The Case for Attention to the Mental Health of our Children
a school leader’s perspective…
As an educator, I feel truly blessed to work with kind, curious, compliant, and hard-working students. They serve as an inspiration each and every day. Our families embrace our mission, and support our world-class faculty and staff. Perhaps against our initial beliefs, the pandemic has only brought the school community closer. But the crisis has also amplified a long-standing and deep concern about the mental well-being of our young people.
In a recent survey from Stanford’s ChallengeSuccess.org, middle and high school students reported that absences were often due to mental or physical health problems associated with school stress (rather than illness), that average sleep on weeknights was well below the recommended 9 hours (often less than 6 hours), and that grades and exams were the top sources of stress and anxiety. I can attest to have seen these trends in my own setting. While our young people have been able to get their daily doses of well-being by being back in school, learning and socializing with their friends, they are also getting their daily doses of stress as their free time has all but evaporated. (Challenge Success forum: December, 2021) The pendulum has swung from high autonomy to low autonomy, from low-engagement to over-engagement, and not without its consequences.
When we refer to mental health, we mean our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act, and how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices (MentalHealth.gov). Why is mental health important in the school context? The case is compelling.
1. Mental health is a key component of overall health, and just as we shouldn’t forsake our physical well-being, we cannot ignore our mental well-being without significant negative consequences, manifested as anxiety, sadness, mood changes, sleep problems, or physical illness, among many others. (American Psychiatric Association)
2. A student who is in a good place mentally will perform in all aspects of schooling at a higher level than somebody who isn’t. It’s intuitive. Without psychological safety or stability, learning simply cannot happen. Think of a sponge as a metaphor. If one’s brain is full of worry, or chronically sleep deprived, there is little room to retain learning and grow.
3. A young person’s happiness should be important to all of us. As we adults age, we see the wisdom of cultivating happiness as a core life objective. Why delay or deprive this for our youngest? We can teach them how to bring joy to their learning.
4. Schools are uniquely positioned to address mental health. The majority of young people access mental health services at school over other places, and across the world, counselors, teachers, nurses, staff, and administrators have opened their doors for this service, even though the needs can be overwhelming at times (Challenge Success forum: December, 2021).
There are reasons for optimism as we navigate this pandemic. Young people are generally more resilient than adults, and we do indeed see the vast majority of our students thriving in school, despite the challenges they face. We see them engaged in learning, and being active in clubs, activities, service, and sports. This generation, above all others before it, is comfortable talking about the state of their well-being (especially if they are concerned about it). Mental health as a discussion point is no longer taboo, and we know speaking openly about one’s struggles is a crucial first step toward addressing it.
The school itself has a critical responsibility to promote mental health. It has a moral imperative to offer high-quality learning experiences that promote thinking (rather than rote learning that promotes ennui), to foster a culture of care and kindness (where schools know deeply each and every one of their students), to provide reasonable amounts of homework (quality over quantity), to provide down time and a timetable that is not frenetic, and perhaps most importantly, to lessen the attention on and importance of grades and high-stakes exams–teachers often lament that young people are hyper focused on grades, yet we seem to grade everything. A school has much more work to do if it wishes to have a net-positive influence on the well being of its young people. It needs to make mental health a proactive endeavor, rather than reacting when students are in crisis, and it needs to make well-being core to its mission, rather than a nice-to-have.
Children are at home for more of the week that they are in school (technically), so what can parents do to support the mental fitness of their children? Fortunately, there are many behaviors and strategies that research and anecdotal evidence have shown effective:
- First and foremost, listen to what children are saying about their well-being and their struggle to manage their workload or social stressors. This simple act can sometimes be all they need at that moment.
- Look for signs that something more serious may be going on, such as a disengagement from school or from friends, fatigue, a feeling of helplessness, overeating, or a flat demeanor, among others.
- Monitor belonging, which is intertwined with well being, ensuring children feel they have a squad within the broader school or local community (Challenge Success forum: December, 2021).
- Avoid catastrophizing mistakes or poor grades at school. We need to teach our children perspective and a long view on life. For example, teaching them that the road to success was not linear for any of us.
- Promote a child’s voice and agency, helping them feel that they can exert some control over their own mental well-being, and that they see their choices leading to success.
- Define success broadly in the household (i.e. as much more than just grades or achievements); this ensures children do not attach their identity or self-worth to extrinsic achievements.
- Resist striving for validation as a “good parent” through a child’s achievements (young people are hypersensitive to this).
- Love children unconditionally, and let them know that whatever happens in school or in life, their parents will always love them.
- Intervene to arrange professional help, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), if it is warranted. Counseling can come from school, but therapy should come from local professionals, or even from telehealth (if wait times are prohibitive in the area). Let professionals do the heavy lifting.
- Finally, and this is something that turns the attention back on parents, co-regulate with the child: meaning, navigate these difficult times together. Children learn powerful lessons about how to cope with stress through a parent’s management of their own stress. Show children how to practice gratitude, how to be compassionate, how to be vulnerable, how to forgive and forget, how to let it be, and how to be resilient.
Importantly, young people themselves hold the key to unlocking their resilient nature, something they all possess innately, yet can sometimes feel so unattainable. Well-being is not something that can be done to or for someone else. Rather, we all must take ownership of our own mental health, and take responsibility in finding ways to cultivate wellness. Nevertheless, we as adults can promote helpful mental models or strategies that are particularly germane to young people. These include:
- Accepting responsibility for one’s own mental health, which in itself can be empowering.
- Finding coping strategies that work for the child (for one person, it could be exercise; for another, art), and using them whenever and wherever stress becomes a problem.
- Recognizing the difference between hardship and trauma. While it’s a very good thing that young people now talk opening of their state of well-being, it’s curious that so many wear trauma (perceived or actual) as a badge of honor, or even use it as a one-upmanship with peers, oddly trying to win a contest of who has endured the most trauma. So much of this perceived trauma is not actually trauma, but instead hardship: such as doing poorly in a course, or a relationship breaking up. While trauma needs significant professional intervention, perhaps over a lifetime, hardship events, however, fade with time, and lead to resilience and even wisdom. Differentiating between the two is essential for moving to a better place emotionally.
- Avoiding creating a story that one then inhabits, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, labeling oneself as “a sad person”, rather than seeing oneself as a person “who sometimes gets sad.” Situations are always changing (age-old wisdom, right?), so creating fixed narratives about ourselves serves no useful purpose.
- Finding your tribe. Feeling connected to other people can stabilize one’s mood, and deliver constant doses of well-being.
- Ensuring adequate sleep. Starting school any time before 10:00am requires waking adolescents up in the middle of their nights (due to their unique sleep cycles). We can also help students (and adults!) by promoting napping in school. Sleep pods are common in many workplaces, so why not in schools?
It’s time for action to address the mental health of society’s most precious resource, young people. While the pandemic has brought its challenges, it’s also created opportunities that schools, in partnership with its students and families, are uniquely positioned to meet.
Dr. Paul Richards is the interim high school principal at ISZL, and incoming Head of School at the American School of Bombay. He blogs at paulrichards298.medium.com.
