Supporting children with post-Christmas anxiety

Thanks to Irving Berlin’s lyrical craftsmanship, the words ‘may your days be merry and bright and may all your Christmases be white’ have been immortalised in British festive culture. This past Christmas may have marked 80 years since ‘White Christmas’ was released but, as 2022 drew to a close amidst a cost-of-living crisis, the festive period was not ‘merry and bright’ for a lot of people. As chair of the Anna Freud Centre, a children’s mental health charity, I have seen the significant toll that the crisis has taken on our country’s mental health.

Around Christmas things got even tougher. The cost-of-living crisis was sadly one of 2022’s abiding themes, and looks set to continue this year. It refers to the fall in disposable income that people in the UK have been experiencing since late 2021 and is the result of high inflation outstripping wage and benefit increases. Its impacts are far-reaching and pernicious. Overall, 93 per cent of adults have reported an increase in their living costs in the last year with consumer and domestic gas prices rising by 10.7 per cent and 129 per cent respectively.