You're not alone

At any one moment, at least 10% of children and teenagers are having serious problems with worries, fears, sadness, behaviour or concentration. These problems are very upsetting and can really mess up a young person's life - and can sometimes make things harder for the rest of the family too.

The figure is more like 25% at any given moment if you add in all the young people who:

have less serious problems of the same sort
are being severely bullied
are going through a really rough patch with their friendships

This means that well over half of all children and teenagers go through these sorts of problems at some point. So parents whose children have never had problems with worries, fears, sadness, behaviour, concentration, bullying or friendships are very lucky - but they are in a minority.

If you're visiting this site because your children have any of these problems, remember that you're not alone. Lots of other parents are going through or have been through the same thing - even if most of them don't say so or show it. Just because they're secretive about it, this doesn't mean that it isn't true.

Why do parents often keep these things to themselves? One reason is that parents are commonly made to feel that it must be their fault if their son or daughter is stressed. This is unfair. Family stresses sometimes play a part, but this certainly isn't the full story. Children and teenagers can be stressed by many things, such as school problems or getting in with the wrong group of friends. Or they may just have a sensitive personality.

youthinmind is here to make things easier for you. You can fill in one of our questionnaires about your son or daughter to help you see what, if anything, to be concerned about. Then if you want more information, we can show you websites, books and services that could be useful.