Emotionally Naked. Anne Moss Rogers

Chapter 1 Why Are We Seeing More Mental Health Problems with Students?

      “In order to achieve, you have to put wellness first.”

       Jennifer Hamilton (She/Her/Hers), School Psychologist, Director of Psychology andCounseling at Noble and Greenough, Independent School, Dedham, Massachusetts

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act and drives how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices.¹ This can be impacted by the home and social environment, economic status including homelessness and food instability, early childhood adversity or trauma, physical health, and a family history of mental health diagnoses and suicide. Mental health concerns, such as depression, anxiety disorders, self-harm, post-traumatic stress disorders, and substance use disorders, significantly impact one's daily functioning, and those are the signs that educators need to look out for.

Many psychiatric disorders have their onset at adolescence. So right at the phase when their brains are still maturing and hormones are driving behavior, teenagers can develop a mental illness, making adolescence that much more challenging. Mental illness often makes teens more susceptible to suicide risk, and family history, medical history, and social stressors like trauma, grief, transitions, and relationship disruption can add to that vulnerability.

THE RISE IN TEEN MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS

A study by Twenge and colleagues (2019)² found that between 2008 and 2017, mental health problems, including self-harm behaviors, grew substantially for the youth subset of the population. They found that by 2017, 13% of youth had symptoms consistent with major depression in the previous year, which represented a 62% increase in eight years. Scholars and advocates posit a variety of reasons for the rise in mental health issues among today's youth. Technology and too much screen time, constant social comparison exacerbated by social media, emphasis on happiness and nonacceptance of difficult emotions, the academic and extracurricular rat race, helicopter parenting, transitions, and the disruption of relationships (whether that's a family divorce, death of a loved one, or loss of a romantic partner) all contribute.

      When the digital age moved in, that which we thought would connect us more instead pushed us apart in many ways. It was during the early 2000s that we began to see an increase in student mental health problems. Poor sleep hygiene, the result of increased screen time and 24/7 Internet access via mobile phones, exacerbated those issues because youth sacrificed precious slumber time for late-night chats and video watching. As the digital revolution has grown, each generation has less face time with friends than the one before, which means youth are getting fewer opportunities to learn, fail, and problem solve. Add to that the fact that extended family often lives out of town and community programs and interactions have a reduced role in our lives, further fracturing the community of connection and support. Humans crave contact with each other, and lack of it can leave teenagers feeling anxious, small, insignificant, and devoid of opportunities to develop important life skills.

If you are an adult who grew up before 1995, think about how much you learned when you played games outside with friends in your neighborhood. You learned to negotiate, compromise, and argue in an effective way. There was no referee other than the peer-appointed kid who lived on the corner, so you had to work it out. Failure is a part of life and a learning opportunity, but so many students have no idea how to manage it because what little unstructured time they do have is now spent on digital screens. Victor Schwartz, MD, Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, NYU School of Medicine, points out that there are fewer community centers, religious-based organizations, and clubs like 4-H or Girl Scouts in today's culture (in some cases for very good reasons). These gathering places and clubs were commonplace in earlier generations and were settings where youth picked up a lot of life skills. This is where kids learned to run a program, organize something, learned how to deal with other people in planning a project. It's not the schools' fault that we've lost the whole notion of community centers, but are there ways to bring more of those skill-building opportunities in a more intentional way into academics? In Chapter 6, “Suicide Prevention Activities for Schools,” we present specific strategies and ideas that teachers from different regions are integrating into their curriculums to build that skillset. The effect of doing so reduces unhealthy coping such as self-harm, substance misuse, and suicide, and promotes more positive experiences in school and beyond.

      Barriers to Mental Health Treatment for Teens

      Source: From the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, More Than Sad for Parents.

Standardized testing is a measurement strategy that many school systems use. Wherever you stand on the issue, it siphons considerable instructional time and resources during the school day and the casualties of that effort have been innovation, creativity, practical skills, opportunities to build connection, and social emotional skills. In short, there is not enough time. More trigonometry will not help a student learn how to cope with the loss of a sibling. Integrating skills to help students learn and manage life goes a long way in minimizing substance misuse, self-harm, eating disorders, promiscuity, and other unhealthy coping strategies, as well as preventing suicide during the school years and throughout a student's lifespan. What we do know is that several studies have shown that suicide rates increase during the school year and drop off during the summer when most students are out of school and during academic breaks, suggesting that social and academic pressure may play a role in student suicidal behavior.