As someone who has had an anxiety disorder for all her life, I take mental health very seriously. I parent my kids from the perspective that their mental health is as important as their physical health. To me, my kids’ mental health is more important than what grades they get or whether or not they have perfect attendance at school.
One of my sons tends to get very stressed out about schoolwork
This was especially the case as he entered middle school. The increased workload was a lot, and he’s a perfectionist at heart. There were times that he’d have multiple projects due and he felt so overwhelmed by the idea that he not only had to do them, but do them perfectly, that he would freeze up and not be able to do anything at all.
Now, I don’t think it makes sense to run away from your problems, but during some of the times that my son would feel frozen by fear, the best thing for him to do was to take a day off from school to chill out and regroup. It became a bit of a routine for him. About once a month, he’d take a day off — a mental health day.
They were a life-changer
If it were up to him, a mental health day would look like spending 10 hours in his PJs playing video games. And while I let him do a fair bit of that, he also spent some time talking to me about his feelings, and coming up with a plan for how to manage the workload that was weighing on him.
I’m convinced that those mental health days were what got him through middle school. Now a high school freshman, my son seems much more able to manage his workload as well as his emotions about it all. But besides all that, giving him mental health days taught him an important lesson: that taking care of his mental health was a necessity.
Unfortunately, there were times that his teachers weren’t quite on board with this plan. Last year, when my son was on Zoom, it was hard to explain his absences for mental health. I would sometimes ask his teachers to excuse his homework on the days that he needed mental health breaks, and quite a few teachers were not OK with that. They were apt to excuse his work when he had a physical ailment that kept him out of school, like a stomach ache, or when he had side effects from his COVID vaccine. But not so on his mental health days.
This needs to change
Especially since the pandemic, kids are experiencing more mental health crises than ever, and they need to feel OK about taking a day off every now and then to regroup and take a breather.
I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the news that the state of Illinois is making mental health a priority for kids by allowing up to five excused mental health days per year. What’s more, after the second mental health day that a child takes, they will have a school counselor get in touch with them, and help them find mental health services, if needed.
Apparently, Illinois isn’t the only state allowing excused mental health days. Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Virginia have similar regulations in place. But that’s not enough. This needs to be a thing everywhere.
Kids are overwhelmed. They need to step back from the grind of school sometimes. Not only that, but if schools are in the business of setting kids up for successful lives, teaching them to take their mental health seriously is one of the most important lessons of all.
