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Quintin
is standing in the mudroom, yelling that he doesn’ t want to go to school. The seven-year-old is visibly frustrated and upset, and stalls getting ready, so much
so that he only musters enough willpower to get partly dressed— one shoe on, one shoe off, his jacket and backpack strewn by the door.
His mother, Maggie Pearson, waits patiently nearby. She has seen this before, and knows every parent has. But in the moment, when it’ s time for Quintin to go to school, the internal stress level hits its highest point. The seemingly simple act of getting out their Riverside door becomes an insurmountable, anxietyladen battle because he’ s afraid of the what-ifs.
“ It could be related to safety, like‘ What if we’ re stuck out there?’ or‘ What if you don’ t come get me?’” she says.“ He’ s sad. Sometimes he’ ll have outbursts and needs a lot of reminders to put his shoes on because he gets distracted, almost like self-sabotage. He’ s not having these emotional meltdowns at school. It’ s with us, because it’ s a safe space.”
Moments like this are common among families whose kids struggle with anxiety. Anxiety disorders affect about 15 to 20 percent of children and adolescents, the Cleveland Clinic reports, while nearly one in three adolescents between the ages of thirteen and eighteen has anxiety. Since 1990, the global incidence of anxiety disorders between the ages of ten and twenty-four has risen 52 percent, reports the journal Frontiers in Psychology.
“ We’ re seeing a rise in the need for children’ s behavioral health; there’ s an increase in anxiety and depressive disorders, and also an increase in the acuity of these illnesses,” says Stephanie Lujan
Rickerman, division director of children’ s services at Newport Mental Health.
Rhode Island’ s children are part of this wave of mental health depressions and they struggle to get a diagnosis and help. While resources are available, local experts as well as the International OCD Foundation warn that 95 percent of youth don’ t get the appropriate care due to lack of access and may struggle in what they think is a solitary prison.
“ I think anxiety has always been a problem. We’ re just better at recognizing it,” says Jennifer Freeman, director of the Pediatric Anxiety Research Center at Bradley Hospital and professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University.“ Something changed post-pandemic, where we have a lot of data to show that these already incredibly troubling rates of youth anxiety and depression have doubled. That’ s remarkable in a bad way.”
82 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY I MAY 2026