Parents across the UK are being urged to look out for subtle changes in their children’s behaviour ahead of Youth Mental Health Day on Friday 18th September.
According to Tim Panagos, Clinical Lead at The Edge, a residential programme in Crete for men aged 18–29, young people do not always explain their worries directly. Their behaviour may change first, making it important for parents to recognise early signs that a young person could be struggling with anxiety or broader mental health issues.
New figures highlight the importance of early attention and support. Between January and March 2026, an estimated 1,012,000 young people aged 16–24 were not in education, employment, or training. This represents 13.5% of that age group, an increase of 89,000 compared with the same period a year earlier.
Anxiety does not always look like anxiety
Distress in young people can be surprisingly difficult to recognise. A son who stops going out might simply be tired, while someone who sleeps until midday could just be catching up after a busy week. An irritable teenager might simply be behaving like a typical teenager.
Sometimes these explanations are exactly right, but experts stress that it is the pattern that matters, rather than any single incident. One difficult week may not indicate a wider problem, but behaviour that continues for several weeks could be a sign that something more is going on.
Things to watch for include
- Pulling away from friends, family, or activities they previously enjoyed
- Major changes in sleep
- Irritability or anger that seems out of proportion
- Missing more school or college than usual
- Persistent headaches, stomach aches, or fatigue
- Changes in appetite or eating habits
- Becoming unusually secretive about phones, money, or whereabouts
- A friendship group changing suddenly
- Spending much more time alone
What do young people worry about most?
Adults tend to assume the answer is exams. While academic pressure is part of the problem, it is rarely at the top of the list when you ask young people directly. Key concerns include
- Money and the shape of the future. Nearly half of young people cite economic uncertainty as a source of hopelessness. This is not vague pessimism, but a specific worry about whether the ordinary markers of an adult life are available to them at all.
- Being measured against everyone, constantly. A third of children aged 8–17 who use social media feel pressure to be popular all or most of the time, and 70% feel it at least sometimes.
- Academic pressure, but as identity. For many, results are not experienced as an assessment of work done, but as a verdict on who they are as a person.
- Belonging. Not having a place, a group, or a role is the concern young people raise most often and the one adults ask about least.
- Their own screen use. Some 37% of those aged 8–17 think they spend too much time on screens, rising to 44% of those aged 16–17 and 56% among those with a mental health condition. Young people are usually ahead of their parents on this issue, not behind.
Panagos comments: “When we ask young men what they are frightened of, they very rarely say exams. They say that they will not make it, and that everyone can see it.”
Practical tips for parents
- Fix the wake time before anything else. Focus on setting one consistent time out of bed, seven days a week, rather than immediately pushing for a job hunt or a conversation about the future. Almost everything else is downstream of this.
- Replace the job search with a weekly commitment. Introduce something that happens at a fixed hour where somebody notices if he is not there, such as a team, a class, a shift, or a volunteering slot. Being missed is the active ingredient.
- Give a role with real consequences. Provide a responsibility where other people depend on him and doing it badly matters, rather than a simple chore. Purpose is not a feeling you talk someone into; it is a by-product of being genuinely needed.
- Watch for the drift, not the incident. A slow change in who he sees, how he sleeps, where his money goes, and what he is no longer interested in is the signal.
- Separate rest from withdrawal. A young person recovering from a hard year needs rest, but a young person who has declined every invitation for six weeks is not resting.
- Do not make your warmth conditional on his productivity. If affection arrives only alongside progress updates, he will start avoiding you to avoid the update, causing you to lose the visibility you need.
- Ask for advice before you are in crisis. Most services will talk to a parent who is worried but not yet certain. That conversation is far more useful at that stage than after an emergency occurs.