Something’s Missing
In the NY Times article, “There’s a Mental Health Crisis Among American Children. Why?: And the pandemic is not the only reason,” I noticed a missing “why”, a big one.
Tingley lists many reasons why we have a mental health crisis in this country. These include issues with data collection, the ability for more children to receive adequate and early mental health care. She also points out how the pandemic has added to the crisis. But, she adds “rising numbers” of children and youth with mental illness was happening before Covid19. Less than 15% of these youth received treatment.
A Lack of Mental Health Education
As a mental health educator, the “why” there’s a mental health crisis in the US that I see missing is the lack of mental health education. The NYT article and others about the state of mental health in the US usually emphasize the issue of accessing treatment as the number one reason. But treatment for mental illnesses is a “downstream” strategy, a way to administer to those who are ill. They are often emergency life-saving measures. On the other hand, mental health education is an “upstream” strategy. Its purpose to arm individuals with the things they need to know and do to maintain mental health and prevent mental illnesses and the need for treatment as much as possible.
Making Mental Health Skill Building Fun and Easy
Because of the lack of mental health education, states like New York and California have made or are making it a law. These laws work to ensure mental health education happens in schools. It’s too bad we need laws to make mental health education take place. Teaching and learning the skills of mental health isn’t hard. And it can be fun! In my last post, I talked about learning the social and emotional skill of acknowledging fear. Embracing a “little fear” helps us move beyond anxiety to a place of thriving. For all healthy skills, it helps to understand why we need the skill and why it works. To learn the skill of acknowledging fear, it helps to understand how our brains work when we’re experiencing it.
Fear is a powerful emotion. In its basic form, it keeps us safe. And in our early human development, tuning into fear was essential for survival. The thing is, even now hundreds of thousands of years later, fear still wants to react in its primal way. A lot of fear we experience isn’t a life-or-death. Because of this, we need to embody the skill of calming our primal brain areas down and tune into the areas that provide a more modern, logical and practical approach.
I like how Dr. Steve Peters explains this in a simplified and fun way. Helping to clarify the complexity of brain science, Peters breaks it down. He conveys how our “emotional thinking machine” “The Chimp” needs to placate “The Human,” the area of thinking and planning. Says Peters, “You are not responsible for the nature of the dog but you are responsible for managing it, keeping it well behaved.” Just as “you are not responsible for the nature of your Chimp but you are responsible for managing it.” And that’s a mental health skill!
So, yes, we may be in a mental health crisis. But we don’t need to wait for laws and our schools to put a dent in that crisis. Mental health education can be provided now. As parents and adults, we can help build the skills of mental health in our children. And, more importantly, for ourselves – in fun and engaging ways. That’s what my picture book, “Adventures with phearnik!™” is all about. It’s a fun way to learn how to keep your social relationships and emotions healthy!
What about you? Could you use a fun way to help your child not be so fearful or anxious? Could you yourself use the same!? “Adventures with phearnik!™” can help!
