Please let your children worry…
A major teaching union has just released the results of a poll of it’s members, on the topic of mental health in schools.
You can see the press release by clicking here.
The poll has brought up some very uncomfortable and worrying truths about the mental health of young people. One teacher described how an eight-year old pupil climbed onto a roof and said they wanted to kill themselves.
The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) polled over 1,300 of it’s members. Of these members, 96% stated they felt they came into contact with young people with mental health problems. Approximately one in seven said the young people they were talking about were aged between four and seven.
Many mental health issues were discussed in the poll responses, including anxiety and panic attacks, self -harm and depression, as well as eating disorders and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Ages ranged from 4–16 years old.
The poll also brought to light the nature of other concerns around sexualised behaviour, including inappropriate text messaging between students, and bullying issues around such communication.
This is obviously a shocking state of affairs, and it highlights the concern that many young people are developing mental health issues, and often from a young age.
While it’s easy to feel scared about this, there are ways to deal with at least one of these issues at home. And that’s worry.
Obviously, the more complex concerns brought up by the poll are only tackled with professional support, but worry and/or anxiety affects more children than adults realise, and it’s something that can be addressed by the people closest to the child.
The parents.
What is worry?
Children worry about stuff. It’s a defence mechanism because it tells us that something is wrong or something could go wrong and we have to take steps to manage the situation. Of course, worry can sometimes be misguided, but worry is real, and in young people it can be particularly harmful if not managed effectively.
Worry is a healthy thing, as long as it is dealt with. But some parents aren’t aware of how they can help their child with it.
Much of that help is all about talking. If you’re able to talk about your child’s worry in a genuine way you’re halfway there.
Don’t ignore it
It’s easy to think that ‘small’ worries are silly things and that we should tell children to ‘forget about it’. Or we may say ‘don’t be silly, you shouldn’t worry about that’. However, it’s important to help children understand worry, not dismiss it.
If your child is worried, the worst thing you can do is dismiss it. This does not mean you go the other way, and tell them that the bee that’s landed on their nose is a terrifying creature and that everyone in the area should panic and run. Instead, tell them the bee doesn’t mean any harm, and doesn’t want to sting. But in the meantime, let’s try and send the bee on it’s way.
Don’t ignore your child not wanting to enter a room full of strangers. Agree that it can sometimes be a little nerve wracking to walk into a space like that, and that you feel like that sometimes too. If it’s necessary that the child enters the room, talk them through it, or distract them. Tell them they’re brave or super-cool for entering the room. Applaud it, while empathising and understanding their anxiety.
Don’t ignore worry. Be realistic about the situation, but don’t be overprotective. You know they’re worried, and you’re there to listen and help them through it.
No worry is too small. Help them work through it, whatever it is.
Make it objective
Some parents of very young children use a soft toy and give it a name that links to worry. Then a conversation is centred around this toy and what it might do to deal with the worry it faces. Making worry into a character that the parent and child can put through adventures makes worry and anxiety less scary. It can also help a child begin to deal with worry in an objective way.
This leads into the objective approach that parents can follow whenever their child is worried about something. Try to frame the worry and give it some context. Children (especially young children) will not see the world the way you do. But you can help to give them some perspective on things.
For example, if your daughter is concerned about a news item that she saw that covered terrorist attacks, this is not ‘just the news’. Terrorists are part of our life today, they hurt people and they’re very bad people. At the same time, it is being dealt with by governments and other agencies. The bad people will be stopped. And we shouldn’t be afraid to live our lives.
Now, allowing a four year-old to watch a news report about an attack is not something that I would think is healthy. But talking to your ten year-old about good and evil, right and wrong, and what we can do to help ourselves and others, that’s incredibly healthy.
Bad people are everywhere, but it doesn’t mean your daughter is going to be hurt by them. Knowing this, and knowing that there are still bad people out there, is important to a growing child.
The context of a situation is vital. At some point your child needs to know how the world works, otherwise they will find it difficult to understand it and make their own way.
On-the-spot
If you find yourself in a situation where your son is becoming very anxious, and their body and actions are telling you this, there are a few things you can do to relieve the anxiety, and help them get back to ‘baseline’.
If a young person is worrying and you’re telling them not to, there is every chance they won’t listen. This is not wilful. Their brain is not allowing them to take in any more information.
The emotional brain takes over, it’s chemical. The child can’t rationalise or even listen to the facts.
Your first job in a situation like this is to practise some breathing with your son or daughter. There are hundreds of breathing exercises out there, but one of the simplest for a young child is explained below.
Four step breathing
Step one: Look up to the ceiling and breathe in deeply. This opens up the chest, and initiates a relaxation response. Breathe out.
Step two: Breath in and look down at your shoes. This changes perspective and helps to relax even more. Breathe out.
Step three: Breathe through the whole body, from the feet to the top of the head. This helps to again quiet and calm the brain, and also helps with emotional regulation. Breathe out.
Step four: Repeat, or relax and take a moment.
Good schools teach breathing. Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, explains how it is done best for young children in the video below.
The real problem
I mentioned earlier in this piece that the more complex mental health problems need professional support. And that’s absolutely the way it is. Some of the children those teachers in the poll talked about need to have medical professionals on hand to offer real, informed support.
But I firmly believe that one of the biggest issues in parenting is listening. If you are able to spend time with your children, and engage in conversation, you are halfway there. Even for twenty minutes a day, over dinner perhaps. A conversation is vital, just one a day can keep you in tune with your kids.
During that conversation or interaction, the one thing you shouldn’t do is interrupt. As a teacher, I’ve always known that children hate being interrupted, or talked over. It devalues their place in the conversation, and the world.
I always make a special effort to let the young people around me finish their sentences. Waiting until a child has stopped saying what they have to say is immensely valuable to that young person. We all like being listened to. And don’t forget that in the adult world, anyone who interrupts someone else is generally seen as being ‘rude’.
If they’re continuously shot down by their parents, ‘talked over’ (kind of similar to‘walked over’, don’t you think?) and ignored, they’re devalued. After enough of that, they’ll retreat to their friends online, their peer group (healthy or otherwise) or they’ll stop talking for good, and enter another, sadder world.
This is the best piece of advice I can think of for parents. Talk to your children, and listen to them too. They have something to say, and it’s valuable. So listen and give them your full attention.
Otherwise, they’re going to stay in the dark.
So, back to schools…
This article isn’t offering any advice on how to deal with complex mental health issues. It’s just talking about how parenting includes connecting with children, and giving them space to grow. It gives them the best chance to make sense of this crazy world and realise it’s worth grabbing onto life with both hands, no matter how tough it gets.
The situation in schools is bleak, but it will change. In the UK, mental health in schools is currently a major focus. There’s a wealth of expertise on offer to schools and at the very least, educators are becoming more aware of the problem, and have some tools at their disposal.
Hopefully, this will prevent more eight year-old children climbing onto the roof.
