Michael Abrahams | Why teach children about mental health?

The Ministry of Health and Wellness, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Youth, recently launched the School Mental Health Literacy Programme, targeting students between the ages of 13 and 16. Speaking at the launch of the programme, Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton stated, “Mental health challenges are now more a norm than an exception and so we cannot only intervene to cure, but also to persevere and to sustain lifestyle practices that allow us to cope and be the best that we can be. The school is fertile soil for developing good habits. It is also fertile soil for bad habits, and so we have to start there.”

Teaching children about mental health is a no-brainer, really. We teach our youngsters about how the human body functions, and children will enter high school with a basic understanding of their reproductive, gastrointestinal, respiratory and other systems. But we do not teach them about their minds and how they work, and how to take care of them. Health, as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), refers to physical, mental and social well-being. So why not teach our children about mental health?

Balancing schoolwork, extracurricular activities, friendships and relationships with family members, especially during the turbulent period of adolescence, can be an arduous task. This phase of life can be very challenging. During this period, youngsters are often trying to ‘find themselves’. They are no longer little children, but not yet adults. Their bodies become more physically mature, but their mental and emotional maturities lag. They experience significant hormonal changes, and with these developments, their sex drives blossom, along with an increased likelihood of engaging in risk-taking behaviours, such as experimenting with sex and mind-altering substances, and engaging in fast and reckless driving.

STRESSFUL SITUATIONS

Our kids are exposed to a plethora of stressful situations. Bullying in schools is an ever-present problem. Unfortunately, in modern times, with the advent of the Internet, they now have cyberbullying to contend with. Social media has been a source of agony for many youngsters, with bullying on those platforms causing severe mental torment, and even driving some to commit suicide. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided even more challenges for our youth. The disruption of their education, along with social isolation, being confined to homes with abusive family members and guardians, and other factors, have caused much discomfort, increasing their vulnerability to mental illness.

Teaching children about mental health is especially important in Jamaica, because in addition to the abovementioned risk factors, our society has a high prevalence of several other stressors. Intergenerational trauma, which is a part of the legacy of slavery that persists in this country, is an additional issue being faced by our youth. Corporal punishment, which multiple studies have found to do more harm than good, has been normalised in our society, as has been violence in many forms. Our children see violence in their homes and in the communities, and hear it being glorified in dancehall music, our most popular musical genre. Not surprisingly, the ACE (adverse childhood experience) scores of our children are above average, setting them up for mental, and even physical, health issues.

HIGH PREVALENCE

Research has found that we have a high prevalence of mental illness in our country. There is also much stigma regarding mental illness in our society. The combination of both high levels of mental health issues and stigmatisation is an unfortunate and unhealthy coupling, resulting in many persons with mental illness being undiagnosed and untreated. Learning about mental health will help youngsters to identify mental health issues not only in themselves, but also in their schoolmates and in their homes. Teaching children to identify aberrant mental behaviour will also help them to empathise with those who are afflicted. By educating our youth about mental health, we are helping to decrease stigmatisation regarding the issue, and to normalise conversations about mental health and receiving therapy.

The relevance of choosing to educate adolescents about mental health cannot be overstated. A perusal of global health statistics makes this obvious. According to the WHO, around one in seven of the world’s adolescents have a mental disorder, and half of all mental health disorders in adulthood start by age 14, but most cases are undetected and untreated. Research has also found that one in nine people in settings affected by conflict have a moderate or severe mental disorder. And our youth are exposed to much conflict. Our country may not be at war, but our murder rate is so high that people get killed here at a rate comparable with countries experiencing civil war. Also, suicide is the fourth leading cause of death in individuals age 15-29 years, and people with severe mental disorders die 10 to 20 years earlier than the general population.

So reaching out to teens and educating them about mental health not only has the potential to improve quality of life, but also to save lives. Mental health is an important constituent of health, and mental health education ought to be an integral component of the education of our youth.

Michael Abrahams is an obstetrician and gynaecologist, social commentator and human-rights advocate. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and michabe_1999@hotmail.com, or follow him on Twitter @mikeyabrahams.