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Supporting Our Valued Adolescents: A place to learn, share your strength, be positive, and grow.

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Seizing the Awkward

March 22, 2019 in LINKS

speech-bubble-1604446_1280Starting a conversation can be difficult. Sometimes – especially when you’re close to someone – it can feel like the easiest thing in the world. All sorts of conversations can begin simply by sharing a meme, tagging someone in something that reminds you of them, or even just by saying “what’s up?”

Some topics are harder to approach than others, however. One obvious example is talking about mental health. While adolescents today acknowledge that mental illness is a major problem among their generation, many still hold a stigma which may prevent them from wanting to talk about it with anyone. They may also be afraid of being judged or afraid that if they tell someone, that person will tell someone else and the trust will be broken.

That’s where Seize the Awkward comes in. The website knows that trying to talk to anyone, including those you care for, about mental health and illness is hard, and they’re here to help. The website specifically focuses on how to approach someone else if you think that they are going through a difficult time, and is there to help give you the tips on how to get that conversation started.

What makes the website especially useful is the fact that everything is listed on one page, and all you have to do is scroll. The sidebar divides the page into sections, so if there’s on part you want to specifically get tips about (What are the warning signs? How do you start the conversation?), all you have to do is click it and it’ll directly send you down the page until you get there.

The website also includes advice and stories from internet personalities such as Markiplier and Liza Koshy and a button to generate conversations starters and opening lines. There are animations about the symptoms your friend may be showing to indicate that something seems to be off and worth asking about and ways to keep the conversation going afterwards.

No matter what the situation is – if you’re the subject or not – talking about mental health can be difficult and even scary. Like the website also states, it can be incredibly awkward. Many things are awkward though: asking a crush out, asking a teacher for a recommendation for something, and making appointments over the phone, for example. When it comes to approaching with and facing awkward situations, however, it’s all about remembering that these things may be uncomfortable, but they’re also important to you in a way, and you may feel much better once it’s done.

Check out the site here!

Have you ever felt awkward about having a conversation with someone you’re close to about mental health? Was it about yourself, them, or someone else? Have there been other topics that you feel would be awkward to talk to them about?

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QPOC and Social Media

March 21, 2019 in Social Media Guide

The social media boom over the past few years has given a space for minority and marginalized groups – especially young people – to diversify their social networks. For those who feel like the people they usually talk to face-to-face aren’t diverse or simply don’t understand what they’re going through, the Internet and social media are ways for them to find those who are similar to them and feel that they are not alone in their identity.

Social media can also help young minorities learn more about themselves and gives them access to resources and knowledge with just a click of a button (of course, it’s very important to know what these sources are and that the information is safe). This knowledge can not only help them with learning more about who they are and getting a better understanding about their identity, but can also help fuel them to use this knowledge in other ways, such as through activism, which has found a powerful home in social media too.

alexandra-marcu-1299029-unsplashThis is especially true for queer people of color. As people who are minorities in at least two different ways, it can be easy for them to feel like they’re alone and that the world is against them. Because of this and a number of other factors, QPOC are at a higher risk of showing signs and being diagnosed with a mental illness (for more information, read our article talking about QPOC here).

QPOC, as minorities in several ways, have found comfort in social media spaces. This particularly affects those who are younger; adolescents already infamously spend a significant amount of time online and on social media, and as queer adolescents of color try to figure out who they are, how their identities define them, and how to express who they are in environments and homes that they fear may not accept them, the Internet can be a safer space for them to do so (think of websites such as LiveJournal and tumblr, for example). gps-2798348_1920

Queer adolescents of color are drawn to these kinds of spaces because they seem them as more “secluded” and that the platforms draw away from “default publicness.” This means that sites like Facebook are designed to reflect your offline life as much as possible. You can tag places when you’re currently, physically at, upload albums of experiences you’ve recently had, and others can tag things about you or things you’ve done with them without your permission. These websites are also more likely to make assumptions about your identity and use the information you put up to sell to advertisers.

Aside from the “default publicness,” QPOC view sites such as Facebook as a more dangerous space. For example, friends on Facebook are more likely to be those that they know in real life and speak to face-to-face and offline. Some of these Facebook friends may use the site as a way to watch over people, which can have blockchain-3019121_1920extreme measures such as outing them. Other social media sites, however, not only provide comfort, but queer adolescents of color see them as places where they don’t have to censor themselves and feel less exposed on them. Since it’s social media, people can absolutely see the posts that they write, but if they interact with each other, it’s only through the Internet and there is less of an obligation to tie these posts with identifying information.

Social media is always changing, making the world feel bigger and smaller at the same time. Social media sites are also always changing: tumblr was bought by Yahoo back in 2013, which included incorporating ads and the possibility of tumblr also being part of the “public default.” However, spaces still exist for minorities to safely and comfortably be themselves online, and though it may require a little bit of work, it can also be significantly easier to do so there than offline.

If you are a minority, what social media sites do you prefer? What makes you drawn to some social media platforms compared to others? Have you met anyone like you or related to any content that you’ve seen on social media?

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Providing Mental Health Services

March 19, 2019 in Educate Yourself

More than 1 in 7 kids in the US between the ages of 6 and 18 (7.7 million children, to be exact) have a mental health disorder as of 2016, and nearly half of them are not getting treatment. Mental health issues, if not addressed while still young, can result in detrimental physical, social, and worsening mental health consequences, and difficulties transitioning into adulthood.

Unfortunately, this is not something new.

Many barriers exist in getting children the care they need. While we as a nation are working on destigmatizing mental illness, families still express concern because of the stigma that comes help-1724288_1280with having a mental illness. A parent may not think twice about taking his or her child to see a heart, lung, or kidney specialist if needed, but to make the decision to access mental health services is a much bigger deal. Among some cultures, mental illness is seen as a weakness, rather than for what it really is – an illness with risk factors, symptoms, and diagnostic tests that needs treatment in order to get better, just like any other medical illness.

shopping-1724299_1280Another reason for hesitation among families and communities is the cost. Mental health treatment expenses can be a lot, and on top of that, it usually involves a long-term plan. Insurance coverage is lacking: some insurance policies only cover certain diagnoses, allow for a limited number of mental health appointments, or have high co-pays and deductibles. There isn’t a consistent mechanism for insurance companies to cover mental health costs, and the mechanisms that do exist are usually complex and hard to understand.

Even if there was adequate coverage and families would welcome services, there isn’t enough workforce supply to meet the demand. There has been a shortage of calender-2389150_1280child and adolescent psychiatrists in the US, with fewer than 17 providers for every 100,000 children in need of care. Families would need to book appointments months in advance, putting their child or teen at risk for their condition worsening as they wait for treatment. On top of that, the various services involved in supporting the children – the education system, health care system, juvenile justice system, and child welfare system – lack communication, which causes these families to easily fall through the cracks.

So, what can we do about all of this?

If we can’t bring kids to mental health services, let’s bring the services to them.

arvin-chingcuangco-1337417-unsplashChildren and teens can go to their pediatrician without hesitation, for example. In fact, they often have to, whether it is to get their vaccinations, sign off on physicals for school, or just get regular checkups. So why not put mental health services under the same roof? If families still get to work with the health providers they know and trust in the comfort of a familiar environment, this can quell some family fears and barriers, and even make communication among all the different health providers on the team easier.

The Children’s Community Pediatrics network in Pittsburgh, PA has a behavioral health program where pediatricians work together with psychologists, therapists, and psychiatrists to manage psychiatric disorders and other behavioral health issues. They manage medications and offer various therapies right in the pediatrician’s office, so that both mental and physical health can be used together. While more work still needs to be done, these types of practices are becoming more prevalent, and similar programs are being established throughout the US. As more and more pediatricians join forces with mental health providers, mental health issues can be tackled early and the rates of mental illness brought down, to allow more children the opportunity to become the healthy adults they deserve to be.

Does your pediatrician work with mental health providers? If so, have you used these resources before, and how did they work for you? If not, do you wish that your pediatrician had mental health services in his/her office? Why or why not? Share your thoughts and experiences below!

This SOVA blog post was based off Dr. Edith Bracho-Sanchez’s article from CNN, “Nearly 1 in 7 US kids and teens has a mental health condition, and half go untreated, study says.” To access the original post, check it out here.

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Why do so many people participate in social media challenges?

March 14, 2019 in Social Media Guide

Last week, we talked about the Momo Challenge how it made sense that some parents were concerned about it. Even though it was a hoax, many feared that people online were taking advantage about how often children and adolescents use the Internet to an extreme.

Social media challenges themselves aren’t new. These challenges (or lack thereof) are a type of meme, a popular thing frequently showing up on the Internet where people physically take pim-chu-245596-unsplashpart in some sort of activity, sometimes personalizing them or doing something extra to stand out and upload it on their preferred platform. These can range from the charitable, the silly, and the heavily involved. Recently however, challenges have started to become more and more dangerous. Websites can be using information you provide to collect data and in an effort to make their challenges different, people have gotten seriously injured or have died.

For the most part, social media challenges appear to be almost pointless. What do people have to gain from biting into a Tide Pod, knowing that consuming laundry detergent is toxic? Is it really worth rerecording yourself dozens of time until you perfectly flip a bottle and it lands somewhere upright?

When done safely, social media challenges can be entertaining, mind-blowing, and funny. Wanting to do a popular trend isn’t new to Age of the micaela-parente-642849-unsplashInternet, but because so much of the same content is being created at once, trying to make your attempt on the challenge unique takes an even higher priority. To make their content stand out, people take their versions of the challenge to the next level, putting themselves in risky situations that has the audience on the edges of their seats. This is where social media challenges can get problematic and life-threatening. Yet, they keep popping up, many people – especially youths – participate, several people get hurt, news outlets report on the dangers of challenges, and the cycle continues.

So why do adolescents enjoy participating in social media challenges so much?

omar-lopez-246584-unsplashOne obvious reason is the natural human desire to be accepted and fit in. This is especially true during adolescence, where younger teens in particular are more likely to be strongly influenced by the decisions of their peers. Meanwhile, older teenagers are more likely to be influenced by those who are their age, as well as adults (though this is also something to consider since some popular influencers and vloggers who participate in challenges are also adults). So when adolescents begin to do challenges, others adolescents will want to mimic them, since their brains are more likely to rely on the brain that focuses on imitation.

instagram-3814050_1280The sense of belonging by participating social media challenges also includes something called emotional imitation. Sometimes, those doing the challenges will nominate others, and those who get nominated may get excited and happy that someone chose them to try the challenge and are more likely to try it (this includes the negative effects too: those who feel like they were nominated too late, after the meme has died down, may feel like they were neglected by their peers).

Studies have also found a link between adolescents who show symptoms of or are diagnosed with depression. This doesn’t suggest that just having depressive symptoms (there are other factors to consider, like the above explanations), but middle schoolers who had participated in the challenge studied in the article (the Choking Game) were found to have higher symptoms of depression and conduct disorder. There hasn’t been a lot of research done on the relationship between social media challenge participation and mental health, but it might be similar to the relationship love-2935421_1280 like-2935406_1280between mental health and other activities on social media. For example, those who participate in challenges may use it to hide what they’re going through and only posting about things that people want to see, or they may use it to seek validation, knowing that these challenges are more likely to get likes and comments.

There’s nothing wrong in wanting to take part in a meme or trend and getting creative with it, but safety and self-awareness are still incredibly important to keep in mind.

Have you ever participated in a social media challenge? Why did you do it? When do you think people are more likely to try getting involved in challenges?

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What do Adolescents Think about Their Mental Health?

March 12, 2019 in Educate Yourself

paul-proshin-468-unsplashAs rates in adolescent mental illnesses have risen, the question also arises: are teens and young adults aware of this situation? These are the youths being diagnosed and showing symptoms of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety, but do they think it’s something that only affects them as individuals, or are they noticing these patterns with their peers? What do adolescents consider to be the main problems with their age group?  

A recent Pew survey conducted among about 1,000 teenagers found that most of them saw anxiety and depression as the top problems among their peers, with 70% saying that it was a “major problem” and 26% considering it to be a “minor problem.” Only 4% didn’t think that it was a problem at all. This is significantly higher than the rest of the items on the chart: the second highest problem was bullying, with 55% listing it as a major problem, drug addiction at 51%, and less than half of teens listed other topics such as alcohol, poverty, teen pregnancy, and gangs as a major problem.

Despite this awareness, however, adolescents still face many barriers when it comes to discussion with others and seeking treatment. Many hold a stigma when it comes to the stereotypes associated with mental illness, but as they begin to talk more about the topic – even with each other  – adolescents are more willing to have in-depth and insightful discussions. Many aren’t able to afford the higher costs of mental health treatment as well, especially for children and young adults. This is something that is almost completely out of the adolescent’s control, because it includes factors such as their caregiver’s health insurance and the government determining how healthcare is funded.

tumblr-1183718_1280It’s important that adolescents don’t just know that mental illnesses are affecting their age group, but also think it’s something of high concern. However, this in itself concerning because this awareness may result because they notice the effects mental illness has on them, their friends, and their fellow classmates. This awareness can also be the result of the Internet – both positively and negatively. While social media and cyberbullying can impact the mental health of youths, social media and online resources can also give adolescents a confidential place to learn more about mental illnesses as well as a place to read stories and experiences of their peers who might be going through something similar.

The first step in helping adolescents with their mental health is them acknowledging that it’s something that’s affecting them and is a cause for concern. Now that this information is starting to become more public knowledge, it can help adolescents realize that they’re not alone in thinking this, and they can think of ways to start a conversation with their peers and hopefully take the next steps to enact change in how mental health is treated for their generation.

Do you think your peers are concerned with mental health and illnesses? How common do you think are conversations about it in your age group? How do you think adolescents can start conversations with their peers to let them know that they’re also thinking about mental health?

 

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Weekend Reads: What is Hysteria?

March 8, 2019 in LINKS

March is Women’s History Month, with today specifically being International Women’s Day. This is to pay tribute to and learn more about women and the history of women’s rights, as well as honor the movements that women are participating in today to make the world a better place in the future. Regardless of race, sexuality, class, and gender identity, women have made great strides and efforts to do more with the opportunities they’ve had available to them.

british-2023201_1280Women’s history has been, and continues to be, faced with many obstacles and battles. This includes mental health and how women’s emotions were perceived and dismissed by others around them. The most common instance of this is through the “hysteria” diagnosis during the Victorian era (although it dates back to ancient Egyptian and Greek times too – the word comes from the Greek word hystera meaning womb). Those who were biologically female were almost always the ones being diagnosed with the disease. The medical field was dominated by men, and if they were unsure what was wrong with a female patient or found them to be “mysterious,” they were diagnosed with hysteria. If a woman seemed to experience symptoms of anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses today, science back then claimed that it was because of something wrong in their womb.

mmpr-465102-unsplashThough the hysteria diagnosis was removed from the DSM in 1980, it’s still worth learning more about its history and the stigma against women’s mental health. Although mental illness is often more associated with women and they are more likely to develop depression and PTSD (especially in adolescents), there is still a long way to go in the discussion of women and how to approach and treat their mental health.

book-1157658_1280The stories below approach women and hysteria in different ways. The first gives an overview about the direct effects of the hysteria diagnosis on women in the Victorian Era, especially once they were given treatment through psychiatry (which often included institutionalization). The second explains how hysteria was an upper class white woman’s disease, and while they received treatment, women of color who had similar “symptoms” were often used as tools of experimentation. The final article talks about women’s mental health today and the issues with them – while fewer people today call women hysterical when they show emotion – mental illness in women was, and still is romanticized, dating the reasons for this back to when “hysteria” was at its peak.

How Victorian Women Were Oppressed Through the Use of Psychiatry (The Atlantic)
The Racialized History of “Hysteria” (Jstor Daily)
What Our Obsession with Tragic, Beautiful, Mentally Ill Women Says About Us (Vice)

How do you think girls and their mental health is handled today? Why do you think people were so dismissive about their mental health in the past? How has your mental health been perceived based off of your gender?

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The Problems with Momo

March 7, 2019 in Social Media Guide

video-1606945_1280Chances are, you know who Momo is if you’ve had any access to a screen in the past couple of weeks. According to the initial posts warning about her, the YouTube and YouTube Kids algorithm would include a video in the queue about a creepy-looking, doll-like woman named Momo telling children to hurt, or even kill themselves through a series of challenges after sending her messages via text or WhatsApp.

The conversation about Momo has taken several turns, and is recently starting to quiet down. This is because it has continuously been proven to be a hoax, with no evidence that these videos featuring Momo actually exists. In fact, the only online posts and discussions surrounding Momo were traced back to posts warning parents and other adults to talk to their children about the challenge.

While the Momo Challenge itself was fake, it was still an extreme of the social media challenges youths and adolescents take part of today. Perhaps this is the reason that the fear and worry surrounding it was so validated. Actual social media challenges such as the cinnamon and Bird Box challenges have been mostly conducted by children and young adults and often involve participating in dangerous activities and posting them online.

Image by alphalight1 on Pixabay

Image by alphalight1 on Pixabay

The Momo Challenge, or lack thereof, also speaks to the dangers about how misinformation can make an issue that doesn’t originally exist real, and bringing it up can cause the consequences that those talking about it are trying to avoid. It can seem confusing at first, but most children are hearing about Momo from adults and not each other or on social media. Parents and teachers trying to keep these kids safe actually increase their curiosity about the troubling subject and they start looking up a topic that they hadn’t known about before. Those who are at risk or vulnerable to self-harm or mental illness may start to think more about it too now that they are exposed to the subject.

These are important items to keep in mind, not just for children, but for adults too, when approaching how to interpret and then discuss troubling content online, especially with those with mental illnesses and can be triggered by topics such as self-harm and suicide. Education and safety is important, but so is tracing back the origins of a news story and whether they come from legitimate sources.

To read more about parents’ and children’s relationship with social media challenges and safety and how the Momo Challenge became the conversation that it was today, check out the following articles below:

Momo Is Not Trying to Kill Children (The Atlantic)
The ‘Momo Challenge’ isn’t a viral danger to children online. But it sure is viral. (The Washington Post)

Where and who did you hear about the Momo Challenge from? What do you think about social media challenges? How do you think adults can talk to children and adolescents about sensitive material online without giving them false information?

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Mental Health Access and Awareness in Schools

March 6, 2019 in Educate Yourself

In an article featured in a blog post from a few weeks ago, Corey Hirsch says, “If I had a magic wand, my biggest wish would be that, a year from now, there would be mental health awareness classes in schools […] across North America. Every single kid should be equipped with a basic knowledge about anxiety, depression, OCD and other mental health issues. To treat these things like they don’t exist is unacceptable.”

ava-dickson-1198125-unsplashThe US public education system doesn’t currently address student mental health in a comprehensive way. Texas and 19 other states don’t require school counselors and only about a dozen states require annual courses on suicide prevention training. According to the 2015-16 School Survey on Crime and Safety, 71% of public schools reported having diagnostic assessments for mental health disorders available for students while 64% reported having treatment available. When asked about what is preventing the schools from providing mental health services to students, 75% of respondents cited inadequate funding as the main problem.

renan-kamikoga-709781-unsplashHowever, there are some states who are starting to incorporate mental health programs into their school districts. Recently, New York passed a law requiring mental health instruction from kindergarten to 12th grade. Virginia also passed a law requiring mental health instruction for 9th through 12th graders. In Stamford, Connecticut, the school district re-evaluated their mental health program after three students took their own lives within a year. After some research, they introduced four evidence-based services for students, district-wide trauma and behavioral health training and supports for staff and integrated community and state resources and services for students. The goal was to create a self-sustaining, in-house program that takes a proactive approach to mental health.

Research even suggests positive mental health interventions in schools are linked to behaviors related to academic achievement. A 2014 study by the Center for Health and Healthcare in Schools found that adolescents who had positive behavioral health interventions showed an increase in task-learning behavior, better time management, strengthened goal setting and problem-solving skills and decreased rates of absenteeism and suspensions. homework-1735644_1920

While there is still a long way to go in terms of getting mental health programs in all school districts nationwide, organizations such as NAMI have resources to help support this goal. NAMI is a supporter of the Mental Health in Schools Act (H.R. 1211/S. 1588) which urges states to pass legislature requiring school faculty and staff training in early warning signs of mental illness, links community mental health services to schools and provides funding and support for training. Through the development of free programs such as NAMI Ending the Silence presentation and NAMI Parents and Teachers as Allies program, they are helping educate adolescents, parents and faculty on the warning signs, facts, statistics and ways to get help for themselves and their friends.

How does your high school and/or college approach mental health? Were there counselors available, or was it ever discussed in classes? Were there ever lessons taught about it?

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Spring is in the Air…Eventually

March 4, 2019 in Be Positive

Winter can feel like it drags on forever, especially when it’s not your favorite time of year. The season is known for not only being not-so-popular, but one that’s harder on mental health given the cold, early sunsets, and barren nature.

johny-goerend-415946-unsplashThis time of year can be even more confusing, since it can feel like the weather can’t seem to make up its mind. It can be really warm and rainy one day, but then super bright yet really cold the next. If you like one type of weather more than the other, the back-and-forth can affect your mood.

This back-and-forth and the unpredictable weather can get frustrating. It can confuse your closet, the temperature of your classrooms and work, and your body if you have seasonal allergies. It may even affect and confuse your mental health. You may feel excited, for example, when you see that you only have to wear a light jacket and optimistic that springtime is finally here, but a snowstorm the next day might bring you down.

biegun-wschodni-18125-unsplashEven though there may be all kinds of whiplashes going on, the weather is just one way of reminding us that life isn’t always consistent. Highs and lows in how we feel are just as natural as the change in weather, and though the lows may seem like they’re going on forever or you’re stuck with them for good, there will always be peeks of the good to remind you that it isn’t permanent and changes are coming soon. The sun will shine longer, the world will look a little more colorful, and things will start to feel a little warmer.

Spring doesn’t officially start until March 20th, and the clocks don’t jump ahead another hour until the 10th, but the first signs are starting to appear. It may just be a tease, and it may feel temporary, but it’s a reminder that change is still on its way, and with that, a refresh.

How do you feel about spring? How do you feel when the weather goes back-and-forth? Does it affect your mood?

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An App to Consider: Oak

March 1, 2019 in LINKS

We talked about the benefits to deep breathing and how it can clear your mind earlier this week on Monday. Although the steps are incredibly simple (deep breath in, hold, breathe out, repeat), you can try different patterns and lengths of time, and may need some assistance with it. You may also want a source of some background noise instead of searching “calming sounds” online and hoping for the best.

Oak is just one of many apps available on your phone that you can download in order to get introduced to and practice meditating and deep breathing. The interface is simple: everything is listed on two pages and doesn’t require much scrolling.

The first page divides the types of meditating into three sessions: Meditate, Breathe, and Sleep. Although they’re self-explanatory, each comes with a little description, and choosing one of the 2-3 activities under each one will explain what that one helps with in more detail. For example, one of the Breathe activities has one that’s there to help you wake up, while one of the Sleep ones has a series of exercises over a longer period of time to help lull you to bed.

The time of each activity ranges and you can set how long you want them to be. The Meditate and Sleep ones are a little bit longer and let you choose the gender of the voice guiding you, and the Breathe exercises are a little bit shorter. The Meditate and Sleep ones also give you the choice of what background noises you want (if any), which includes different levels of rain, white noise, and a fireplace.

The second page tracks your progress. If sticking to a schedule or maintaining a routine can be overwhelming or stressful for you, you can easily ignore this part. However, you can look here to see your streaks and how many days in a row you’ve meditated, the longest streak you’ve had (if you want a record to beat), and how many minutes and sessions you’ve done that day and total. You can also see in real time how many others are using the app and have used it that day, which can help normalize the activity and make you feel a little less alone.

The app is free and doesn’t require an account. Unfortunately, it’s only available on the App Store, so if you have an iPhone, you can download it here.

Have you tried deep breathing or meditation? Would you use an app to help guide you? What other recommendations do you have?

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