By Rory Edwards
Rory Edwards is a local parent, teacher of 28 years and a school governor. He offers us an insight into certain dilemmas parents might face throughout the school year.
I started writing this article just before the school term had started and then an INSET at school on mental health confirmed the advice I had given. The presenter* is much more qualified in mental health issues than I am so I have used her words below in speech marks.
In the past few months, the issue of mental health has been seen with some sporting he-roes: Simone Biles pulling out of events at the Olympics and Ben Stokes taking a break from England cricket duties. For me as a teacher, students’ happiness has always been a priori-ty, however, whatever I do in school, there are factors beyond my classroom that I just can’t control as a teacher. The reason I have started writing about mental health so early in the academic year is because I hope to give you some strategies before a small problem be-comes a much bigger issue.
By the time you read this, your children will have been at school for about a month. Have you had a conversation with them about how they have settled in? Over the years, mine have rarely started the conversation and inevi-tably it’s either my wife or I who end up ask-ing how they are or how their day was. As they get older, they don’t really want to talk to their parents do they? Cue comments about how we’re too old and how we wouldn’t un-derstand. On the other hand, you may be a parent who finds it hard to start the conversa-tion with your children for fear of making any problem worse. So how can we speak to our children before they get into a “state of frenzy or a state of withdrawal”?
One thing to do would be to “regularly ask how your child is on a scale of 1 to 10”. I wouldn’t call it a mental health check to your children but that’s what it is. A number of 3 or less is good, 4 to 7 is where something can still be done without necessarily seeking out-side help. Our presenter described this as “The Receptive Zone”. At this point, I be-lieve your children are asking you for help so at this point listen to them, look for opportuni-ties to praise them and try not to be judgemen-tal. I’ll be honest here, being judgemental was a problem for me and I’ve had to learn how to think before I speak. Comparing our childhood to their childhood isn’t really ap-propriate as our children live in a very differ-ent world to the one we grew up in. 8 to 10 is a “Crisis Zone” and “a hug, a reassuring touch or exaggerated movements like jumping on the spot or screaming at the top of their voice” would possibily help to bring this number down in the short term.
In the previous paragraph I mentioned doing regular mental health checks. Doing these regularly is much more important than doing this just once. You may notice peaks and troughs, a 7 one week and then a 3 two weeks later. The peaks may happen because they are getting closer to deadlines or exam periods and the troughs happen straight afterwards. This is normal and no different to our adult lives. However, if your child is constantly giving you high numbers, look for further help from your doctor or a counsellor. If you find that the problem might be school related, contact your child’s tutor or Head of Year.
*The presenter at our school INSET was Emma Gleadhill, emmagleadhill.com