While many employers have stepped up their
Brightline, a virtual behavioral care platform for children, found that 85% of caregivers feel that spending time on their child's behavioral health impacts their ability to work. Since the start of the pandemic, 20% of caregivers noticed that their child needed more medical care, mental health help, or educational services than what they felt was normal for a child their age.
Given how the pandemic transformed workplaces and schools, Dr. David Grodberg, chief psychiatric officer at Brightline, doesn't find these responses too shocking. Three years into the pandemic and families are still faced with unclear futures.
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"There's so much uncertainty now and wondering what the new normal is going to be," says Dr. Grodberg. "And what we learned is that children are significantly psychologically stressed."
Mental Health America estimates that 15% of kids, aged 12 to 17, have experienced at least one major depressive episode in the last year. And when their children are stressed and struggling, parents are intimately involved.
"When children are anxious, it's well known that it takes quite a toll on parents," says Dr. Grodberg. "As parents, we're wired as humans to make our children feel better when they're distressed and to protect them."
On top of what's going on in the home, employees are also juggling uncertainties outside of it, too. Employers are still figuring out how much they want employees back in the office, or if they should keep their workforce at home. Additionally, this winter's "tridemic" of COVID, flu and RSV has spread like wildfire in schools and homes. Over 15.2 million children have now tested positive for COVID, according to the CDC, and half a million children are estimated to have long COVID.
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Even kids who are back to a normal school schedule may have troubles that seep into their parents' work. A parent may be called by the school because of an incident involving their child, or find themselves to 30 different text messages from a kid looking for reassurance, explains Dr. Grodberg. Since children have more trouble finding the words to express themselves, their feelings manifest through their behavior, which could seem erratic or out of character.
Knowing that mental health challenges are likely to persist if not addressed in childhood, Dr. Grodberg underlines how important it is for parents to have access to pediatric mental healthcare. Because ultimately the well-being of one's
"Employers have an opportunity to support employees in a way they perhaps didn't before," says Dr. Grodberg. "But whatever resource it is, it has to be something that meets parents where they are."
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Dr. Grodberg advises employers to work with third parties that not only offer affordable therapy for children but behavioral coaching, noting that some parents may feel skeptical about sending their children to a therapist. Behavioral coaching focuses more on helping children develop better life skills for the future, while a therapist would ask their patients to explore their past and the reasoning behind their behavior.
Most importantly, Dr. Grodberg asks that employers do not underestimate the difference between pediatric-trained therapists and a therapist for adults.
"There are adult mental health companies using adult interventions that they simply implement with kids and teenagers," he says. "But you want a truly developmental approach that is designed for the awareness of children and accounts for parents as well as other stakeholders that are inevitably involved in kids' lives, like teachers and pediatricians."
