Editor’s note: Dr. Neha Choudhary, child and adolescent psychologist and chief medical officer of BeMe Health and faculty member at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, wrote this article for CNN.
(CNN) — In a world often divided, it’s easy to lose sight of one thing that all adults have in common, that we were all once children. Caregivers and teachers play essential roles in shaping our mental health, our views of the world, and our abilities to deal with the ups and downs of life.
The United Nations estimates that one in four people in the world will suffer from a mental health condition during their lifetime.
As a child and adolescent psychotherapist, I believe that if every school and family invested in developing guidelines for how to support young people’s mental health, especially during the formative teenage years, more children would have the skills and support they need to grow healthily into adulthood.
Here is what this operating manual should include:
Providing quality education about mental health
The first step to addressing any problem is acknowledging its existence. This applies to mental health. Schools and families can ensure that children and teens receive information about mental health, from being aware of the signs and symptoms of common conditions, to tips on how to maintain and improve general well-being.
Schools will be able to improve children’s knowledge base on this topic, by including an understandable formal curriculum for mental health and what conditions are. This will help them determine if they are suffering before it is too late, provide help to friends who need it, or even discover and dispel misinformation when they come across it in places they automatically go, such as social media.
The study on the subject does not need to start and finish in schools. Caregivers can also begin to teach children what they know about mental health, share any mental health conditions in the family history, and encourage their children to turn to other resources that provide them with more knowledge.
Create safe spaces to talk
Today’s youth is growing up in an era when, finally, mental health is no longer a taboo. However, frankness is still difficult. In order to create safe spaces for these conversations, we need to invite children, young children or older teens, to share what they think and feel without judging, criticizing, or denying them.
Schedule each Friday for a proactive check-in to school, or ask how everyone feels when they gather around the dinner table at home on Tuesdays. And by making mental health part of the regular conversation, we’re sending a message that it’s okay to be unwell, that mental health is important, and that we can support each other through whatever we encounter in our lives.
Provide them with a toolkit on coping skills
One of the most common questions parents and teens ask is what to do about the constant stresses of life. My advice is the same every time: these pressures will not stop. So, let’s learn how to adapt and deal with the emotions that accompany them, one by one.
It’s relatively easy to create a coping toolkit, and the skills themselves work very well at calming the emotional centers of the brain.
I encourage children to make lists of the activities that best help them feel better when those feelings are intense, whether it’s listening to music, doing some jumping jacks, reading a book, or distracting themselves with a task like folding a pile of laundry.
It may take some testing to be able to identify the most useful confrontation skills, but once identified, they must be added to that list and used again. These lists are easy to make, both in class and at home, and children should be able to practice their skills in both settings.
Make a plan to get additional support
Once a child is diagnosed with a specific mental health problem, it can be difficult to know how and where to get help. However, a proactive plan can be put into use if a difficult scenario is encountered in which the child needs timely support.
Teachers and caregivers must know when and how to refer children for a formal mental health assessment or professional treatment. Parents should know how to request accommodations at school, and schools should consider partnering with community organizations, businesses, and local mental health practices.
Crisis safety plan
Emergency rooms have seen a marked increase in suicidal behavior among young people during the pandemic, highlighting the need for support during crises, especially among adolescents. However, it can be difficult to know what to do during these difficult times. But proactive safety planning at home or at school can provide children with a set of steps to take when they are facing a difficult time. The plan might include a list of trusted adults, techniques for making an environment safe, and shared phone numbers for crisis lines, including 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or Crisis Text Line.
Include youth voices
Ultimately, nothing is more important than asking the children in your family or class at school where they are, what they need, and what helps them to feel supported. And if we want to better support young people, we need to spend more time listening and understanding so that we can meet their needs, setting aside our assumptions.
The mental health of young people is really a shared responsibility. If we work together, in classrooms, homes, etc., we may be surprised at what the next generation will be like.