We’ve all heard the statistics. Roughly 20% of teens suffer from a mental illness. Suicide is the third leading cause of death in those aged 15-29. In fact, in 2023, 1 in 5 U.S. high schoolers reported seriously considering committing suicide. But that’s all that ever seems to come from these statistics: hearing about them. Over, and over, and over again, until they all just begin to lose meaning. And sure, there has been a somewhat marginal increase in teenagers receiving therapy. But this reflects an increased proactiveness among the public to take into account mental health in the scope of their health in general, rather than a direct effect of public policy, especially in education.
In the realm of government that makes decisions about our schools, there seems to be a sentiment that the best and most efficient way to address mental health is by increasing awareness. There has been an integration into curricula across the country of concepts of mental health, including warning signs of mental illnesses and ways to approach them. They were not wrong in assuming this. However, mental health has been a concept for nearly 120 years, since its popularization by psychiatric patient Clifford Beers and his Mental Hygiene Movement in 1908.
There is no doubt in the fact that every teenager knows what mental health is. Awareness isn’t the issue. The issue is that we have a hard time truly believing it matters to take action and put our mental health into our own hands- and the hands of a professional- when our education system can’t seem to take the effort to even do the bare minimum in actually improving our mental health, rather than just making us aware of it.
What we want is validation. Validation that our mental health matters, not just to us, but to the system that is supposed to be ensuring we develop into our best selves. And that is exactly what implementing optional mental health days for all students across the United States would do. Could you imagine being able to take a day off, just because you need it? No explanation needed, no consequences. If mental and physical health are truly equivalent, why are we given days off for a physical ailment, but not a mental one? The math simply does not add up.
For high school students, and even those younger, every week is a new trial, a new tribulation. We are constantly expected to learn new things and absorb them almost instantly, with the recurring and not entirely incorrect thought that if we don’t, it could cost us our future. Sometimes, we just need a reminder that this stress does not need to be a constant weight upon our shoulders. That we are allowed to take breaks that fit with our own mental schedule, of our own volition. But most importantly, to demonstrate once and for all that a student’s mental well-being is just as crucial to their future as their test scores.
