Essay on Common Mental Health Problems Students Face

One in five students have suffered from some sort of mental illness in school. How does this happen? How are school systems allowing this many students to have mental problems? Looking at our school, Treynor, close to one-hundred students would have some sort of problem if we used the 1-5 ratio. It's already known that students have mental health issues due to school. The mental health of people causes lasting issues during and after school years. It is something that has been a problem for too long and needs to be solved. 

According to Psychology Today and other sources, school is one-hundred percent causing mental health issues in students. Students are compared with peers every day just to get a percent or letter grade for every test and assignment. The kids are taught the same thing from kindergarten to the end of high school. School children are given information that they will never remember after the 30 question test. Nobody can even go to the bathroom without asking an adult. One in five students may be experiencing some sort of mental issues. So if Treynor has close to five hundred and fifty people,  roughly 110 may be suffering mentally. If this many people have mental illnesses, it must be looked into deeper than it already is. This type of management is called micromanagement and is present in almost all schools along with some businesses. The definition of micromanagement is “a management style whereby a manager closely observes and/or controls and/or reminds the work of their subordinates or employees.” (Google definition) Psychology today says that this type of management “drives people crazy.” But really why is school causing these problems and how (Gary) ?

We need to know how these problems arise in students, and what to do to stop them. Well without a school psychologist, problems in school are eighty-nine percent higher. Sadly only twenty-three percent of schools have an onsite psychologist. If a higher percentage of schools had a larger guidance/psychologist plan, maybe the problems that develop at school or home could be observed and may be treated. Speaking of home, parents have a big part in observing their children. If they see their child fail a test and then begin to stay in their room, that is something that the parents need to inquire about. Students not saying anything about their health may also be a contributing factor. If a student has depression because they failed the final in high school and talked to their parents, the parents may be able to help the kid out of this depressive state. They could do this by teaching the student what to do next time, encouraging them and giving the child ample time to do what they want, and give them more time to be with family and friends. Without parents taking time to talk to their kids,  problems will never be found out until it is too late. Special needs kids are also being impacted by mental health issues. Being in special needs classrooms makes the child a lot more susceptible to problems. In a study done it was shown that close to 64% of special needs students with health issues were suspended or expelled for 10 or more days. States with above average ADHD students have two times the expulsion rates of states with a lower population of ADHD kids. It’s a fact that students with disabilities are more prone to mental issues and expulsion and therefore, systems to deal with these disabilities need to change. It's really a question of how to change them because they have stayed the same for more than fifty years. So after these problems are hopefully discovered in students,  what happens to the kids when they get older or expelled? How do mental health problems affect students? Also, how is schooling without a mental illness affecting them (Mental Health Impacts In Schools) ?

It's sad to say but people with a mental illness have a very hard time away from school. More than seventy percent of kids in Juvenile justice have characteristics of a mental illness. Sixty percent of adults in the justice system also didn’t complete high school, thus showing that schooling is important especially without the extra expulsion rate that comes with a mental illness. When speaking about expulsion it must be said that students and adults after expulsions have a poor quality of life. Even the lifespan of an expelled kid drops by almost ten years, a considerable amount. Problems in school may also be a varying difficulty to manage. One student may only need to talk to a counselor once a month and one student may not be able to come to school. This difference in health may cause the school to have problems managing each student's needs, making these problems even more difficult for the student. Parents and teachers alike, not talking to the child may create more problems. From a child that suffered from depression and bulimia, she said “...teachers acted like she didn't care about her schoolwork. "I was so invisible to them." If her parents or the teachers talked to her she might have come out of the depression that the school put her in. Due to her depression, she became larger and kids called her fat. After this, she cut her wrist every day and skipped school.  If the girl’s parents or teachers would have been more involved, there may have been a different outcome (Anderson, Kavitha) . 

Overall, students' mental health in school is important and needs to be addressed. It has been too long since anything has been altered and it's time for some change. Some of the ways we can solve these long lasting issues is by having more onsite school psychologists, having students converse with their parents, and removing micromanaging from schools. These solutions will allow for students to be more successful academically and have fewer issues outside of school.

Anderson, Meg, and Kavitha Cardoza. “Mental Health In Schools: A Hidden Crisis Affecting Millions Of Students.” NPR, NPR, 31 Aug. 2016, www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/08/31/464727159/mental-health-in-schools-a-hidden-crisis-affecting-millions-of-students.

“Consequences of Student Mental Health Issues.” Consequences of Student Mental Health Issues | Suicide Prevention Resource Center, www.sprc.org/colleges-universities/consequences.

Gray, Peter. “The Danger of Back to School.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 7 Aug. 2014, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201408/the-danger-back-school.

“Mental Health Impacts In Schools.” Child Mind Institute, 24 May 2016, childmind.org/report/2016-childrens-mental-health-report/mental-health-impacts-schools/.

“Problems at School: Association for Children's Mental Health.” ACMH, 10 Mar. 2019, www.acmh-mi.org/get-help/navigating/problems-at-school/.