Why are so many children depressed? How environment makes or breaks children

What children and moms have told me

How children can feel happy and worthy

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Children's wellbeing asks for our attention

According to the World Health Organization, one in seven young people aged 10 to 19 worldwide experiences a mental health condition, with depression and anxiety among the most common. In my work I see that even very young children can feel sad, withdrawn or restless. These are signals worth listening to.

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A child is happiest when she can grow up in the circumstances she needs. When a child grows up in circumstances that fit her less well, you see it in her behaviour: she withdraws, becomes restless or difficult, or even depressed. Systems such as education, housing, city design and role patterns are mostly organised around adults. Children feel this and adapt to what is expected. In doing so, they set their own mission and wishes aside. So listen closely to children and let their voice be your compass.

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What children say they miss

When I talk with children, they rarely name their parents or family as the cause of their sadness. They struggle with the way society is arranged and with their physical environment. They miss nature, freedom, attention and their authenticity.

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Children learn from energy. Many children today are surrounded by plastic, concrete and asphalt, and they miss the connection with natural materials. They miss nature as a teacher, the life around them, and the love and connection with themselves and with life. Young children can become depressed because of this. Children with this kind of sadness are often called "problem children". I prefer to call them children with heartache, who long for a healthy society that is fully within our reach.

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Everything is energy: children resonate with their surroundings

The soul and the body are made of energy, and energy flows. It mixes with the energy around it. Words, thoughts, art, houses and even the economy are energy too. Everything a child's soul and body touch has an influence on her.

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Every place on Earth has its own vibration, and every soul has her own frequency. When the energy of a child's environment moves in the same wave, her energy grows stronger. When it moves in a different wave, she has to work much harder. You can compare it to swimming in the sea: with the current you glide forward, against the current you tire quickly. With a strong current behind her, a child can truly excel. Some children even choose a place with a lower energy on purpose, to help raise it. These children carry a lot, and they deserve extra love and understanding.

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The first seven years build the foundation

The first development cycle, up to the age of seven, is the development of the first chakra, the base. "Who are you, how do you want to be, how much space may you, will you and can you take?" are the basic questions of the soul in this period. The first thousand days and the pregnancy are the most important of all. Where your cradle stands and what your parents are like shape for a large part how you will live your life later.

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In these years a child learns language, how people treat each other, norms and values, and how to respond to emotions. She learns whether she may be rich or poor, whether life is safe or she must stay alert, and how much she may ask of the world. This foundation decides how she will later deal with challenges and how big she dares to dream. The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University describes how early experiences and relationships build the architecture of a child's brain, and how the places where children live, learn and play shape the foundations of healthy development.

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Nature, free play and natural materials

Natural materials such as wood, stone, sand and clay carry the energy of trees, rocks and the Earth. Children connect with this energy and form an energy circuit with it: heavy energy flows away and children receive fresh, positive energy in return. Walking barefoot on grass, sand or earth recharges the body.

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Research supports what children tell me. A large Danish study from Aarhus University (PNAS, 2019), following almost one million people, found that children who grew up with the least green space around their home had up to 55% higher risk of developing a mental health condition later in life than children who grew up with the most green space. Psychologist Peter Gray of Boston College describes how children's free play, especially outdoor play without adult direction, has declined sharply over the past decades, while anxiety and depression among children have risen. In free play children learn to solve problems, handle emotions, make friends and feel in control of their own lives.

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Children long to follow their life path

Every child is born with a life purpose. Every new soul brings a gift, a talent and a special frequency to Earth to nourish society. The children of today have different talents than the souls born seventy years ago, and together their talents fit like a puzzle.

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Many of these life purposes ask for knowledge and learning paths that our current education is still growing towards. Our schools mainly prepare children for existing professions in today's economy. A child who has come to heal, to build new technology, to work with energy or nature, or to create a new form of community, often finds little room for that path at school. She then sets her own mission aside to fit into the system, and this costs her a lot of energy and joy. Children flourish when they can follow their own learning plan: lessons at their own request, at their own level, in subjects that match their talents. A child who feels that her gifts are welcome, radiates.

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Living with the rhythm of nature

Nature has its own rhythm. In winter, nature rests: days are short, animals slow down and the Earth gathers strength. In summer, everything grows, blossoms and moves. Children still feel this rhythm strongly in their bodies. Our school system follows the same timetable all year round, with early mornings in dark winter months and long days indoors in summer. Many children and teenagers also have a natural body clock that starts later in the morning than school does.

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Research from England shows how powerful this can be. A secondary school moved its start time from 8:50 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. for students aged 13 to 16. After two years, illness absence had dropped by more than 50%, and more students made good academic progress. When the school returned to the earlier start, illness absence rose again by 30%. The study was published in 2017 in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience by Paul Kelley and colleagues. A rhythm that fits children's bodies makes children healthier, happier and better learners.

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Time and attention: what children understand about adult life

Another reason children mention is that their parents are busy with work, while they are still discovering what that work is for. For young children, time is relative. Money is something very earthly, something for adults and older children. When children see their parents spend a lot of time behind a laptop or in meetings, they sometimes feel alone.

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Children also feel how adults around them live. Many people in our society have become distant; their heart energy is quiet or still developing. Small children then feel lonely in a cold world. In the first years of life, attention and trust are what children need most. Parents I speak to would love the chance to work less while their children are small, and still build a career and have enough income. That is a society worth growing towards.

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Children copy what they see

Young children are born with love and self-confidence. They discover the world from love and curiosity and learn from the people around them. When a society is out of balance, adults show stress behaviour, and because it has been dominant for so long, we have come to see it as "normal". Young children are conditioned to copy the behaviour they see; it is a survival mechanism. Bullying, for example, is learned behaviour.

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Thoughts and words are the most dangerous weapon and the most healing medicine. It helps children enormously when they learn at a young age to recognise, acknowledge and steer their thoughts. Being angry is part of being human; what matters is how children deal with those thoughts and which actions follow. In the Matriarchal World, children learn from birth how to treat each other with love and respect. It is one of the compulsory subjects, next to language and lessons about energy. The environment we create is the example children follow.

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What a child-friendly environment looks like

Children tell me clearly what they need. They are happiest when they grow up in a warm and stable environment, with relaxed parents who have time for raising them, financial security, a pleasant home, help when needed from a place of trust, and good health.

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In a child-friendly environment, every child has animals, green nature, play paths, quiet places and natural materials close by. She has access to fresh, organic food, fresh air, clean water and a safe home. Cities and homes have a warm, varied look with more green and playfulness. Public spaces are full of sand paths, stones and wood, with places to play everywhere, and playgrounds offer shade from the sun. The outdoors is a safe place for children and women. And every child has the right to happy adults and role models around her. In the Matriarchal World, a child is a child of the whole community: there is always someone there for her.

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Children who feel they don't belong

Some children say they feel they don't belong in this world. They remember a world with more love, warmth and colour, and they feel the difference strongly. These children often have the mission to help the world grow towards more acceptance, love for others, time for each other and freer rules. They feel how life on Earth can be.

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These children deserve to be heard. Listen to them with love, take their feelings seriously and let their vision be your compass. If a child speaks about not wanting to live anymore, act right away: contact a doctor or a crisis line, so the child and the family receive professional support immediately.