Children's mental health and the pandemic

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I did read the article. In my NOVA school, teachers spend 20-30 minutes on social-emotional skills every day. We are trained in how to screen and refer students for mental health care, and we know that they often don't get the care they need because of staff shortages or insurance issues. I would love to give even more time to social-emotional skills, but I have a master schedule to adhere to, and if I am not teaching what I am supposed to when I am supposed to, I get dinged by my administrators and need to account for why I am not doing the academic instruction that I am paid to provide. I have students in my class who deal with severe anxiety, suicidal feelings, exposure to drugs at home, abuse at home, neglect at home, and histories of trauma, and I am working hard to support all of them in the way that they need. Most of my students aren't able to access private mental health care, so our counselor, psychologist, and social worker are full up and I deal with the slightly less severe issues on my own, with no background in psychology or counseling. Our mental health team can't coach every individual teacher on how to help every individual kid's issues, so we are all doing what seems best based on our anecdotal experiences and trial-and-error.


OP, I don't disagree with you at all that it is my job to serve the whole child. What I need to support students' mental health is smaller class sizes and recognition from administrators that children can't learn as effectively when they are traumatized or mentally ill and may need more time, support, and staff to meet their goals. I need my evaluation to reflect that my work entails helping a whole child develop and not just demonstrating a year's measurable growth in reading, writing, and content knowledge. I need the school system to hire more mental health personnel for my school so I am not trying to guess at the best way to support a child when I don't even know the full extent of their issues. I need additional staff in my classroom so that like yesterday, I am not choosing between teaching the lesson on identifying a story's theme to 25 students or attending to the 3 students who are melting down (one yelling and refusing because of anxiety, one crawling under chairs and crying because of trauma, and one literally climbing furniture for reasons I haven't yet ascertained). I agree my job is to help these students, but I need HELP to do everything I am trying to do.

What I am hearing you say is you need more support to help your students with mental health issues, which I agree with. I think smaller class sizes are great but that by itself does little for my child if the teacher is inadvertently reinforcing her anxiety for hours each day, which is why the training piece is important too. I get that your job is hard (AS IS MINE) which AGAIN is why I hate asking anything of teachers, as I know it often comes with a lecture just like this one, but the alternative is to not advocate for my child and continue to pay for weekly therapy that will never end, even though her condition is treatable, because she actually CANNOT get better if her condition is being reinforced each day.

You cannot expect a teacher to cater to one child's anxiety. You aren't being reasonable. If you want smaller classes and catered to, go private or pay for an 1-1 aide. You also need to do more than just weekly therapy and try different medications. Clearly what you are doing isn't enough and demanding others handle the situation isn't reasonable.

Wow, so many assumptions and so much ignorance here. Only an idiot would recommend "different medications" for a child they know next to nothing about.

Maybe your kids have problems because of you and you feel you need to name call.

If a child is having severe anxiety that isn't treated with therapy, yes, they need to try different medications. Why would you have your child suffer when there are multiple approaches to try. Maybe parenting is the problem.

Many of us are very aware of SN. The difference is we don't expect others to fix it and get our kids the help they need.

You don't sound like you think accomodations for SN are valid. Sorry, but federal law disagrees.

[Anonymous]

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OP here. Thankfully, my child's teacher is willing to get trained, because my child can't progress without support from the person she is with for hours every day.

Trained in what? As an educator, I have advanced training in my content area and in the practice of teaching. Additionally, I have undergone about 8 hours of training in trauma-sensitive practices, and two hours annually on identifying and properly referring students to the appropriate professional for mental health crises. I am of course empathetic and provide lots of encouragement and accommodations to my students who seem to need extra care with their mental health struggled (which I am often not privy to due to co7but am expected to read from their behavior). What additional training has your child’s teacher had that you think I need and am unwilling to get?

If you are the pp I responded to, you're the one who said it's not your job to learn how to help a child with mental illness.

The training is specific to her condition. Her weekly sessions with the therapist can only go so far, she needs reinforcement on a daily basis. It's actually not complicated to learn and certainly doesn't require 8 hours of training. But the training is absolutely essential. The alternative is my child remains severely impaired, so I do not have a choice about wherher to ask the teacher to do this.

A teacher can support but this is your primary responsibility and if the mental health is that serious, your child may need another program as its not realistic to expect a teacher to teach and handle it. A teacher can look out for signs and communicate with you but ultimately you need to help and get them help. it is complicated if a teacher has 150 other students.

A self contained classroom would not be appropriate for her condition, and OF COURSE it is my primary responsibility, I have done my own much longer training. She is entitled to accommodations and to be in the least restrictive environment possible. My point is teachers can have a vital role in supporting children with mental illness that goes beyond just "identifying" it but also does not involve talk therapy. When you are the adult around children for six hours a day you have an enormous influence on them. In my experience teachers welcome the opportunity to learn how to best support their students.

Of course teachers want to help their students. Here’s my question for you: I have 140 students this year, and I’m pretty confident that about 1/3 of them are seeking therapy for anxiety, depression, or other social/emotional conditions. How much time do you think I have during a 6-hour day to devote to one student? If I devote more time to your child, is that fair to the many other students who also could benefit from my additional attention? Many students are suffering right now. I see it in my own family and I take my own child to therapy weekly. I don’t expect her school to be able to fill that need.

[Anonymous]

There is a difference between exposing a person to anxiety, which is really important and something I work on daily with my child, versus creating the conditions that reinforce the anxiety. I'm sorry, I know it's frustrating that I'm not providing more specifics, but obviously this is a topic that a lot of people get upset about so I would like to protect my and my child's privacy.

If you want to make this thread about your child, take it to the special needs forum and make it about them. You started a thread referring to an article which recommends things like devoting time to social-emotional learning or training teachers in identifying mental-health issues, and no teacher will take issue with those recommendations.