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Financial Stress and Young People: How to Help Your Child Endure Difficult Economic Times

By Hugh C. McBride

 Most of the headlines about the nation’s current financial crisis have focused on the many ways in which adults have been impacted. Lost jobs, missed mortgage payments, and reduced access to credit have understandably dominated the news – but job seekers and homeowners are not the only ones to be affected by the economic meltdown.

Pediatric mental health experts are advising parents to be on the lookout for signs that their children are experiencing undue amounts of stress, fear, or anxiety related to their family’s financial problems.
“During these economic times, parents really need to be sensitized to their children's mental well-being,” Peter Moore, the executive director of Kinark (N.C.) Child and Family Services, said in a Feb. 11 article on the Durham Region News website. “You might see children acting out or having trouble at school and at the family level you might see parenting that is neglectful or harsh and inconsistent.”
A Fear-Inducing Moment in History
Clearly, the current state of financial affairs in the United States has provided ample cause for fear and confusion among individuals of all demographic and socioeconomic groups. In her Feb. 11 article in The Capitol Times, writer Samara Kalk Derby provided a bleak statistical snapshot of the nation’s stress levels:
Cries for help have increased nationwide. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline reported a 36 percent jump in calls over the last year, to 545,851 from 402,167.
Richard McKeon, a psychologist and federal public health expert, said crisis centers were reporting "a significant increase in the number of people who are giving economic reasons" for calling, whether it is "the loss of a job, loss of a home, or fear of that." …
The Suicide Prevention Resource Center conducted a review of research published in the past two decades that shows a strong relationship between unemployment, the economy and suicide.
“A common 'chain of adversity' can begin with job loss and move toward depression through financial strain and loss of personal control,” according to a report the center put out in November. The chain can have many harmful effects. The most common – but by no means the only – mental health outcome is depression, which significantly increases the risk of suicide.
Though in the majority of cases they have neither jobs to lose nor mounting bills to pay, children are of course affected when financial pressures weigh down upon their parents. As their parents struggle to keep the family solvent, these pressures may manifest themselves in children in a number of ways, including unexplained illnesses, mood changes, and a decline in academic performance.
The Emotional Impact of Poverty
Though economic stress can be particularly damaging to young people’s mental well-being, so, too, can the actual experience of being impoverished.
According to a Dec. 24, 2008 article on the Anxiety Insights website, a decade-long study at the Iowa State University Institute for Social and Behavioral Research has noted that children who experience socioeconomic adversity at an early age are at increased risk for experiencing mental health challenges during their teen years.
Mike Ferlazzo, the article’s author, noted that these emotional problems can inflict significant and lasting damage by “endangering their social, academic, and occupational attainment as young adults.” Ferlazzo reported that the researchers reached the following conclusions:
  • Since 1989, the Iowa State University researchers have been studying more than 500 families from an eight-county area northwest of Ames in the Iowa Youth and Families Project.
  • For their economic adversity/depression study, the researchers evaluated 485 adolescents from 1991 to 2001.
  • The ISU researchers assessed the socioeconomic status of each adolescent’s family of origin in 1991 by analyzing a number of factors including family structure, parental education, and the number of negative life events that the family experienced.
  • The researchers then quantified a number of early life events that were experienced by the adolescent subjects, such as cohabitation, pregnancy, parenthood, marriage, or leaving home at an earlier than average age. They also measured depressive symptoms that the subjects exhibited from adolescence to young adulthood, as well as their social status attainment as young adults.
  • They found that family adversity persists in children by initiating depressive symptoms in adolescence. That influence increases the occurrence of early disruptive life events.
“The researchers conclude[d] that young people from poor families are particularly vulnerable to becoming ‘trapped in the self-perpetuating cycle of adverse life circumstances and poor health,’” Ferlazzo wrote.
Identifying Adolescent Anxiety
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) reports that between 10 and 20 percent of American children are affected by “overwhelming and debilitating anxieties.” Though not every child who is affected by the family’s economic stress will develop debilitating anxiety, experts advise parents to be on the lookout for tell-tale signs that often go unnoticed.
“Kids who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, they are disruptive in the classroom, teachers notice it, families notice it, everybody notices it,” Dr. John Walkup, a pediatric psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins Children's Center, said in an Oct. 30, 2008 ABC News article. “Anxiety kids are quiet, they are the ones who people miss, they kind of fall between the cracks, if you will, because they are anxious, they are avoidant.”
The AACAP website offers the following indicators of anxiety in children and adolescents:
·        Symptoms generally include excessive fears and worries, feelings of inner restlessness, and a tendency to be excessively wary and vigilant.
·        In a social setting, anxious teenagers may appear dependent, withdrawn, or uneasy. They seem either overly restrained or overly emotional. They may be preoccupied with worries about losing control or unrealistic concerns about social competence.
·        Teenagers who suffer from excessive anxiety regularly experience a range of physical symptoms as well. They may complain about muscle tension and cramps, stomachaches, headaches, pain in the limbs and back, fatigue, or discomforts associated with pubertal changes. They may blotch, flush, sweat, hyperventilate, tremble, and startle easily.
·        When flooded with anxiety, adolescents may appear extremely shy. They may avoid their usual activities or refuse to engage in new experiences. They may protest whenever they are apart from friends. Or in an attempt to diminish or deny their fears and worries, they may engage in risky behaviors, drug experimentation, or impulsive sexual behavior.
Avoiding Fears, Overcoming Anxiety
In many cases, a child’s finance-related fears can be put to rest by having an age-appropriate discussion about the challenges that the family is (or may soon be) facing.
When speaking to younger children, it is important to emphasize that they are loved and cared for, and that even in difficult times their parent(s) are going to continue to provide them with the affection and support that they need. Older children may be given more specific details, but shouldn’t be overwhelmed with negative information or used as a “sounding board” for the parents’ frustrations.
The following are a few tips to keep in mind when talking to your children about the family’s financial situation:
1.      Be Honest – As every parent knows, children are acutely aware of what’s going on in their families. Don’t try to gloss over problems; instead, address the current reality in an age-appropriate manner.
2.      Don’t Overshare – There’s nothing wrong with telling your children that your family may be experiencing some difficulties – but there’s no value in scaring them with a worst-case scenario. Break the big problems down into digestible bites, and feed them to your children slowly.
3.      Listen – You can’t address your children’s fears unless you know what they are. And while your concerns may be holding onto the house or finding affordable medical coverage, your child may be most concerned about having to go to a different school, or whether he’ll be able to join the community soccer league in the fall. Find out what’s worrying your child, and address that matter.
4.      Continue the Conversation – As with most significant discussions you’ll have with your child, talking about finance should never be considered a “one and done.” Use the current crisis as a learning experience – talk about the necessity of planning ahead, discuss personal finance tips and pitfalls, and engage your child in an ongoing conversation about the important issues of the day.
If your conversations and efforts to reassure your child do not dispel the anxiety that he is feeling, professional intervention may be called for. Untreated adolescent anxiety can lead to a host of serious problems, but both outpatient and residential care have proved to be effective means of addressing the problem. For more information, contact your child’s school guidance counselor, consult with your family physician, or educate yourself online about effective treatment for adolescent anxiety.