Mental Health Awareness Week: How kids' mental health is being affected by Covid-19

Overworked and under-supported

A report from the Education Review Office about how students have adapted to learning from home during lockdown showed that three-quarters of students surveyed felt they were not able to cope as well with the workload and expectations while learning from home, and that the support they required was not readily available. 

This stress was particularly felt by students in their final years of schooling (years 11-13) who were completing NCEA, gearing up to apply for university and trying to meet certain grade requirements to ensure their acceptance. 

There is also growing concern among principals that upcoming exams might be cancelled if alert levels continue to fluctuate, which is causing distress and uncertainty in students. 

Despite these claims, some high-school students managed the shift to distance learning well and made the best out of an unusual situation. 

Antoinette Proctor, an Auckland-based part-time primary school teacher with two high-school aged kids said while her 14-year-old daughter was quite self-sufficient with the distance learning, her 15-year-old son required a little more prompting to get on with his studies. However, neither of them struggled with an overwhelming workload or mental health stress. 

"Both of our kids' schools were very supportive, neither of them felt overworked. Their schools were very supportive and the message was always to do the best you could under the circumstances and to take care of your mental health," Antoinette says. 

Double the lockdown, double the pressure

Auckland high school students have been more seriously affected than their peers in other parts of the country, with the second lockdown in August and September putting them at a disadvantage for their end-of-year exams. 

Steve Hargreaves, president of the Auckland Secondary Schools Principals' Association told the NZ Herald that a "really common theme" among Auckland students was the struggle to catch-up after the second lockdown, and that school counsellors had been busy trying to calm students down and help them focus.  

"Their learning's been disrupted, but in fact their whole year has been disrupted whether it's family life, social connections or student leadership opportunities – all aspects of their life," he says. 

To address some of these concerns, the government recently announced that students who went through both lockdowns will receive some relief to ensure they are still able to reach their academic goals. They will require fewer NCEA credits to pass their exams and be given the opportunity to catch up over summer school if they have fallen behind throughout the lockdown periods. 

Lesley Butler, Team Leader of national counselling hotline and web chat service for your people, 0800What'sUp, found high-school-aged students anxieties seemed to be about university requirements and falling behind. 

"Young people would mention that they were feeling anxious about doing their school lessons without a teacher and even though they may have felt supported by their school and teacher – they found it hard to stay focussed and be self-motivated," she says. 

Antoinette feels the impact of the lockdowns went beyond academic results, noting her extroverted daughter struggled with the lack of socialising during the second lockdown. 

"My daughter found being away from her friends very isolating, especially the second time around. She was really disappointed because her birthday was during the second lockdown and she had to cancel her party, so there were a few stuggles for her mentally being a teenager who thrives on socialising and having to limit that social contact," Antoinette says. 

Kids can be resilient

Parents of primary-school-aged children struggled with slightly different issues, having to find new ways of balancing their work-home life, helping with at-home learning, and ensuring they were keeping their kids informed without sending them into a panic. 

Lesley from What's Up says during the first lockdown younger children, in particular were using their service and expressing feelings of anxiety about the unknown situation. 

"We found that we had quite a lot of young people contacting us feeling anxious, they were worried about what it was going to be like in lockdown with their families and away from their friends.

For quite a few of them, however, they found it wasn't actually that bad, because often their parents made a real effort with them, always creating activities and keeping them entertained," she says. 

MAS's Andrew Smith, whose family of four spent the March and April lockdown staying with his parents-in-law, says his young kids dealt with the unusual situation really well. 

"Our kids are eight and six, and they tend to live in the moment. They need some routine to their days but they probably dealt with the situation better than my wife and I did. 

"Having their parents and grandparents around them the whole time was a bit of a novelty, and they certainly didn't lack attention. It was harder for the adults, who had to monitor work sent home from the school, deal with the usual squabbles, and try to keep up with full-time jobs. 

Andrew says the adults were concerned with how much information they shared with the children about the pandemic, and how the situation was explained. 

"It's always a bit tricky with kids that age. Often they'll seem like they're not paying attention to something and are off in their own little world. But they have a knack for picking up on conversations you didn't realise they were listening to. So we were very careful about how we spoke about the pandemic, particularly when it came to the health impacts on older members of the community."

According to Andrew's eight-year-old son, the lockdown had its up and downs. 

"The lockdown was kind of fun to start with because my parents and grandparents were around but it got boring after a while. I liked going back to school to see my friends but I didn't like having homework to do again."

His six-year-old sister agrees.

"I liked lockdown because I got to play on the computer. But I also liked seeing my teacher Miss Bishop and my best friend Mackenzie when we got back to school."

Creating a new routine

Amisha Patel, veterinarian and owner of a suburban vet practice says her kids aged two and four really struggled with lockdown. 

Her eldest child was at pre-school and her youngest child was being transitioned to daycare right before lockdown started, which made for a pretty stressed-out bubble. 

"My husband and I had just bought a business in February and then Covid-19 hit in March. We were in the process of transitioning my son to daycare and that was really hard as it was. He did not want to be separated from us, but I needed to be able to get our business up and running. 

"While my husband was busy with clinical work, I was at home working full-time to establish our business while caring for our kids. It was a stressful time to be honest, as I wasn't able to give them the attention I wanted to," she says. 

Amisha tried to mitigate the stress her kids were feeling by creating strict daily routines to give them structure. 

"We started every morning with a long walk – the walks got longer and longer, we just needed to be out of the house. These became a lifesaver and really helped to relax them. 

"Every mealtime I would give them my undivided attention and it became a really social, special time," she says. 

One positive thing that came out of the situation was one-on-one time she got to spend with her daughter, Amisha says. 

"My daughter made comments that she really liked the 'mummy time' she got with me when her little brother was sleeping. So making more time for just her and I is something we'll carry on as it was a nice bonding experience and we feel closer," she says.