How Parents Can Make School Mental Health Days Work for Kids

In the past few years, some parents have received a new item to put into their child-rearing tool kits: the school mental health day. Since 2018, more than a dozen states have passed or proposed bills that would allow school districts to treat days missed for mental health issues the same way they treat absences for physical health issues.

The question for parents will be deciding when and how to use the option.

Mental health days are a response to the mental health crisis among children, said Jill Cook, executive director of the American School Counselor Association. “Even before the pandemic, we knew that anxiety was on the rise,” she said. “And we also know that the pandemic just exacerbated some of that for many students.”

Mary Alvord, a clinical psychologist in Rockville, Md., agrees that mental health days could trigger school avoidance.  She recommends that mental health days be devoted to that learning, rather than to retreating from whatever is troubling the child.

How should parents decide?

Unfortunately, there’s no thermometer to tell you when a child is too stressed or anxious to go to school. Alvord said it’s about “closely observing them and listening to what they say and talking with them as much as they’re willing.” Ask questions such as, “What is making you think or feel like taking a day off would be helpful?” or, “Is there something pressing going on?”

Nekeshia Hammond, a clinical psychologist in Brandon, Fla., said she believes that, in middle and high school, “a lot of kids can say, ‘You know what, I need a break.’ And I think we need to really respect that.”

How to spend the day

“Our mental state is directly related to how we do in school. So, we don’t want to send a really distressed or really depressed kid if they can’t handle it,” Alvord said. “But you have to do something. It has to be proactive.”

Once you have a handle on what’s troubling a child or teen, work together on a coping plan. If a child is upset about a social interaction at school, the plan may be to go to see the school counselor together. If they were so anxious that they couldn’t sleep the night before, consider letting them sleep for a few hours before taking them in late — mental health days don’t need to last all day, Alvord noted.

Finally, parents should be aware that they might need to help their child “transition from this mental health day to going back into the academic setting,” Hammond said. For example, if a child has anxiety, a parent can work with them on positive visualizations of being back in school.

A new approach to mental health

One benefit of the concept of mental health days is that it gets parents, teachers and kids openly talking about the issue.

“It’s a really important statement for the states to be saying, ‘Hey, we care about your mental health,’” said Hammond, who hopes all states will eventually pass similar laws. “Because in my experience, some schools are so focused on academics they have completely forgotten that we need children to have positive mental health to work and perform academically.”

Parents should also model emotionally healthy behavior for their children, Hammond said. “It’s okay to show your kids ‘I got really stressed out, but here’s what I’m doing about it. I’m trying to take care of myself.’ ”

Excerpted from “New school mental health days? How parents can make them work for kids.” in The Washington Post. Read the full article online.

Source: The Washington Post | New school mental health days? How parents can make them work for kids., https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/09/30/school-mental-health-day-advice | © 2022 The Washington Post

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