Is our children’s mental health in a sorry mess?

• 2 March 2018
• Jane Evans
• 1 comment

How can so many of our children be stressed, hurting themselves, depressed, aggressive, withdrawn, and worrying about anything and everything?

What do you think?

Is it down to:

• Media Hype
• More awareness
• Less resilient children
• How children are being raised
• Something else

Have the statistics caused an unhelpful panic?

A recent article in the Guardian entitled, ‘Children as young as three are self-harming, say teachers’, disclosed some alarming figures,

New data from NHS Digital, obtained by the Guardian this week, suggests the number of nursery and primary school pupils who self-harm is rising rapidly.

In the five years to 2017, hospital admissions for self-harm by children aged three to nine in England increased by 27%, with admissions jumping 13% among this age group between 2016 and 2017 alone.

In 2016-17, 107 children aged three to nine were admitted to hospital for self-harm.

What is being done to prevent mental illness amongst our youngest children?

Did you see the government consultation, Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision, in which they stated,

This green paper on children and young people’s mental health sets out this government’s ambition to go even further in ensuring that those who need it are able to access the right help for their mental health, in the right place and at the right time. The green paper focuses on earlier intervention and prevention particularly in or linked to schools and colleges.

I’ve no idea how long all the feedback from us all will take to correlate and then ignore. It will come much too late for thousands of children and young people of all ages who suffer every day.

My feedback on the green paper said that waiting to support children in schools is too late. Especially when we know that investment in community-based services families develop the kind of trusting, unconditional relationships that can make a real difference.

Any strategy by the government MUST have a deep, long-term investment in support for parents pre-birth and in the first 5 years of a child’s life when rapid brain development occurs. In tandem with this must be training and a requirement for all early years’ professionals to understand early attachment and childhood trauma so they can integrate knowledge and skills into everyday interactions and practices.

Finally…parents need to be present in their children’s early lives

21st-century living is not working well for our children. Sending both, or their only main carer, out to work is not what nature intended. I know that’s not popular and is NOT a judgment on any parent, ever, but I can’t change what nature wired children for, to be with their parents. After that, they do well with other family members. A look at attachment theory says it all, as does watching the Still Face Experiment by Ed Tronick. 

When children are home from daycare and school it is imperative that parents are as emotionally available to them as is humanly possible. Perfection is not the aim, but often and good enough is, as children miss their parents so much and are full to the brim with feelings they can’t sort through on their own. Screens can’t do this for children, faces and hearts can.

Mental health comes from mattering

Babies and children are wired to be seen, emotionally and physically because nature is damn clever and knows that this is what keeps them safe and alive. The added benefit for a child’s wellbeing comes with every acknowledgment and interaction as it says, “I see you” and “You matter.” This calms a child’s nervous system and brain and is the foundation for good mental health.

I think children’s mental health IS in a mess BUT that solutions are simple when applied early on. This must be the focus, as no parent wants their child to be in emotional distress and struggling just to get through the day. Let us use what is widely known and clear this mess up.

Five ways to support children’s mental health:

1. Tune into their emotions by putting yourself in their shoes and feeling what they are feeling right now
2. Hold back on moving them on too quickly from what they ARE feeling
3. Help them to name their feelings and work out where they notice them in their body
4. Model simple ways to breathe into the belly, to ground the body and create an internal sense of safety
5. Teach children about the benefits of using their brain and body connection

Support and information:

NIPS Mental Health and Children Seminar April 17^th, Bath

ChildLine 0800 1111

Young Minds UK: Parent’s Support Number 0808 802 5544