Back-to-school season is in full swing.
Many students (K-12 and college) are already back in the classroom. Some students, like mine, do not go back until after the county fair has concluded in a couple of weeks (seriously, county fairs are a big deal and as a city girl, I just don’t understand). Regardless of the date of the first day of school, school is about to start!
Back-to-school marks the beginning of a new year. A fresh start. A new beginning.
And with that in mind, I’m writing a back-to-school series this week.
Five posts.
All focused on the ties between back-to-school season and community health.
Monday’s post focused on pandemic learning loss, Tuesday was all about disease spread in the classroom, and yesterday’s post included a checklist for back-to-school preventive care.
Today is all about MENTAL HEALTH.
I will cover safety. Be sure you are subscribed so you don’t miss one…
Hoping this post helps to educate and empower you
to be healthy and create healthy classrooms & communities.
WARNING — this post addresses depression, anxiety, and suicide. Feel free to skip this post if it is triggering. You can rejoin the conversation tomorrow.
The Youth Mental Health Crisis — which refers to the growing concern about the mental well-being of young people — began long before the pandemic. In the decade leading up to COVID, feelings of sadness and hopelessness as well as suicidal thoughts and behaviors increased by ~40% among young people (according to self-reported data collected through the Youth Risk Behavior Survey).
Things were already spiraling downward at the start of the pandemic, and then the pandemic added —
Increased isolation.
Increased screen time.
The cancelation of everything (prom, graduation, performances, sporting events).
Decreased social services offered by schools.
Loss — deaths of loved ones due to COVID, parents losing jobs.
Fear.
Anger.
Loneliness.
Anger.
In February of this year, results from the 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey were released and they were both heartbreaking and alarming.
Teenaged girls reported record levels of violence, sadness, and suicidality in 2021. Nearly 3 in 5 teenage girls reported that they felt persistently sad or helpless in 2021 — a 60% increase compared to 10 years ago.
Additionally, the 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey also found —
Less than 50% of students described their health as excellent or very good.
One-third of students reported that their mental health was most of the time or always NOT good (this includes stress, anxiety, and depression)
Less than 50% of students got at least 60 minutes of exercise each day
Approximately 80% of students reported spending more than 3 hours per day online watching TV, playing video games, or on social media
Approximately 1 in 5 students admitted to smoking or vaping each day
More than 40% of students reported that they do not wear a seatbelt when in a car
More than 50% of students reported living with someone who was depressed, mentally ill, suicidal, or who was having a problem with alcohol or drug use
Mental health can NO LONGER be ignored or stigmatized.
We all need to be talking about mental health, working to reduce stigma, and encouraging open conversations. I have written a lot about my own mental health struggles throughout the pandemic. You can read more here, here, here, and here. And I have shared these struggles to both normalize conversations about mental health and as a form of therapy/release for me (it’s a form of self-expression — more below).
As we move into the new school year, we ALL need to put as much emphasis on mental health as we do on having the best school year. We need to be talking to our healthcare providers about our mental health.1 And we need to be addressing mental health on a day-to-day basis with our friends and family and the youth in our lives. Specifically, we need to —
LISTEN.
As parents, grandparents, and adults, we need to create safe spaces where the children/young adults in our lives can talk. And, this will be hard, we need to create space to just listen to them talk. Without judgment. Without giving advice. Without saying when I was your age… Without trying to solve all of their problems. We need to listen. We need to validate their emotions and experiences.
This takes a lot of time and practice. I have developed a habit of asking my kids do you want me to listen or are we trying to solve a problem? Most of the time, they just want to talk — about teachers who don’t treat them with respect, about the assistant principal who doesn’t understand that they use their middle name as their chosen name, about the students who claim that climate change isn’t real. They don’t need or want me to solve their problems. They want to be heard. And they want to know that someone hears how they are feeling and what their struggles are today.
Create a space where your children can speak freely without judgment.PRIORITIZE A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE.
Our physical health and mental health are intimately tied together. So eating healthy meals, exercising, and getting adequate sleep is essential to our mental health.ENCOURAGE SELF-EXPRESSION.
Provide space for your kids to be artistic (it might be through clothing choices or decorating their bedroom), write in a journal, listen to/play music, or create new things (meals, jewelry, clothes). They need outlets. Encourage them to express themselves.LIMIT OVER-SCHEDULING.
We all need downtime and time to relax. Create time (this means putting it on the calendar) each week to relax — watch a movie, go read a book for fun at a coffee shop, plan to sleep in and eat brunch together, or eat a slow meal together with friends. To limit over-scheduling, we have to schedule a time to rest.MODEL HEALTHY BEHAVIORS.
This means that as adults — parents, grandparents, teachers, mentors, and friends — we need to prioritize our own mental and physical health. We need to be caring for ourselves so that we are healthy enough to care for others.
For me, this has been hard. It is so easy to think — I’ll just care for others and then I’ll care for myself. This is the WRONG approach. I need to be eating well in order to show my kids what a healthy diet is. I need to be prioritizing sleep, limiting screen time, and getting to yoga every day — if I want them to do the same. Ultimately, caring for our mental health means taking care of ourselves so that we can take care of and support others. It means creating a healthy lifestyle that I want my kids and my students to emulate.
This is hard freaking work.
But the only way to address the youth mental health crisis is to acknowledge that there is a problem, start working to improve our own mental health, and then serve as a resource, role model, and amazing listeners to the children/youth in our lives.
Mental health must become synonymous with our goals, individually and collectively as communities, to be healthy.
And one more thing —
Do NOT hesitate to seek professional help for yourself or your kids.2
If your provider (or your kids’ provider) is uncomfortable talking about mental health, doesn’t listen when you bring up topics related to mental health or makes you uncomfortable about talking about mental health — GET A NEW PROVIDER.
If you need immediate assistance, do not forget about 988
Yes! :)