Managing children’s mental health around the cost-of-living crisis

With an estimated 23.4 million people unable to afford the cost of living, this is a time of deepening challenge and crisis not just for adults, but also for children and young people. Many families are facing rising costs and youngsters are experiencing increased anxiety and worry las a result, leading to an upsurge in children’s’ mental health worries.

Children will be affected by stresses and strains on their parents and other family members as much by stressors directly on themselves. It’s important to recognise that as a parent you can only to a limited extent ‘protect’ your kids from your stresses as they will pick up on the negative cues. With something like the COL crisis, they will not be able to avoid it due to it being featured so prominently and even if as a family you are managing economically, others in their schools may not for example. Also, kids can pick up on and be affected significantly by issues in the news recent examples being of course COVID, the Ukraine war and now the COL.

Aston spoke to psychotherapist Noel McDermott.