that there are pros and cons with different approaches but the modular system (exams every 6 months for several years) really ramped my anxiety. I kind of visualized it as an exam treadmill of which you'd be utterly fucked if you fell off.

I think there should be more to education than constantly cramming for exams.

Early childhood bereavement, not just once but several times, leading to strong attachment issues with primary carer and issues surrounding not wanting to attend school. Bullying at school in both KS1 and again in KS2. Starting to put pressure on oneself to be the best regardless of family saying that trying ones best was all that was needed and grades not important. Family illness that meant lots of time being spent assisting others, then a parent so ill they almost died - it's a culmination of life experiences.

Children, from a young age, just aren’t allowed to just be anymore.
The education system stifles curiosity and creativity.
Everything is so prescriptive now. Even a piece of creative writing has to have the right components or it’s not good enough.
Where’s the playing outside, getting dirty, running through open space (it’s all confined)?
Where’s the painting and art work where self expression prevailed?
Instead of running around and figuring the outside world out with friends, kids are stuck at home or in more prescriptive clubs or in their fake virtual worlds.
It just seems they’re told what to do at every turning so what happens when they need to figure out what to do by themselves and become more independent?

I don't know generally but in our case I point to schooling. Going too early ds was not ready but we had no choice - he was a end of July baby. He cried every day when he got home for most of reception, he failed to meet his early learning goals - teacher refused to allow Speech Therapist to assess him in the classroom. Next teacher Year 1 really struggled to deal with his inability to listen - he wasn't disruptive just wasn't present - years later, his classmates remember how horrible the teacher was to him all year.
We moved schools - things got better. less pressure more focus of the whole child rather than solely on academics, ds diagnosed with Aspergers...change of Head Teacher coincided with entry into Year 6 and obscene pressure from teacher to improve sats scores on a daily basis - ds started to bang his head against the wall - I threatened to pull him out of school if the situation continued - teacher was responsive and had been unaware of the impact of the pressure on the kids, was really quite horrified - things improved again. Later on other parents spoke to me about their kids showing signs of stress in Yr 6 - not about the actual exams but about the pressure coming from the Yr 6 teacher.

Yes, every piece of work comes back with an 'even better if' on it. So your child can never feel like what they have achieved is good enough. What happened to just putting a tick and 'good work'?

I went to primary school in the early eighties and we never had homework or spellings or reading. Yet nearly everyone I knew read for fun. Having spent their primary years being made to read, neither of my children look upon reading as something fun to do.

You went to school, played with your friends and did some work, then went home and played with your friends some more. If you weren't working and messing around at school you would get told off. But it wasn't about results and producing good work, but about doing your best and behaving.

I'm not saying it was perfect. My dsis was dyslexic which wasn't a recognised condition where we lived at the time and she had a tough time until things were sorted out for her. But primary school was definitely more relaxed and there was a view that the harder work started when you went up to secondary.

People are very anxious because they are under huge amounts of pressure to “perform” in life to largely unavoidable externally determined standards that may well not suit them at all, but society offers them no alternative. Children used to be partially protected from this pressure by their parents but parents are so busy that children spend increasing amounts of time either in institutions with external targets and demands (nursery... from a few months!) or alone. It’s horrific.

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/27/exam-stress-creating-troubled-generation-ex-civil-service-chief-gus-odonnell

I went to school in the 90s and was a very anxious child but described more as 'shy and quiet', maybe the terminology is also changing?

1950s-1970s American kids lived on processed foods. We weren't prone to anxiety; very opposite, in fact. We did take lots & lots of risks. So learnt how to deal with risks & failure & saw them as normal.

The children aren’t different, ragged. It’s the externally imposed standards that are driving people insane.

I can only speak from our (relatively new) experience.

We are fortunate enough to live in a street with lots of young families and the kids are out playing all the time... there's about 5 or 6 of them out right now playing nerf wars. They climb trees and play football and take camping gear out to set up all summer and whenever it's not bucketing down in the winter. I honestly don't think he's feeling pressured at school either.

DH and I, although working full-time, arrange our hours to make sure one of us takes DS to school every day and we pick him up at least one, but usually two days/week.

He knows he is loved as we tell him and show him all the time. We play with him, as in proper play. Imaginex, Lego, games (headbands, giant jenga, game of life etc) so he most definitely isn't devoid of love or attention.

So, according to the undercurrent of blame running through this thread, the only 2 possible 'causes' are losing his papa last year and my struggles with my Mums suicide a couple of years ago. He exhibited anxious behaviour well before my Dad died though, it's just become more acute in recent months.

It breaks my heart to think I could be responsible in some way (even if not within my control) for his current anxious state

Is it not possible that some children, just like some adults, develop a mental health problem which isn't necessarily caused by anything in particular?

I think we all have our own breaking points - the limits are tested by a combination of factors - but increase in testing at school and the pressure on teachers to get the kids to perform is undeniable...it doesn't take much more for some kids to give way to anxiety and mental health problems.

Is it not possible that some children, just like some adults, develop a mental health problem which isn't necessarily caused by anything in particular

No. Adults don’t develop anxiety for no reason and not do children.

@Badadadum we are meeting with a school counsellor (I think that's what she is anyway) on the first day back in January, so I won't rule out possible school pressure.

@MariaNovella I really do hope there's a reason, as that means there could/should be a solution.

Is it not possible that some children, just like some adults, develop a mental health problem which isn't necessarily caused by anything in particular?

I do believe some people are more predisposed than others to struggle with things like anxiety, depression etc. There still needs to be a catalyst for it though be it social,environmental or hormonal. The issue is (in my uneducated opinion) is that the catalyst can be something so small and completely insignificant to people that aren't like that that it is difficult to pinpoint or accepted as a "reason". The even bigger issue is that because the reason is so insignificant that it gets dismissed, the problems following(anxiety for example) get dismissed too and so does the child.

@Gincompetant, I hope things get better for DD

@Gincompetent Absolutely. The world has spent far too long entertaining the vacuous hypothesis that mental health problems are spontaneous chemical imbalances in the brain. Nope. They are rational reactions to distressing circumstances.

Because no one is allowed to feel negatibe emotioms any more. You can't be anxious. You have to 'suffer from anxiety disorder' and it becomes a terribel ordeal. Loads of teens are bags of nerves and neurosis. We all were. I had friends with bulimia, anorexia, self harm, depression. It just wasn;t treated in those days. You got told to pull yourself together and then took another thirty years to figure out you still needed professional help

@Gincompetent I think it's hard because the school will not want to admit they put pressure on the kids, ds's teacher had no clue.
My ds's class was told every day they had to improve results or they'd be kept in at break time - he was top of his class and working to the best of his ability - so I was certain he wasn't messing around - teacher was really surprised that ds thought she was talking to him when she issued the threats about not improving - he apparently should have realised she was only talking to the 5 kids in the class who never did any work - she said she couldn't speak to those kids directly because it wouldn't be fair on them. When I explained the effect the pressure was having on ds - the teacher shared with me that her partner suffered from anxiety & mental health issues - she was really horrified that she was part of the problem. Things improved enormously after that.
He's doing GCSE's this year and he is coping, I try to be supportive but he there's no pressure from me, there is some from the school but no punishments or threats and even if there was, he is now old enough to know that he should just ignore the teacher or ask for my support in getting them to back off.

My 8 year old has had anxiety symptoms since year 1, so aged 5. It was caused by violent bullying and sexual assualt by classmates. But mostly, by teachers ineffectiveness at dealing with the bully and protecting her. It has many manifestations, including frequent vomiting, sensory issues, self-harm, suicide ideation, panic attacks, out of body experiences, OCD, school refusal, controlling behaviours

But to be honest, speaking more generally; the world/society is a shit show just now; and anxiety/depression is a completely reasonable reaction to it