Lauren Moye, FISM News
Ohio legislators are considering giving teenagers mental health days from school in a move some are praising for its potential to destigmatize mental health issues. Others argue that this will have a detrimental effect on students’ health.
Ohio House Bill 619, if passed into law, would provide up to three mental health days per academic year. The days would be optional. However, a school district must approve them for all buildings if they choose to incorporate them.
Students would also have to make up missed work.
“We need to break the stigma surrounding taking care of our mental health,” said Rep. Jessica Miranda (D-Forest Park). “With this legislation, we’re letting our children know that prioritizing their mental health is not only acceptable, it’s critical for achieving a healthy lifestyle. This mindset will help them succeed in school and beyond.”
There are a growing number of states who have approved mental health days for students, including New York, California, Virginia, Maryland. The bills come amidst a skyrocketing mental health crisis among America’s youth.
The CDC notes that suicide among teenagers, aged 15-19, jumped from a rate of 10.8 per 100,000 teenagers in 2007 to 14.2 per 100,000 by 2015 for a 31% increase. Meanwhile, 15.1% of adolescents reported a major depressive episode in 2018-2019. 18.8% in this same year reported seriously considering attempted suicide while 8.9% made at least one attempt.
This growing epidemic among America’s youth is undeniable and as the numbers rise so does the demand to address it.
However, critics of this bill question the benefit of mental health days. Supporting data is difficult to measure as the majority of these laws were passed in the past two years with the additional stressor of the COVID-19 pandemic in play. With school attendance greatly interrupted by the virus, there is no data to show that the inclusion of mental health days is a benefit. Some speculate that they may turn out to be detrimental.
Daniel Buck, a teacher and the editor of the Chalkboard Review, writes about skyrocketing anxiety, depression, and suicide rates among teenagers. However, Buck notes in a National Review article that “the existence of a problem does not thereby justify any reaction.”
Due to the lack of statistics on the impact that mental health days have on kids, Buck instead examined research on the adult equivalent of weeklong vacations. According to Buck, time off does “in fact have a benefit for an employee’s state of mind, but surveys find that these benefits last for only a few days.”
Buck is concerned that “destigmatizing mental health” may have the unfortunate side effect of worsening anxiety and depression symptoms by instead “pathologizing” daily anxieties and stressors.
One Forbes article notes that the result of mental health days varies widely with only two-thirds of employees reporting benefits past a few days. The author notes that mental health days are “reactionary” to signs of stress and exhaustion, rather than preventative of mental health problems. Additionally, while they may help with outside factors, they do not address stressors within the workplace.
Similarly, mental health days for students would be more effective in allowing students to confront issues outside their school environment. However, 2019 Pew Research shows that the majority of teen stress is related to either school or peers.
The report found that 70% of teens ages 13 to 17 view anxiety and depression as major problems facing U.S. students. At the top of their list of stressors: pressure to get good grades (61%), pressure to “look good” (29%), and fitting in socially (28%).
While most can agree that this mental health crisis needs to be addressed, how it should be addressed is still very much in question.