Mental Health Days for Students: An Expert Opinion

Have you ever asked yourself why some high school students want to stay home even when others are in session? In this case, how do you think their fathers, mothers, or guardians respond? Instead of imploring them to go to school, parents should actually ask them a few questions about their mental status.

In particular, parents or guardians can inquire if the children are feeling overwhelmed or sad. With such questions, they will surely understand what might be the reason for their kids not going to school. Even though countries worldwide are enacting appropriate measures to achieve normalcy in their learning institutions after disruption by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2029, they are experiencing a sudden surge in mental health problems among high school and college students.

According to a 2020 Journal, the number of children aged 5 to 11 years and 12 to 17 years who visited the emergency department (ED) to get psychological medical help in 2020 was higher by approximately 24% and 31%, respectively, as compared to similar cases in 2019.
For you to either refute or support the claims of why mental health days are a bad idea for students, you should consider reading this insightful article.

Why are mental health days important for students? All you need to know

Regardless of your country, have you ever attended a school parent meeting? What were the primary agendas? According to the article “Parent–Teacher Conferences: Tips for Teachers,” published on kidshealth.org, the primary goal of inviting a parent or guardian to school concerns discussing a child’s academic performance and social life. What does this evidence portray?

Pertinent educational stakeholders in the United States and globally focus on helping students achieve academic excellence, if not following their passion; for example, sports or music. It’s because of these reasons a former elementary school counselor, Matt Shenker, MEd, states, “We’ve spent decades raising our standards of learning, now is the time to raise our standards of care.”

Owing to Shenker’s sentiment in addition to the documented benefits of mental health days for students, Styx, in a 2023 article, “States Are Now Accepting “Mental Health Day” as a Valid Reason for Missing School,” indicate that many states, including Illinois, Oregon, Kentucky, Washington, Virginia, Oregon, Nevada, Maine, Connecticut, Colorado, and Arizona voted for a bill, which permits a pupil to miss school because of psychological health reasons. What are some of the reasons that led to this bipartisan support in the United States?

Many learning institutions compel their students to rapidly adopt required high academic standards while maintaining their social lifestyle. Despite one’s emotional intelligence (EI) and intelligence quotient (IQ) level, they might “break down” at some point due to the pressure associated with balancing between processing new information and interactions.
Take a look at the following scenario to understand why mental health days for students are important.

Everyone knows a mental disorder is similar to a bacterial infection like tuberculosis (TB). That’s why some of the doctors specialize in psychiatry. If a general or nurse practitioner diagnoses a student with TB, will she go to school without recovering? You definitely know the answer. Similar to a mental disorder that can be treatable by not going to school and being around people who matter a lot, like parents.

As you apply this psychological intervention of mental health days, as a parent, you might begin worrying how your kid might not catch up with the entire class. For instance, your child might end up having a backlog of assignments. Considering that a lot of worries can lead to depression to yourself, you can hook your child to one of the essay writers at CustomWritings.com. You can as well use the same professional help if you’re advancing your career.

Mental Health Days for Students: Interesting Facts and Statistics

As a way of ensuring that children are safe, many schools in the USA and across the globe employ a nurse. If a learning institution has active sports, it might hire a physiotherapist. What’s more, some schools delegate the duties of guiding and counseling to one of the teachers. What does this show?

Many learning institutions have placed less emphasis on the mental wellbeing of students due to this limited allocation of human and monetary resources. However, it’s possible for a school to achieve optimum psychological wellness. But how? It can do this by implementing mental health days for students with specific guidelines such as:

• Encouraging students to participate in moderate-to-high physical exercise (MHPE)
• Allocating a day for entertainment activities such as dancing and watching
• Teaching students how to practice mindfulness activities
• Engage them to support a student who has become a teen activist

It’s worth noting that mental health days for students don’t necessarily mean skipping school. While implementing this initiative, learning institutions or teachers in charge should ensure that pupils don’t engage in academic activities such as to write your research papers and essays (an “escape way” of finishing class work and homework).

Evidence-based statistics indicate that many students advocated for the implementation of mental days within and outside the school. As reported in a 2023 article by Styx, approximately 78% of 1,500 teenagers who participated in a 2020 survey supported the inclusion of mental health days in school curricula.

Major Pros and Cons of Mental Health Days for Students

Pros

One of the reasons why mental health days are important for students is that they help children to take care of themselves. Considering that children in boarding schools are under the supervision of a patron or matron, they rarely take control of their life. As such, allowing students to be at home helps them to rediscover themselves.

Another benefit of mental health days concerns helping learners to identify their talents. For instance, some might discover that they are good at dancing or playing instruments.

Cons

Some students might take advantage of mental health days, especially those implemented in homes, to fake a disease. In this case, a parent or guardian should be ready to listen and understand their child.

Mental health days might aggravate some mental disorders. For instance, a child with one parent might feel lonely as the school implements a stay-at-home program.

Parting Shot

While this piece of writing shows a positive side of schools implementing stay-at-home or school mental health days, it’s essential for a parent to note that you’re more than 90% responsible for the wellbeing of your child. You shouldn’t leave the parenting role to a teacher. Whether in academic or social life, you should always try your best to be close to your kid, especially in his or her early development, but this doesn’t give you a leeway to exclude those pursuing their undergraduate or postgraduate degrees. Generally speaking, parenting should be about comparing the pros and cons of mental health days.