The mental health of teenagers and children is a subject screaming for the attention of society, especially after three sisters died by suicide when they jumped from a Ghaziabad high-rise. This incident came soon after a schoolboy died by suicide in the elite St Columba’s School after being allegedly scolded by his teachers.
A convenient analysis would blame such episodes on excessive use of digital devices or social media. But a more informed observation comes from sociologists, economists and political scientists, who have been noting a sharp and large-scale change in urban India.
Today’s India is markedly different from what it looked like a generation or two earlier. If there is money in it, there is also widespread inequality. If there are social media-enabled political debates, there is also political animosity within families.
The mental health of children cannot be detached from the economic, social and political lives of their parents, especially when technology takes its own toll on a young, vulnerable mind. The epidemic of mental health among the young itself needs a socio-economic diagnosis.
Family in flux
Analysts believe that the story of this momentous change begins with liberalisation. It caused two major upheavals: it made the urban family structure both complex and expensive. One major change was in the model of the family structure. Households with both parents working became far more common. At the same time, joint family safety nets gradually disappeared.
Long working hours and insecurity at workplaces have drastically increased after liberalisation. Kaustav Banerjee, an economist and professor at the B R Ambedkar University Delhi, made these observations and highlighted how these structural changes have been impacting children for a long time.
He said that traditional practices of not working outside the home and focusing on raising children have undergone a restructuring due to the increased standard of living and the growing cost of education along with performance pressure. “This has led to two kinds of alienation. One is the classical form: parental alienation caused by stressful and insecure work. The other is the alienation children experience due to social media and excessive screen time,” he said.
Globally, this phenomenon is visible in the widespread popularity of Korean television series. Similar situations had been unfolding in East Asia for quite some time, but in the last few years they have caught up very strongly in urban India as well, through Korean pop culture, Korean dramas, and Japanese animation. It is interesting to observe that South Asian countries have witnessed the breakdown of family structures in a relatively short span of time.
The fluid gender roles and time scarcity and economic pressure force both parents to work, yet the mother is expected to put equal effort at home. This causes emotional distress, and technology is used as surrogate carers, eventually replacing human interaction. As social media and TV screens fill the void of parents’ guilt, the child remains occupied, quiet, and compliant, growing up in a household where indulgence replaces restriction, not necessarily out of choice, but out of exhaustion and remorse.
Prof Arun Kumar highlights that this behaviour marks a stark departure from earlier parenting norms. However, this convenience comes at a cost. “Earlier, children were raised with a lot of restrictions, with discipline at the core of family values. Now, parents depend heavily on material goods, like gadgets, toys, and treats to substitute for attention and care,” he said. This trend is closely tied to a broader consumerist mindset.
The relentless push to “earn more and consume more” drives parents to prioritise material security over time spent with their children. Thus the values of children are shaped differently now, and they have begun to equate comfort, affection, and reward with material possessions. The result is a generation that is emotionally under-engaged yet deeply consumerist. What is at stake is not merely parenting style, but childhood itself.
Divide and development
With the unevenness of economic development in urban India, there is a lack of urban employment ultimately leading to financial stress irrespective of the class. Inequality is increasing. This is full of contradiction because number of women doing exceptionally well in higher education are increasing, but they are not getting paid enough. This is where a huge amount of education is wasted, said Satish Deshpande, professor at Delhi School of Economics. In some cases, people are unable to find jobs that fit their skill set and pay enough for the bare minimum.
Social inequality influences exposure to stress, access to resources, and availability of support systems. However, Prof Arvinder Ansari, a sociology professor at Jamia Millia Islamia, opines that the causes of mental distress are not purely economic. Family culture, patterns of socialisation, gender norms, community expectations, and experiences of discrimination all play significant roles.
Economic hardship may produce chronic stress and insecurity. Social factors, such as exclusion, stigma, or pressure to perform can generate anxiety across classes. Ansari said that cultural norms also determine whether emotional distress is acknowledged, suppressed, medicalised, or moralised.
Therefore, mental health cannot be reduced to a single variable like poverty or inequality. It emerges at the intersection of structural conditions, family environment, community culture, and individual experience. Inequality shapes vulnerability and access to care, but the pathways to mental health outcomes are complex and socially mediated.
A few political scientists feel that urban governance must be re-thought, as current urban habitation and infrastructure are alienating children irrespective of the economic condition. Youngsters lack the ability to interact in a face-to-face situation, socialise and make friends, mostly due to the lack of community spaces and social media replacing playgrounds across all backgrounds.
Domino effect
One of the rarely acknowledged things in Indian society is the intergenerational trauma. Growing up in a household where the parents have their share of bad mental health can affect a child in unimaginable ways. The child becomes not just aware of a situation but constantly tries to find an escape; thanks to social media, it comes at a touch.
They feel accepted. Shivani Nag, an education psychologist and faculty at Dr B R Ambedkar University, shared an anecdote about this trend. She said, “One of my students told me once that we all are discussing technology addiction, but no one talks about it as a space where people are accepted and can feel some value in what they are doing.”
As we move towards modernisation, the diminishing family size, no siblings, lack of parents’ time and their conflict affect children’s mental health. Psychologists term this the “spillover effect”, which refers to the overflow or transfer of emotions, stress, and behaviours from one context to another, or from one person to another. In the case of children, it is mostly from their parents.
Rajib Dasgupta, chairperson and professor, Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, JNU, says, “There is an increasing recognition of associations between intra-individual and inter-individual symptoms within the family. With a diminishing family size, the support of older siblings is also reduced. Parental mental health, therefore, has a significant bearing on children’s mental health status, and conversely, the psychological symptoms of family members need to be considered while addressing the mental health needs of other family members.
There is also a wide range of evidence that poverty and social deprivation have a strong bearing on the mental health outcomes of children. This is true of relatively shorter periods of poverty that a family may face intermittently as well as intergenerational deprivations.
This acts through stressors having impacts on both physical and mental health and has consequential long-term impact as well. Ansari points out that parental mental health directly affects the emotional climate of the household. Depression, chronic stress, substance abuse, or untreated trauma in parents may reduce emotional availability and responsiveness.
Inside the schools
It is not just parenting; schools are equally responsible for the increased screen time, peer pressure and increased urge for validation among kids. Lack of safe space, visible economic divide among peers and burden of winning the race against all odds lead them to coping mechanisms which are more often than not harmful.
Several educators say that the school health programmes remain an extremely weak component, both in terms of prioritisation and provision, in the landscape of India’s public health services. Dasgupta said, “Within the school, mental health services require significant strengthening to cope with the contemporary challenges. While high-end private schools may be providing in-house services, the bulk of the schools remain significantly challenged.
Parents cannot be in an overprotective mode every time in an atmosphere where schools ask children to take help of tabs, AI, etc., for projects specially after the Covid pandemic.
The vulnerability: Culture, society and the pandemic
Broken families, financial distress and lack of socio-cultural identity increase the vulnerability among teenagers. Psychologically, children below 12 years of age do not have a verbal vocabulary to convey what they are feeling, and when they are not able to do that and they don’t find an outlet for it, then children are likely to suffer from somatic symptom disorder characterised by pain or dizziness even when there is no organic cause for it. Dr Gagandeep Singh, a clinical psychologist, elaborates that the common symptoms are headaches, which you won’t find generally in kids, seizures, and unconsciousness.
A combination of cultural and social predisposition, lack of social outlet, lack of emotional outlet, lack of emotional backing, and lack of schooling in the Ghaziabad case perhaps led to the suicide, said Dr Shubh Mohan Singh of the Department of Psychiatry at PGIMER, Chandigarh. “In India, females are more prone to self-harm activities.
In the Ghaziabad suicide case, there was more of a social factor involved—the father was into stock trading; he lost a lot of money; he was married to three wives; and then there was his behaviour with his kids. It seemed like the daughters found solace in their own group, depicting the failure of economic and social integration leading to the mental health issue instigating girls to take such a grave step.”
However, psychologists agree on the fact that parents now have become vocal about mental health issues among children. Two decades ago, it never happened, they said.
The pandemic has blurred the lines between the real and the reel world, causing havoc in the minds of children. A primary school student who was earlier scared of using phones got a free excuse to keep it for an unlimited time after life shifted to the online mode during the pandemic. India has actually witnessed phenomenal changes in the digital world, highlighted Dr T S S Rao, president of the Indian Psychiatric Society.
He said, “Post Covid, what we saw is an increase in the number of children suffering from anxiety and addiction. Earlier, things were difficult, and children knew whatever they were getting was after a struggle, but now with these online games giving 100 out of 100 results, a child starts to believe that he can easily get it in real life as well.
Namrita James, a school counsellor, said, “Students who are in secondary classes are the ones who were exposed to technology during Covid times. They have massive conduct and personality issues. They show signs of anxiety; some of my students are even dependent on medicines.”
The future
In many Indian households, children learn early to adjust rather than express, points out a mother of three children. The generational gap that separates them from their parents can be one of the primary reasons. Also, mental health is not only an individual issue; it is relational and intergenerational.
The understanding of this phenomenon is the only way forward, say many educationists. Amir Ali, an assistant professor of political science at JNU, pointed out that the generational divide can only be bridged through keeping channels of communication open between parents and children, so that even in times of difficulty, families can hold together.
One of the great paradoxes of the so-called communications revolution that the internet and social media has broken down communication between parents and children. Jyotika Bedi, a mother of three, says that a child should not feel responsible for managing adult emotions, and as a parent, one must ensure that they do not live in a state of emotional alertness. At the core of everything said and done is the need for an emotionally safe space where kids and teenagers can breathe easy, talk their minds and not feel the urge to escape into a real world of no return.