When should a child begin to train, and why the old fear was wrong
Most parents think lifting weights is dangerous for children. Twenty years of paediatric consensus disagree, and the reason has more to do with the nervous system than with muscle.
Issue 3
How Mental Health Impacts A Child's School Performance
When a child receives a mental health diagnosis, whether anxiety, ADHD, depression, or something else, parents often want to know how it will impact their schooling. A new study provides some answers.
6 min read
A new study from Finland has tracked what happens to children's school performance after a mental health diagnosis. The findings are sobering, and carry a clear message for parents and teachers about the importance of offering support.
🎧
9 minute listen — Listen to this feature on the go. (AI-voiced for accessibility; 100% human-edited and checked).
When a child receives a mental health diagnosis, whether anxiety, ADHD, depression, or something else, parents often want to know what it means for school. Will their child keep up? Will they fall behind?
A study published this week in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry addresses that question directly, using Finnish national registry data to track what happens to children's school grades in the years after a mental health diagnosis, comparing their academic trajectories with those of peers who received no such diagnosis.
Read the full story
Join The Inquisitive Parent, the magazine for parents seeking reliable, objective evidence to navigate the modern world with confidence.
See the Evidence
Already have an account?
Sign in
Read next
When should a child begin to train, and why the old fear was wrong
Most parents think lifting weights is dangerous for children. Twenty years of paediatric consensus disagree, and the reason has more to do with the nervous system than with muscle.
Should children still learn to write by hand?
Parents are told that writing by hand is vital for their child's growing brain, and that screens are eroding it. We sort the viral headlines from the solid evidence, and find the real benefit belongs to one group above all: children still learning their letters.
How children learn to like food
Your child's fussiness for food is mostly inherited, and most of the things parents try in order to fix it make it worse. Find out why young children refuse food, why it is rarely a parent's fault, and the unglamorous method that genuinely changes how they eat.
Joy, not trauma: what young people say shaped them most
Most of what shapes a young life turns out to be joyful and ordinary. A major new study shows what teenagers themselves treasure, and why the way they answer can tell you how they are really doing.