Top 5 Reasons Youth Need To Learn About Mental Health
According to the most recent NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) study, 1 in 6 U.S. youth ages 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year. That's nearly 17% of students diagnosed and treated for a mental health disorder. But what this statistic does not tell us is how many more students are suffering from mental health issues undiagnosed and untreated.
So much of our mental health conversations are only about diagnosed depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, or obsessive-compulsive disorder. These are all important and should be in the conversation. But it says nothing of those who suffer and struggle with mental health in secret, leaving them hopeless, alone, and lost. But what would happen if we were able to empower students with the knowledge and the tools they need to normalize the conversation around mental health? What if their secret struggles of anxiety, fear, depression, etc., didn't have the final say in their future?
It is, in fact, possible—through RemedyLIVE's Get Schooled Tour. It has the power to rally an entire school community to be engaged and educated on mental health. If your local school hasn't experienced Get Schooled yet, it needs to. Here's why.
Reason #1: Youth Should Learn They Have A Brain.
The brain is the body's command center. It controls emotions, intelligence, body movement, and function. Literally everything. But you already knew that. But chances are you regularly forget about it. Most of the time, our brain is relatively healthy. But sometimes it's not. And when something isn't right with it, we can have a hard time recognizing it or talking about it. It's the most powerful part of our body, yet so many of us have difficulty controlling or understanding it. It's quite the paradox.
The Teenage Brain
“It’s important to remember that even though their brains are learning at peak efficiency, much else is inefficient…” - Frances E. Jensen
Now consider the teenage brain. While it may be a fully functioning command center, it is still developing, making it prone to breakdown and malfunction and susceptible to outside influence. Every activity, situation, event, and even the environment—including our parents and our upbringing—contribute to how the brain develops. The fancy term is neuroplasticity—how the brain organizes and reorganizes synaptic connections. Therefore, knowing how the brain functions is critical to understanding mental health. It's not just knowing how you think, but how we perceive and interpret the world around us.
Click Here to Learn About how our Brains Develop Throughout our Lifetimes
Reason #2: Youth Should Learn To Say The Word Suicide
Say it. Say the word, suicide. It's a little uncomfortable, right? Have you ever thought about why? It's because we don't understand it. It's often connected to feelings of blame, guilt, and shame. What goes on in our minds can be a bit of a mystery. And we don't like talking about things we don't fully understand. Talking about mental health for many is difficult—even impossible. Talking about suicide adds an entirely new layer of difficulty.
We have been thoroughly conditioned to believe that we are supposed to be okay. We ask, "how are you?" We answer with, "I'm fine."
The expectation is to be okay when the reality is, sometimes we aren't. But what if we could get students beyond the conditioned response by deepening the question and offering sincere answers. Suicide resulting from mental health struggles is real, and we should talk about it. What if schools and homes were able to create a culture of asking, "How are you, really?" And the comfort of answering honestly. This is about creating a culture among our youth that the things they struggle with mentally don't have to be a secret. There is no need to struggle or suffer alone.
Click Here to Learn More About Suicide Awareness
Reason #3: Youth Should Learn An Immediate Path For Help
Programs at school are notorious for being one and done. It often goes something like this: A tragic event happens at school or in the neighborhood. The community rallies, responds and recovers by inviting a program to come in and educate students and families. But after a few months, life returns to normal, and the lessons are soon forgotten.
It doesn't have to be that way.
The Get Schooled Tour is different. It is specifically and intentionally designed to be a catalyst. Raising awareness and normalizing mental health conversations without ongoing follow-up with students is simply missing the mark. The goal should be to equip students with the truth and then provide teachers and students with the immediate and appropriate next steps and an ongoing effort as a result of a changing culture surrounding mental health.
Click Here to Learn More About the Get Schooled Tour
Reason #4: Youth Should Learn That Mental Health Is A Priority Among Their Teachers And Staff
Teachers are masters of instruction, curriculum designers, classroom managers, and incredible lovers of students. However, they are not always experts in fully understanding the mental health of their students. It is challenging, with so many students to manage, to be fully aware of the mental state of each of them at any given moment. But when we can educate an entire community of students, teachers, administrators, counselors, and parents to be open about secret struggles and to be looking out for one another, we teach them to share the responsibility.
Click Here to Learn More About Managing Emotions
Sharing the load gives the conversation priority among the entire community. An ideal culture of students looking out for and caring for one another isn't unreachable. In fact, it happens regularly. It starts when school leaders and parents empower students to act. This is the unique power of the Get Schooled Tour.
Reason #5: Youth Should Learn How To Bring The Same Awareness Home
The home was once an escape from the pressures of school, bullies, and anxiety. The home was the place to be free. You could hide from the rest of the world. It is a much different story today. There is added pressure and competition in school, there are no escaping bullies, the demand to be precisely what the world says you should be can never be turned off. All thanks to the internet and social media. A home is no longer a place of escape it once was. The anxiety, depression, stress, and pressure from the world haunt students every waking moment, adding to the deterioration of the mental health of our youth.
By creating a conversation and eliminating the stigma of talking about mental health, students can feel confident in taking these conversations home. Maybe it's a healthy conversation with family or friends. But perhaps it can only be a text conversation with a SoulMedic. No matter the means, students have the necessary tools to address whatever is going through their minds twenty-four hours a day.
Students can often feel alone, hopeless, purposeless, depressed, anxious, stressed out and overwhelmed. But far too many of them suffer in secret. And we don’t discover their struggle until it’s too late. RemedyLIVE’s Get Schooled events get us all one step closer to a school culture that invites and encourages mental health conversations—the kinds of conversations that can save lives.
