Mental Health and Its Challenges on Children

With schools being closed since March, how are school children facing more social isolation?

There are many challenges that children are facing due to school closures. Kids are without playmates and play is extremely important in:

• Facilitating cognitive development
• Developing social skills and a sense of morality
• Development of social relationships outside of the family

Families where children have no siblings may be particularly vulnerable, as their loneliness is amplified.

It also doesn’t help that parents are also disconnected physically from other parents who can help them cope.

• One reason why parents are struggling to cope is because children’s prefrontal cortex of the brain isn’t fully developed and therefore unable to regulate their emotions.
• Therefore, parents have to do that bit for them – therefore causing exhaustion.
• Sometimes parents may experience something called allostatic load which is where emotional resources are depleted from prolonged exposure to stress.
• This is where teachers, day care providers and extended family come handy because it allows parents to recharge, but also allows parents to cope with the stress.

All of these things have highlighted a multi-dimensional complex problem and has proven to some extent that children do not only need parents and vice versa – we all need external social relationships.

When did you first experience mental health problems of students at school (please clarify the age range of students)?

Ever since my teaching career began!

Year 6 pupils are under extreme pressure to perform, which can be trickled down due to the stress of the teachers and their targets.

Year 13 students need a lot of resilience and have a lot of expectations and pressures. There are a lot of career expectations such as becoming a doctor, or not being allowed to take a year out, etc. The social expectations can feel overwhelming.  

What symptoms can you recognise in a child having mental health problems?

• Change in mood that lasts longer than a few days.
• Low energy
• Withdrawal from social contact
• A significant lack of enthusiasm
• Significant loss or gain in appetite
• Trouble sleeping
• Indecisive
• Not having much confidence
• Talk about feeling guilty or being worthless
• Thoughts on suicide and self-harm

How can parents help their children with mental health problems?

It’s important that children understand just like we have physical health, we have mental health.

We respond to experiences with our thoughts, feelings and emotions which ultimately lead to the behaviours we exhibit.

As a parent you can calmly and confidently open up conversations – when you’re having dinner at the dining table – that’s a perfect opportunity to open up discussion. We do this at the beginning of every lesson at Spark.

Explaining that there may be days where we will feel sad, demotivated and struggle is an important way for children to understand that even parents feel this way at times – that they are not perfect beings. More importantly, it’s important to have a conversation about asking for help and support.

Tips on how to openly engage in conversation:

• You don’t seem your usual self today – did you want to talk about anything?
• You look sad/worried today. Do you want a chat about? Is there any way I can help?

Focus in on your body language, as a parent your body language must show that you are interested and that you are listening without judgement. Give your full attention.

• Sit on the same level as them – no height difference.
• Be calm and acknowledge their feelings.

Why is it that mental health as a subject is not taught or studied at school?

It’s becoming more prominent now than ever – but it’s just the beginning. It needs it to be integral to the way teachers teach their classes EVERYDAY and not just something they do intermittently. It needs to be consistent so that it becomes habitual in:

• How parents communicate with their child at home.
• How employers communicate with their employees in the work place.

It all needs to come back full circle. We need children to have coping strategies and to improve their resilience as life is changing dramatically and we need the next generation to be equipped with these skills with the support, adaptation and understanding of the current generation.

Which particular tactics are best in supporting children with mental health?

1. Talking openly about mental health. However, sometimes children find it hard to express themselves. For younger children especially, this can be a challenge. If your child finds it difficult to express themselves verbally, a technique that you can use is to use toys, dolls and art materials and ask your child, “show me how you’re feeling” and they will play out scenarios.
2. Model good habits
3. Children learn from copying what they see around them.
4. So, I would say it’s important for parents to take care of their mental health and wellbeing for their children to see what good habits look like.
5. You can even do well-being practices together. For example:
6. Practise breath work:
7. Loads of benefits including: boosting immunity, increasing your confidence, processing emotions and healing pain and trauma.
8. An example is the 4-7-8 breathing technique where you breathe in through your nose for 4 seconds, hold your breath for 7 seconds and breathe out through your mouth for 8 seconds. When you breath out make a whooshing sound.
9. Dedicated time for family – no phone zone: Be in the present.

You have shared your experience of not looking at social media during certain times of the day to give yourself time to yourself, why is this important to both children and adults?

1. Social media is fantastic because you are more connected now than ever before with people across the globe. You can be part of groups and networks, pick up new skills and learn new things. However, as we know there can be some down sides to social media.
2. Research by the Centre for Mental Health have found that 5% of young people are addicted to social media.
3. The addictive nature of social media can be linked to instant gratification and dopamine production (which is the chemical in the brain that is associated with pleasure and reward).
4. The desire for a hit of dopamine combined with failure to gain instant gratification, prompts users to continually refresh their social media feeds.
5. Now, this is not a problem exclusive to young people. In fact, us adults experience this too.
6. What can be worrying is if the instant gratification is not met, users can internalise beliefs such as ‘I’m not popular’, ‘I’m not funny’.
7. A lack of ‘likes’ may cause negative self-reflection, prompting users to continually check their notifications in the hope that another person has enjoyed their posts – which gives a sense of validation. Also, this can be linked to body image issues and low self-esteem which amplifies feelings of loneliness and anxiety.
8. Also, people experience ‘FOMO’ which means fear of missing out – which adds to the feelings of loneliness. This is why you may find that children will often bug you to join social media platforms or hide the fact that they are on them (which is a major safeguarding concern).
9. One of the reasons why they do this is because of FOMO and their friends are on it and they want to stay continually connected. Your child doesn’t want to feel socially disconnected from their friends.
10. As humans, we are social beings who desire group interaction – so exclusion from social life can have damaging psychological impacts.
11. This is why there needs to be a balance – as Sunil has suggested.
12. Set time aside, measure your analytics for screen time.

What counselling services are available - public or private for children with mental health?

I concur with Sunil and just wanted to add that if things are taking longer on the NHS, then do not hesitate to seek independent professional advice, if your finances allow. Time is of the essence and you must see it as an investment into your child’s mental health and wellbeing and not look at it as a cost. Your child will experience first-hand transformative life skills that will only help for their futures. In the same way you may pay for a tutor to help your child with their academics and improve their future career prospects, you may consider a holistic service to empower your children with the right tools and mindset.

What local or central government initiatives are in place for schools to educate children on emotional wellbeing and mental health?

Schools have to promote wellbeing

1. Curriculum teaching must promote resilience and support social and emotional learning and focus on:
2. How to take on feedback and areas on where to improve.
3. Achieving a growth mindset: Embrace challenges, persist in the face of setbacks, seeing effort as a path to mastery, learning from criticism, find inspiration in the success of others.
4. Starting and ending their lessons with breathwork or meditation. Ready to learn, concentrate.
5. Therapeutic teaching practices
6. Calm caring tone
7. Stop what you’re doing and listen
8. Pay attention
9. Body language queues
10. Hearing student voices and enabling students to influence decisions; acknowledge that they are heard, and they matter. Even introducing ideas like the worry box idea.
11. Focus on staff development to support their own well-being and that of students
12. Identifying need and monitoring impact of interventions
13. Working with parents and carers
14. Targeted support and appropriate referral
15. Leadership that supports, practices and champions efforts to promote emotional health and wellbeing