This is why that quote above rang true for me. You can’t act rationally if acting doesn’t feel safe, and many of us grew up never feeling safe. To our mind, staying silent and still was the rational choice. Doing something different could have been more dangerous. It was also the natural reaction because we were simply overwhelmed.
Think of it this way, we don’t ask trauma survivors to try healing from their trauma when their current situation is unsafe. That would be silly. We get them into a safe situation first, before they can even begin to heal. The same goes here. Kids who are safe and feel secure in their parents’ love and support look forward beyond the trauma.
Kids who are unsafe and not secure in the love and support of parents relive their trauma on a daily basis. It’s no wonder they are slightly more likely to immediately think of it when surveyed.
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It seems many parents want schools to do more in this space, which makes sense, because mental health issues only get worse when kids grow up without support.
Why would a kid growing up in poverty, without enough food, and without the social support to succeed in school, feel any different about themselves as they enter adulthood? There’s a connection there; good mental health is hard to find when the entire world tells you you’re less-than.
Maybe we should stop viewing anyone as less-than and fight to make sure no kids go without.
If you think kids are resilient and they’ll be fine, or that by teaching kids mental health and emotional skills, you’re causing them to have mental health issues, you are depriving them of a much-needed source of development that could make the difference between spending years as an adult struggling versus having the skills to navigate the difficulty of adulthood. We recognize that early intervention in mental health is crucial. Why would we not do that?
