Overparenting, technology leading to anxiety in children as young as six 

CUH sees referrals of children as young as six years old who are suffering from anxiety

Twenty-five-year-old Amy Morgan remembers all too well what it was like to be a teen with anxiety.

Colman Noctor, a child and adolescent psychotherapist who works with St Patrick’s Mental Health Services in Dublin says he has never met so many anxious children and parents in the last five years.  And while Covid-19 isn’t helping “being told to keep away from people, not to go there, not to share things when we are already anxious is not good and I do worry about the long-term repercussions.” Over-parenting and technology seem to be driving the anxiety amongst our young children. “It tells us that children nowadays cannot cope with the pressures and also in some ways that our children are lacking in resilience”.

I wonder whether we have over-sanitised our children’s lives, that we haven’t introduced them into disappointment or frustration