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Much has been said about how the pandemic shutdown not only robbed kids of vital socialization and education, but also left them vulnerable to declining mental health<\/a>, amplifying already debilitating struggles.\u00a0<\/p>\n But a new study,<\/a> published in the journal JAMA Network Open,<\/em> has also found a surprise: that the early COVID isolation may have actually helped improve, ever so slightly, the mental health struggles<\/a> of some children.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe would have expected a lot of declines in mental health over time,\u201d one of the lead authors, Kaja LeWinn, professor at the University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco, tells Fortune<\/em>. \u201cWe actually found some improvements, specifically for kids with significant behavioral problems.\u201d<\/p>\n The study was based on the self-reported responses of over 1,200 children ages 6 to 17 who completed a checklist, before and during the pandemic, from the National Institute of Health\u2019s Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO<\/a>) Program. LeWinn and fellow lead author Courtney Blackwell, professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, pursued their research to understand what kind of impact the pandemic had on children, with the data from pre- and mid-pandemic.<\/p>\n Of the participants, those who entered the pandemic with significant, or \u201cclinically meaningful\u201d mental health problems\u2014including anxiety, depression, or ADHD behaviors such as struggling to focus in class\u2014saw the greatest improvements, what researchers called \u201cmedium decreases\u201d of their pre-pandemic numbers, of about 3% to 5%. And while low-income and Black children experienced smaller decreases in ADHD compared with higher income and white children\u2014about 0.5%\u2014even the smaller decreases, LeWinn said, can have an impact.<\/p>\n She added that while some of their findings supported other research on this topic\u2014such as girls faring worse<\/a> than boys and the benefit of remote learning<\/a> for some\u2014they expanded ways of understanding kids\u2019 mental health by studying specific demographics to find that not all kids struggled equally, or at all, with their mental health.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is adding some nuance to the picture,\u201d LeWinn says.<\/p>\n The largest improvements were reflected in children who had more externalizing mental health behaviors, more prone to outbursts or trouble paying attention, LeWinn says.\u00a0<\/p>\n LeWinn and Blackwell don\u2019t know the exact reasons why some children saw improvements, but they have some ideas.<\/p>\n For the kids who act out most at school, LeWinn said, being in class can be pretty stressful. \u201cIt can be a very challenging environment,\u201d LeWinn says. \u201cYou\u2019re being asked to pay attention constantly, and it\u2019s demanding.\u201d<\/p>\n LeWinn and Blackwell think that a break from those conditions due to the shutdown may have been helpful, leading to the improvements they saw.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re really anxious, being able to stay at home might relieve some of that stress, some of that pressure of being at school,\u201d Blackwell adds.<\/p>\n LeWinn said the kids included were a fairly diverse bunch, with 52% identifying as white, 32% as Black, 12% as multiracial, 3% as another race, and nearly 10% as Hispanic. She said they came from diverse economic backgrounds as well.<\/p>\n With such a variety of experiences, not every child will experience improvements to their mental health, especially in a time as difficult as the pandemic.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we were trying to show, at least in these exploratory ways, was that the pandemic wasn\u2019t the same for everybody,\u201d Blackwell tells Fortune.<\/em><\/p>\n Of the kids whose mental health problems increased during the pandemic, Blackwell and LeWinn found they were more often experiencing internalized issues, such as anxiety and depression.<\/p>\n LeWinn wanted to emphasize that while their findings reflected different mental health experiences for kids, they were paving the way for future research to dive into those differences and why they\u2019re occurring.<\/p>\n Blackwell and LeWinn realized that the pandemic took children out of school, creating an unusual situation that inspired their research into how COVID-19 impacted kids\u2019 mental health\u2014a topic that still begs further study.<\/p>\n \u201cWe really just wanted to provide some insights into what might be happening and stimulate some future work,\u201d LeWinn said. \u201cIt really probably is not the same story for all kids and some may be doing very differently than others.\u201d<\/p>\n LeWinn and Blackwell emphasize that this study does not mean the pandemic was a particularly good time for anyone. While they were only looking at mental health, there were numerous other factors that influenced kids\u2019 wellbeing during COVID-19.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was bad for children,\u201d LeWinn says. \u201cThese small effects on mental health, they are dwarfed by the negative impacts on educational outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n While they were surprised at the outcome of their research, LeWinn adds, \u201cI think it\u2019s really important to be clear that a lot of these effects were small.\u201d<\/p>\n They hope their work will lead to other studies that look more closely at the subgroups they worked with, such as different races, genders, and socioeconomic backgrounds, to create a better, more nationally representative picture of how the pandemic affected kids before, during, and after.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe we saw these\u2026immediate effects and they weren\u2019t that big,\u201d Blackwell says, \u201cBut if there\u2019s something we can take from this break that they had from school, or what was that environment that promoted their mental health getting better,\u201d then hopefully, \u201cwe can address these inequities moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n For more on mental health:<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Subscribe to Well Adjusted, our newsletter full of simple strategies to work smarter and live better, from the Fortune Well team.\u00a0Sign up<\/a>\u00a0for free today.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nKids who started out with significant mental problems improved<\/h2>\n
For other kids, COVID-19 presented more challenges<\/strong><\/h2>\n
But make no mistake: The pandemic was very hard overall<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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