A question: Would you like your child doing therapy with school teachers or administrators in schools (public or private, I care not)?
Perhaps I’m projecting, but I’m assuming the answer is, “no.” Why does it seem like there are quite a few parents, mothers and fathers, asking for schools to focus more on mental health? Many if not most of these schools, public and private, have masked children against parents’ wishes, forced children to be vaccinated for Covid-19 (and continue to…JDS for example still lists it as a requirement on their website), incorporated VERY unpopular subject matter into their curriculum overnight (and continue to do so…) and haven’t apologized AND CORRECTED COURSE (the important part of any apology, Kristin Mink) and you’re asking them to help with your child’s mental health?
With all due respect, I don’t think you know what you’re asking for. I know, I know, you have a degree on your wall from a place that taught you talking to 8 year olds about suicide will prevent them from committing suicide more than, perhaps, NEVER INTRODUCING THE CONCEPT TO THEM AT ALL, but you’re wrong. This is usually the part where the mental health for elementary school kids mob says, “well you can’t stop them from being introduced to the concept, so you have to get ahead of it,” while Billie Eilish is singing about Xanax from their teenagers’ bedroom.
Some context before I give you my advice. My father beat and raped my mother and then committed suicide. I found out and made the effort to have him arrested. When I was a teenager, I was diagnosed with a word by a smart person and placed on medication. I spent 10 years on a combined 23 different medications for anxiety, depression, stress, ADHD, insomnia, and other mental health words. When I met my wife, I quit taking everything cold turkey, and vowed to never take anything they ever gave me again. So, I have some experience here.
Now onto my children… I have three, and they’ve never heard the word, “depressed.” They don’t listen to songs with suicidal ideation, depressing lyrics, or parts of movies where people say, “kill myself.” They mute commercials when we’re watching sports, which is all they’re allowed to watch besides movies my wife and I have seen. They love, “The Sandlot,” and, “The Princess Pride.” They tell me immediately when they see a pride flag, MAGA sign, blue lives matter, black lives matter, or anything that doesn’t belong in a school, and then I raise hell. We play sports every day. My daughters play softball, swim, and play soccer, and my son plays baseball and is on travel soccer. They aren’t allowed to watch sports or play video games until after dinner, and we usually just play sports anyway.
Mental health, like race, sex, “gender,” is an adult concept, for adult people. None of which, go to K-12 schools. So please, for the sake of our children, stop advocating for focusing more on talking about mental health. That’s not how you improve it. Getting them outside and playing in a normal childhood environment with playgrounds and swings is. Talking about a thing more will never make a thing go away. Stop.
I’ll leave you with my favorite quote, modified for this context. “Before you allow your children to be diagnosed with a mental health illness, first, make sure they’re not surrounded by assholes.” If you’re asking for school teachers to improve YOUR child’s mental health, you’re an asshole; an asshole that doesn’t understand parenting.
