Mental Health Awareness Day

When you sit and think about it, it's hard to imagine anyone not having gone through some form of mental health issue at some point in their life. If they haven't then they probably will. We don't live in a healthy society so it's obvious we're all going to suffer at some point or other. And by that I mean that we are a nation of consumerism constantly trying to make ourselves feel better or be ahead of the next person, constantly dissatisfied with the hand we're dealt. And with good reason. Look at the world around us, it's disintegrating and decomposing before our eyes. Governments and corporations raping the land, using and abusing animals to make money, clogging the ocean with waste, killing sea life, damaging the earth. It's utterly depressing. But I'm getting off topic. Some are better at dealing with mental health problems than others but the fact is EVERYONE will face some kind of mental health problem in their lifetime. Anything can trigger a mental health issue. Living within a dysfunctional family, relationship break-ups, abusive relationships, school stress, work/unemployment, money worries, health conditions, lifestyle choices, accident trauma, grief and probably a lot more factors too. As today is National Mental Health Awareness Day I wanted to write a quick article. I don't want to drone on but I find it hard to believe people need to be made aware of mental health. I don't think I know one adult who hasn't gone through or going through some form of mental distress. Isn't it just part of life nowadays? It's sad to think so but true. The saddest thing though is when children go through it and as this is a home ed blog you can guess what I'm going to be talking about. The UK Prime Minister has said this week that all mainstream school children will have mandatory mental health assessments as part of the curriculum by 2020 but it's the school's choice as to whether or not they choose to add it to their curriculum (that doesn't really make sense to me). I personally think it's wrong to allow teachers to assess children for mental health issues, they aren't psychologists and if they get things wrong it could have devastating effects on families. This is just as bad as the Home Ed Bill. It's all in connection with the new "resilience" training they're rolling out at the moment. You've probably heard this phrase being thrown around. After years of being told you can't say this or that in the name of Political Correctness or the possibility of offending someone, now they're basically telling kids to stop being such snowflakes. So now they have to suck it up and shake off their problems, but just in case they can't, don't worry, there'll be teachers keeping their beady eyes on the kids writing everything down in an assessment and passing it onto the government for it to be stored away somewhere forever, and for the education department to get in touch with the family for a "meeting". More likely a family investigation. If anything I think this will make children even more inclined to not speak out. They might just want to vent a stressy day with a TA and all of a sudden now it's part of an assessment. I believe this is just one massive disaster waiting to explode. I know there's an astounding number of kids with mental health issues but personally, I don't believe this is the way to go about dealing with it. I feel it will anger parents and make kids feel scared, like they can't confide in teachers without risk of assessment. I think it's more about behaviour control than actually helping children with mental health problems.