The Silent Struggle: Understanding Teen Mental Health Challenges

Mental health is becoming a rising issue in public education and has been getting more attention over the past few years as awareness of this situation has increased dramatically. While schools do their best to stem these issues, to some it seems like nothing has happened and the situation has had little developments. For the sake of finding the answer we have interviewed counselors at the school, and a variety of students to get their opinions on the subject and to learn how they identify when a student is in distress and how they try to help them.

During the past few years, mental health issues have been rising in schools and counselors have been trying to learn the signs of when a student is struggling. According to Mrs. Aurand “Some kids start to show differences in behavior and how they acted before. Those who were once outgoing now become less active, do less things they used to do, and start to hang out less and less with friends. It could also be the opposite case and they could become more active and become more outgoing.” She continues with “The best thing to do to help these students is for the teachers to reach out and help them. It is always important to have relationships with the

kids.” This insight is a good way to know that the teachers really care about these students and are doing what they can to help them when they are needed. Although it is a difficult challenge as in some cases, people who need help show no signs at all and can fly under the radar. These situations can happen and have unfortunate consequences in some cases.

Our school has been attempting to help this problem with more than just teachers reaching out to students in person but also with speakers visiting and telling their stories. Recently we had a visit from the accomplished and inspirational Molly Kennedy and heard stories of her struggles and how she overcame them and became successful despite the odds against her. Molly’s story goes to highlight how mental health is a difficult challenge and how everyone faces some themself and how it is important to overcome these troubles to build a future for yourself and become the best person you can be. She stressed how important mentality can be to overcoming obstacles and became a champion within you.

We also attempted to gain a perspective on mental health from our students as included in these interviews with Hattie Brzon, Zachary Piroutek, Tyrese Alexander, and Morgan Sanders.

It is important to recognize that our school is really trying to help those who need it and as such we interviewed both counselors at our school. Mrs. Hubert and Mrs. Aurand were kind enough to spend some of their time helping us find answers on how our school wishes to progress with these problems and how they hope to overcome them in the future.