Relationships key to teens’ mental health: study

Interpersonal relationships at home, school and with peers appear to be critical for positive mental health among young Canadian teens, a major study suggests.

The survey-based examination of more than 26,000 students in Grades 6 to 10 is the latest in a series of studies since 1989-90 that takes the pulse of Canadian adolescents for comparison with their peers of the same age in more than 40 other countries.

“We focused it on mental health for a reason,” said John Freeman, director of the Social Program Evaluation Group at Queen’s University and a study co-author. “Mental health is a large issue for Canada’s young people right now. It’s in our conversations … It’s in the news.”

Freeman said that as obvious as it may seem, relationships with others are a key indicator as to whether a teen is mentally healthy.

The study, based on responses to questionnaires given to students during class time, examined how relationships with parents, teachers and peers reflect on mental health status.

“And we found consistently, no matter which group we looked at, even with neighbourhoods as well, that relationships mattered,” Freeman said Wednesday from Kingston, Ont. “Those students who reported stronger relationships also reported better indices of mental health.”

While adults often believe that teens’ most critical relationships are with people in their own age group, Freeman said the study found that connections with adults also are important.

For instance, adolescents who reported finding it “very difficult” or “difficult” to converse with their mother are far more likely to have high levels of emotional problems than those who find it “easy” or “very easy” to talk to their moms.

And the study revealed a similar finding when it came to the ease or difficulty for a teen to speak to their fathers.

“And it’s for both boys and girls, it’s very consistent,” Freeman explained.

For boys, 45 per cent of those who reported difficulty conversing with their father were among those with the highest level of emotional problems, while 58 per cent of girls who had trouble talking to their dads were in that group.

Significant proportions of both boys and girls who found it difficult to communicate with their mothers also showed a high level of emotional problems relative to their peers — 49 per cent of boys and 66 per cent of girls.

Even so, about three-quarters of the teens reported it was easy or very easy to talk to their moms about issues that bother them. Compared to girls, more boys found it easy or very easy to talk to their dads.

Overall, the study found that more young adolescents felt their parents understood them, compared to studies in previous years, although about three in 10 believed their parents expected too much of them, generally and at school.

“All these numbers keep on saying in general they have good relationships with their parents,” Freeman said.

“We have a good percentage of our Canadian youth who are reporting that they’re satisfied with their life,” he said, noting that most rated life satisfaction at “eight or higher” on a scale of one to 10.

When mental health issues do occur, the study found a gender difference in how they are expressed: girls report higher levels of emotional problems, while boys tend to experience more behavioural problems, such as skipping classes, stealing or getting into fights.

Researchers found that about one-fifth of boys and one-third of girls reported feeling depressed or low on a weekly basis or more often.

Freeman said there is a significant number of young people who are experiencing mental health issues.

“We say the responsibility lies with teachers or parents or peers,” he said. “The responsibility actually lies with all of us, and we all need to be watching for young people who are showing signs of mental health problems and try to build connections with these people.

“Because we notice that those students who report higher connections tend to have better mental health.”

The study also found:

—Mental health suffers as young people move from Grade 6 through 10, especially for girls.

—Higher proportions of young people reported being bullied. Freeman said the study suggests about 60 per cent of respondents had been victims of various kinds of bullying.

—Alcohol and cannabis are the most commonly used substances among Canadian youth. A significant percentage of students have used alcohol and cannabis at least once by the time they reach Grade 10.

While the 2010 international study on teens is not yet published, Freeman said the previous two reports in 2006 and 2002 showed that Canadian youth had the highest cannabis use compared to their peers in other countries.

The Canadian study, sponsored in large part by the Public Health Agency of Canada, shows 40 per cent of boys and 37 per cent of girls in Grade 10 had tried marijuana, and about three in 10 saw little or no risk in smoking pot “once in a while.”

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