Student Mental Health Issues on the Rise

Student Mental Health Statistics 

• Florida ranks 30th in the nation for dealing with youth mental health
• 1 in 10 Florida kids suffered a major depressive episode in the last year
• 2/3rds of those kids said they never got help

It’s clear that the pandemic impacted the mental health of teens as well as everyone else as old stressors were amplified and brand-new ones were added to our lives. As we move further and further away from the peak of the pandemic, we might assume that mental health is readjusting and improving across the board, unfortunately this isn’t necessarily the case as statistics on mental illness demonstrate. 

What should we look out for?

Cyberbullying is something we’ve learned about since the internet was first introduced, but in today’s social media landscape, cyberbullying is an absolute staple of the modern student experience. Even when it happens off of school property or outside of school hours students bring their resentments and emotional distress into classrooms and cafeterias often leading to violence and emotional abuse. If we can educate our kids about how to handle internet confrontation, and understand how bullying works we give our kids the chance to navigate the internet environment with confidence and maturity. 

Are kids getting the mental health help they need?

Unfortunately, research on Florida students tells us that a majority of kids who feel like they need mental health support are not getting it whatsoever. The recent rise in school place violence and cyberbullying is surely not disconnected from this huge gap in mental health support among kids in Florida. Being certain that the children and teens in our lives who need mental health support are getting should be our greatest priority right now. With the internet and social media only becoming a greater part of our kids’ lives, if we hope to ensure their safety and happiness it’s important we don’t neglect their mental health and emotional development. There are so many options when it comes to how we can take care of our kids’ mental health, with some more obvious than others. Counseling and clinical resources are a natural and obvious route, and normalizing emotional expression in our relationships with our kids and destigmatizing mental illness are just as important.