Emotional and Mental Health
One of the biggest barriers to learning has nothing to do with intellect, study strategy, or learning style. By the time our kids hit puberty, there are so many emotions going on in their hearts and minds that it can be hard for them to focus on anything else. If a child has experienced trauma or bullying this can make it all the more difficult. Every kid, from every background and life experience, mingled together in one school with emotions flying and fears spreading…it can be an extremely stressful thing. And it seems, unfortunately, that the experiences we adults had in school were very mild compared to things going on in modern schools.
When I was growing up, help was hard to get, mostly because I didn’t know how to express what was going on. This led to some really difficult and painful times. As a teen, I was unable to express that I had been abused by a boyfriend and get help, because I had no words to be able to articulate, and no way of expressing how I was feeling.
So, outside of counseling and professional help, how can we parents help our kids? Often our kids are unable or unwilling to share their struggles with us. If that is the case, then it’s hard to get into our kids' heads and help them work through the challenges they are facing.
This is why one of the basic building blocks of parenting should be a healthy relationship built on trust and love. But we aren’t perfect, and even when we try our best our kids can still shut us out. No worries, not all is lost.
One of the reasons that kids shut people out is that they do not know how to express what they are feeling and don’t have the tools yet to process it. Art and free expression is a great way to get kids to work through how they are feeling. So, set your kids down at the end of the day and let them write. Give them the chance to put down on paper what they are thinking and feeling. This will give them a chance to process, and increase the chances of them being able to verbalize to you later if they feel the need. If they are too young to write, let them draw. Give them some colored pencils and some blank paper. Let them go to town on whatever they want to draw or color. Then let them explain to you what they have created. Of course, it's even better if you model this for your kids in your own life, so they can see it being done and witness the benefits.
These simple suggestions can help a child process the loads of feelings and thoughts going on inside them as they learn to navigate their world. Growing up is about so much more than learning the school basics; it’s about growing into the person you are meant to be. Letting kids focus on mental and emotional health can be a huge step in clearing the way for processing all those math problems, book reports, and physics tests.
