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The Dutch have historically had the happiest children and teens in the industrialised world, according to repeated Unicef studies measuring their material well-being, life-satisfaction, health and safety, and academic and social skills.
But as the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbates inequalities across the board, Dutch youth are also suffering, if not on the macro statistical level, then certainly as individuals.
‘I am really worried when I look at the numbers,’ says Loes Keijsers
, professor of Clinical Child and Family Studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam, of the increase in mental health crises and mental healthcare in general during the pandemic. ‘Children are doing incredibly bad. We know that Dutch kids are quite happy in international studies that measure life satisfaction, so we are shocked by the numbers.’