
Children and teens are usually neither indifferent to nor unaware of political realities. These aren’t just abstractions for many boys and girls: They are their future. And in a 2021 study that our team conducted with 240 teens, 70% of girls said that they “very much” missed seeing people during the pandemic, compared with only 28% of boys reporting that sentiment.Ī second factor is social media, which can be a wonderful source of support but also, at times, a crushing blow to the self-esteem and psychological well-being of girls.įinally, we think that all young people are struggling with issues like climate change and social upheaval. Previous CDC research has shown that the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected girls. In our view, a number of key factors have converged to create this mental health crisis in teen girls. Since 2020, we’ve seen more changes in girls, overall, including increases in depression and thoughts of suicide. We are a research team that studies children and their social and emotional development, and during the pandemic we’ve been specifically focused on mental health in children and adolescents. What’s worse, 30% of the girls surveyed reported seriously considering suicide and 13% attempted suicide one or more times in 2021. teen girls ‘in crisis’ with unprecedented rise in suicidal behavior That’s nearly twice as high as the 29% of males who reported having those feelings in 2021. But new research suggests that teen girls in particular are suffering in unprecedented ways.Ī survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that was published in early February 2023 found that, in 2021, 57% of high school girls reported experiencing “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the past year,” up from 36% in 2011.


It’s a well-established fact that children’s and teens’ mental health took a hit during the pandemic.
