Post-COVID Mental Health: Why Young People Are Still Struggling and What Parents Can Do

Post-Covid how is the mental health of young people?

As a counsellor working with families every day, I've witnessed firsthand the profound impact that COVID-19 has had on young people's mental health. The statistics are staggering - rates of probable mental disorders in children aged 8-16 have nearly doubled from 10.8% in 2017 to 20.3% in 2023. But behind these numbers are real children and families struggling to make sense of their experiences and find a way forward.

If you're a parent watching your child struggle, or if you're a young person feeling overwhelmed by emotions you can't quite understand, please know that you're not alone. The pandemic fundamentally changed the landscape of childhood and adolescence, and it's entirely understandable that young people are still processing these experiences.

Understanding the Depth of Impact

The research shows us something quite profound - this wasn't just a temporary disruption. Young women aged 17-19 now experience mental health difficulties at a rate of 31.6%, compared to 15.4% for young men. These aren't just statistics; they represent young people who may be sitting in your living room, struggling to articulate feelings of anxiety, depression, or confusion about their place in the world.

What particularly concerns me as a therapist is the dramatic rise in eating disorders - from 0.8% to 12.5% among 17-19 year olds. Eating disorders often emerge as a way to regain control when everything else feels chaotic. When young people couldn't control school closures, social isolation, or family stress, some turned to controlling food as the one thing that felt manageable.

The increase in self-harm behaviours - with 32.8% of 17-24 year olds having self-harmed at some point - tells us that many young people are carrying pain that feels too big to bear alone. These behaviours often represent an attempt to cope with overwhelming emotions when other outlets feel unavailable.

The Hidden Wounds of Isolation

One of the most devastating aspects of the pandemic for young people was the loss of face-to-face peer interaction during critical developmental periods. Adolescence is when we learn who we are through our relationships with others. When that process was interrupted, many young people found themselves feeling disconnected not just from their friends, but from themselves.

I've worked with many teenagers who describe feeling like they "missed out" on crucial years of growing up. Some feel younger than their peers, whilst others feel prematurely aged by the stress they've experienced. Both responses are completely normal reactions to an abnormal situation.

The research shows that 10% of 11-22 year olds reported feeling lonely often or always during lockdown. But loneliness in adolescence isn't just about missing friends - it's about missing the mirror that relationships provide, the way we learn about ourselves through how others see us.

How Different Ages Were Affected

What I find particularly important for families to understand is that different age groups experienced distinct challenges:

Primary school children (ages 4-11) showed more behavioural and attention difficulties. These children needed external structure to help them regulate their emotions, and when that disappeared, many struggled to manage their behaviour and attention.

Secondary school children (ages 11-18) experienced more emotional difficulties, particularly girls. This is the age when identity formation is most active, and the pandemic disrupted this crucial process.

Students facing transitions - whether starting secondary school, taking GCSEs, or preparing for university - faced additional stress as these important milestones were overshadowed by uncertainty.

The Ongoing Challenge

Four years on, we're not seeing a return to pre-pandemic baseline levels of mental health. This tells us that for many young people, the pandemic created lasting changes in how they see themselves and the world around them.

As someone who works within the emotional therapeutic counselling (ETC) framework, I see daily how these experiences have shaped young people's core beliefs about safety, relationships, and their own worth. Many carry an underlying anxiety about the future that wasn't there before, or a sense that the world isn't as predictable or safe as they once believed.

How ETC Can Help Young People and Families

Emotional Therapeutic Counselling offers a particularly effective approach for supporting young people through these challenges because it recognises that the pandemic didn't just affect thoughts and behaviours - it touched something much deeper.

Healing the Wounded Inner Child

Many of the young people I work with experienced the pandemic during crucial developmental years. In ETC terms, their "inner child" - the part of them that holds their deepest emotions and needs - was wounded by experiences of fear, isolation, and uncertainty.

Through gentle inner child work, we can help young people reconnect with the parts of themselves that felt abandoned or frightened during the pandemic. This isn't about dwelling on the past, but about giving that younger part of themselves the validation and comfort they needed then, but perhaps didn't receive.

Processing Family Dynamics

The research shows that financial stress and family difficulties significantly amplified the pandemic's impact on children. Families that couldn't afford basic necessities saw higher rates of mental health problems in their children. This reminds us that children are deeply affected by family stress, even when parents try to shield them.

ETC's focus on family dynamics helps us understand how pandemic stress affected entire family systems. When parents were struggling with their own anxiety, job losses, or relationship difficulties, children absorbed this stress, often blaming themselves or feeling responsible for family problems.

Addressing Core Beliefs

Many young people have developed what we call "negative core beliefs" as a result of their pandemic experiences. They might believe "the world isn't safe," "I can't trust that good things will last," or "I'm not worthy of happiness." These beliefs often operate beneath conscious awareness but significantly impact how they approach relationships, school, and their future.

Through ETC, we help young people identify these beliefs and gently challenge them. We explore where these beliefs came from and help them develop more balanced, realistic ways of seeing themselves and their world.

Building Emotional Regulation Skills

One of the most practical aspects of ETC work with young people is helping them develop better emotional regulation skills. The pandemic often overwhelmed young people's natural coping mechanisms, leading to increased anxiety, depression, or behavioural difficulties.

We work together to understand what emotions feel like in the body, how to recognise early warning signs of overwhelm, and develop healthy ways to manage difficult feelings. This might include breathing exercises, grounding techniques, or creative ways to express emotions that feel too big for words.

Supporting the Whole Family

What I've learned through my work is that young people's mental health doesn't exist in isolation. The pandemic affected entire families, and healing often needs to happen at a family level too.

Understanding Parental Guilt

Many parents carry tremendous guilt about how the pandemic affected their children. They worry that they didn't do enough to protect their child's mental health, or that their own stress contributed to their child's difficulties. This guilt, whilst understandable, can actually interfere with the healing process.

In ETC, we help parents understand that they were doing their best in an impossible situation. No parent could have prevented all the impacts of a global pandemic. What matters now is how families move forward together.

Rebuilding Family Connection

The pandemic strained many family relationships. Families were together more than ever, but often under stress and without the usual outlets for tension. Some families found themselves in conflict more often, whilst others became disconnected despite physical proximity.

ETC can help families rebuild connection by creating space for everyone's experiences to be heard and validated. We explore how each family member experienced the pandemic differently and help them understand and support each other more effectively.

Creating New Family Narratives

One of the most powerful aspects of ETC work with families is helping them create new narratives about their pandemic experience. Rather than seeing it only as a time of loss and trauma, families can begin to recognise the resilience they showed, the ways they supported each other, and the strength they discovered they didn't know they had.

This doesn't mean minimising the difficulties they faced, but rather developing a more complete story that includes both the challenges and their capacity to survive and grow.

Practical Steps Forward

If you're recognising your family's experience in this discussion, there are practical steps you can take:

For Parents:

Listen without trying to fix. Sometimes young people need to express their feelings before they're ready for solutions. Create space for them to share their pandemic experiences without immediately trying to make them feel better.

Validate their experience. Even if their concerns seem disproportionate to you, remember that their feelings are real and valid. The pandemic affected different people in different ways.

Model emotional regulation. Young people learn more from what they see than what they're told. Show them how you manage your own difficult emotions in healthy ways.

Seek support for yourself. You can't pour from an empty cup. Taking care of your own mental health isn't selfish - it's essential for supporting your child.

For Young People:

Know that your feelings are valid. Whatever you experienced during the pandemic, your emotional response is understandable and worthy of attention.

Reach out for support. Whether to a parent, friend, teacher, or counsellor, you don't have to manage these feelings alone.

Be patient with yourself. Healing isn't linear, and it's normal for difficult emotions to come and go as you process your experiences.

Focus on what you can control. Whilst you can't change what happened during the pandemic, you can influence how you respond to it now.

The Importance of Professional Support

Whilst families can do much to support each other, sometimes professional help is needed. The research shows that many young people are still struggling four years after the pandemic began, and this suggests that for some, the impact has been profound and lasting.

ETC offers a safe space for young people to explore their experiences without judgement. In counselling, they can express feelings they might not feel comfortable sharing with family members, work through complex emotions at their own pace, and develop personalised strategies for managing their mental health.

For families, ETC can provide a neutral space to improve communication, understand each other's experiences better, and develop stronger relationships moving forward.

Hope for the Future

Whilst the statistics about young people's mental health are concerning, I want to end with hope. In my practice, I see young people's remarkable capacity for resilience and healing every day. The pandemic was undeniably difficult, but it doesn't have to define the rest of their lives.

Young people who receive appropriate support often emerge from this experience with greater emotional intelligence, stronger coping skills, and deeper appreciation for relationships and community. The pandemic may have wounded them, but with the right support, those wounds can become sources of wisdom and strength.

Many of the young people I work with speak about having a different perspective on what really matters in life. They value relationships more deeply, have greater empathy for others who are struggling, and often show remarkable resilience in the face of new challenges.

Taking the First Step

Post-Covid, the mental health of young people is still recovering. If you're a parent concerned about your child, or a young person struggling with the ongoing effects of the pandemic, reaching out for support is a sign of strength, not weakness. The pandemic created challenges that no one was prepared for, and it's entirely reasonable to need help processing these experiences.

ETC offers a gentle, comprehensive approach that honours both the pain of what you've been through and your capacity for healing and growth. You don't have to carry the weight of the pandemic's impact alone.

The statistics tell us about the scope of the challenge we face as a society, but they don't tell the whole story. Behind every statistic is a young person with their own unique experience, their own strengths, and their own capacity for healing. With the right support, understanding, and patience, young people can not only recover from the pandemic's impact but emerge stronger and more resilient than before.

If any of this resonates with your experience, I encourage you to reach out. Whether to me or another qualified counsellor, taking that first step towards support is often the beginning of a journey towards greater understanding, healing, and hope for the future.