Children's mental health

[yourtimeisup]

Aibu to wonder just why children's mental health referrals are up by nearly 50%?
Surely we're better off now than ever? I wonder what's to blame?

Lack of MH support for parents doesn't help. It's not there even if you're sobbing at the GP's. Bitter experience .

Lots of reasons, I'd guess.

More awareness and openness about mental health, the old attitudes of "suck it up, buttercup" are slowly eroding and parents are more likely to seek support for their child rather than being either oblivious to the problem or not understanding the problem.

Pressure on children. SATs, GCSEs, social media, lack of freedom/independence, etc. Its a lot and it adds up.

Lack of funding and budget cuts means that problems which could have been resolved in the early stages via early intervention schemes in school (e.g., lunchtime friendship club to help with self-esteem and social issues) are now left to escalate and develop into much larger problems which require more interaction tive intervention (which there also isnt the budget for).

Lack of funding. It's utterly disgraceful how much funding has been cut in both children and adult MH services. I say this as a mental health worker who has recently been made redundant due to CCG cutting funding

There's a lot of pressure on kids academically, and from a very early age. This feeds into anxiety about the future, what jobs they'll get, whether they'll be able to support themselves.

Kids are worried about the environment, climate change, what the future holds in that sense.

They worry about Brexit and the impact it's going to have, and the social issues in society - the NHS, homelessness, poverty etc.

There's so much pressure to have lots of friends, to be popular, to be pretty, or fit, to be sexy, but not slutty. There's the issue of burgeoning sexuality, coming to terms with your sexuality, and if you're not heterosexual, it seems it's even more of a minefield. And LGBT+ are not unanimously supported and accepted.

They've got friends who have mental health issues, who offload onto them, that they are worried about and for.

They've got parents with relationship issues, addiction issues, money and employment worries.

Everything is amplified and magnified with social media, it's relentless.

Not easy being a kid of today!

I think social media is a big one. In the past you didn’t know what your friends and non-friends were up to outside school hours, now a lot of kids can end up feeling inadequate.

More likely to report and seek help for problems.

Also IMO there can sometimes be a tendency to over-diagnose. For example, where do you draw the line between ‘social anxiety’ and what we used to call shyness?

• I think social media is a big one. In the past you didn’t know what your friends and non-friends were up to outside school hours, now a lot of kids can end up feeling inadequate.

More likely to report and seek help for problems.

Also IMO there can sometimes be a tendency to over-diagnose. For example, where do you draw the line between ‘social anxiety’ and what we used to call shyness?*

I agree I was cripplingly shy when younger but now I think These days it'd be "sexed up" a bit with a "social anxiety" label