The pandemic had a “diverse” impact on children’s mental health, the findings of a survey suggest so far. 

Since 2022, sociologists have been combing through data derived from the ‘Growing Up in Ireland’ project - a study in which thousands of children are interviewed at regular intervals about life.

The study is funded by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and aims to provide officials with data to shape national policy.

“We’re mostly interested in looking to see whether there was any continuity or discontinuity in mental health through the pandemic,” University of Limerick Professor Ross MacMillan told The Pat Kenny Show.

“So, looking at the broader history of mental health among children and then seeing how they adapted to the pandemic conditions.”

Children students in medical masks leave the school.

Overall, Professor MacMillan said there was no typical experience during the pandemic years and the survey has found the impact of the period has been “diverse”.

“Kids who had a fairly good home environment, who had a place where they could study, who had quiet spaces, who stayed connected to friends and family, they tended to do okay,” he said.

“As you said, a lot of it has to do with what the previous experiences were like; if kids really, really love school, then obviously being separated from school is problematic.

"But if the kid struggles in school or struggles with peers, then having a break from school can actually be a good thing.”

Social interaction

Notably, while many children found it difficult to be away from school for prolonged periods of time, other children positively welcomed the chance to get away from their peers during lockdown.

“Most kids did not actually have mental health issues that seemed to be reflective of broader conditions of illness or exposure to the disease itself,” Professor MacMillan said.

“Instead, it was the massive disruption that came from shutting down schools and community programmes and moving everything indoors, having parents and kids in close quarters to one another for long periods of time, having social isolation so you couldn’t see friends and family.

“Those are things that seemed to really impact upon kids and not surprisingly there was a lot of variation in that.”

An older cohort within the ‘Growing Up in Ireland’ project were interviewed in 2015, just after the economic crash, and Professor MacMillan is comparing how the two groups were living through such difficult world events.

Main image: Children wearing masks in school. Photo by Jerome Domine/ABACAPRESS.COM