Teenagers' stress and anxiety levels are at an all-time high with middle-class children the worst affected
- Teenagers are suffering record levels of anxiety, Government report finds
- Middle-class children have higher levels of stress, the research discovered
- Reliance on tablets and smartphones could be contributing to their anxiety
Suffering: Over a third of girls experience serious anxiety
Teenagers are suffering record levels of anxiety – with middle-class children affected most, a Government report has found.
Mental-health problems among young people are greater than when a similar exercise was undertaken in 2005, with a quarter showing serious ‘clinical’ symptoms.
Girls are now particularly badly affected with 37 per cent of girls exhibiting symptoms serious enough for a doctor to become involved.
The report for the Department of Education found that teenagers increasingly feel less in control of their destinies, and their rising reliance on tablets and smartphones could be contributing to their anxiety.
The study said teenagers had been growing up during ‘a particularly challenging time’ and its most striking finding was that children from ‘advantaged’ households had significantly higher levels of psychological distress.
Child psychotherapist Dilys Daws said: ‘Middle-class parents have higher aspirations for the future of their children, so their feelings about the enormous uncertainty that there is in society might be passing down to their children.
‘Mixing with other people in the real world rather than the virtual world of social media can really improve people’s mood.’
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