The Problem of Mental Disorders Among School Students

Have you ever felt unhappy? And it’s reached the point where you reach out to your parents or teachers? but all they say is “it’s just a teenage phase, stop being so ridiculous, you are not depressed!” But you genuinely feel like you can’t escape the feeling of being worthless and miserable. I think we have all experienced unhappy times in our lives and it has just been slipped under the mat because we are “just teenagers” and it has been blamed on our raging hormones.

Now, schools are where students aged 5-17 years old spend 6 hours a day, 5 days a week studying. You could potentially label school our “second home” since we are there for majority of our youth. Many friendships and relationships are formed throughout our 13 years at school, It’s where we find our self worth. Whether it may be in sports, academic success or popularity. It is also where mental health issues arise.

It is a fact that not one single person reaches year 13 without having had lots of stress and pressure put on them. Most girls at Marsden will be able to relate to this because our school has a very good reputation for overall the “best grades” in Wellington. I can guarantee that every single student feels pressure that our peers, parents or even teachers place upon us to follow the school's motto; which is; “aim for the highest.” These high expectations and pressures put upon Marsden girls make us believe that in order to be fulfilled and happy with ourselves we have to “aim for the highest” which simply means that we all aim to get excellence and if we receive any mark other than that, it means we have done a terrible job and are really disappointed in ourselves. Ontop of academic stress it is also likely that most students will encounter social exclusion and bullying.

I think it is immensely important to educate kids from as young as 5 years old about mental health, to prevent mental illnesses before they occur. Simply by teaching us coping mechanisms to better manage our emotions. At the moment we all usually wait until someone has a mental illness before we take action. In most schools mental health is mentioned once or twice maybe in assemblies or in health class, but we are only given help if we directly go and seek it. This makes a lot of students slide their mental health issues out of the way and hide them from everyone. Thus a reason why mental health should be part of the New Zealand school curriculum, so students don’t have to go and seek help themself but they are given resources and knowledge in an open class discussion to help us get a grip on how to process emotions which could prevent dangerously chronic illnesses.

Every school all over the world looks after students physical health through Physical Education. ‘PE’ has been compulsory in schools for over 100 years, teaching us about nutrition and the benefits that exercise has on our body. Why isn’t mental health considered equally as important? We recognise financial awareness as well as physical health as areas that are of the greatest importance to us, we believe that they are going to create a sustainable future for our generation and generations to come.

Mental illness, especially depression has been predicted as one of the biggest health concerns of the future generations. Considering that depression is one of the main causes of chronic illness in this world today, really makes me wonder why school’s are not arming their students with a very important, arguably the MOST important tool to help them navigate throughout their highschool, university and adult life. That is to educate them from a young age about mental health so they have a better understanding of how to process stress, sadness, loneliness, the list goes on. Now I am certainly not saying that young children should be taught all the grim graphic details that are associated with mental illness, but just a general understanding of emotions from a young age I consider to be extremely important.

Life is a lot more confusing than it was 60 years ago, especially for young people growing up in a world full of new technology. We have freedom of choice, the job market is very competitive which means that there is more pressure that is now placed upon students getting the best education possible for them. Yes, most schools now have counselors that students can go to if they need help. However, this mainly focuses on providing support for the 850,000 children who have existing mental illnesses, rather than providing a general mental health open discussion for all pupils. Now I'm not saying that this is wrong because of course it is very important for children who do have a mental illness to have the right support, but I believe that this has to be part of a wider education, an open discussion.

It is really important to know that feeling sad, anxious or down is nothing to feel like slightest bit ashamed of. This could make students all over the world open up about their feelings, which will allow them to be able to cope with these feelings which could prevent a chronic mental illness from developing. A mental disorder is extremely difficult to overcome and it takes many years to fully recover. Imagine how many lives and pure souls we could save by just being educated.