More than a year into the COVID-19 crisis, people are struggling to cope—with grief from losing hundreds of thousands to this virus, worry about our families’ safety, and anger and fear sparked by ongoing issues like racism and discrimination.
This cumulative stress is taking a toll on mental and physical health. And, critically, some populations are being disproportionately affected—including communities of color, essential workers, and parents of young children.
Pandemic-related stress has also had an enormous effect on children, who, because of their age, face unique challenges with coping. APA and the field of psychology are working at the individual and community levels to help children effectively cope now and build future resilience.
Here are two examples of approaches we are taking:
- Infusing a developmental perspective into strategies and solutions.
The neurological, emotional, and social characteristics that change with age lead children to think and behave differently than adults. APA and psychologists are helping children and their caregivers employ stress-reduction strategies that more accurately connect to children’s evolving capabilities. We are also helping parents, caregivers, and teachers understand the importance of social milestones for healthy youth development—such as attending graduation—and how to provide support when milestones are missed. - Focusing on children’s strengths.
Psychological research with children is weighted toward a focus on pathology, which limits the solutions we can develop. APA is raising awareness about biases like this that shape our work, particularly for children of color. For instance, while Black youth exhibit lower levels of substance use and suicide than White youth, most studies have remained centered around reducing the likelihood of negative outcomes. Now, with Black youth suicide rising dramatically, we see how relying on this perspective has led to missed opportunities to identify the protective factors that could help address these issues. APA is also using a strengths-based approach to inform public policy affecting children. For example, we participated in an invited conversation with the National Parent Teacher Association on the importance of mental health support in schools, enabling us to talk about resilience and its importance to children’s long-term educational success.
As an organization and a field, we can have a positive impact on children if we use knowledge from the breadth of our field and work with partners to support children—today and far into the future.
