ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

Mental Health and Reaching out: Why We Need to Encourage Kids to Talk

Updated on March 23, 2018
Christina St-Jean profile image

I am a mom of two awesome children who teach me more than I ever thought possible. I love writing, exercise, movies, and LGBT advocacy.

Grief, Pain And Mental Health Are Complicated

Source

Talking About Mental Health Is Hard - And It Should Be

This has probably been one of the most challenging weeks of my teaching career.

For the first time, I've had to deal with the aftermath of a student's sudden death. This was a young child, just two years older than my oldest daughter (my daughter is 13), and while I did not directly teach the student, I continue to teach students who either knew this young lady or who are simply shellshocked that one of their own is no longer with us. I continue to work with my colleagues who either had this young lady as a student this semester or have taught her in the past. To say emotions have been running high in the school for many is an understatement, and like several people in the school, I'm someone who somehow resonates with the energy those around me give off.

It's taken me four days to try and sort around my thoughts, and while there will always be questions about what ultimately happened, the bottom line is, there will be no answer that will be definitive enough to satisfy the need to understand what happened. There are kids in my school who are grieving, some of them hard, and as an adult seeing kids in pain and wanting to understand how to process it, it's been difficult.

Grief and death are both difficult to talk about, and their respective impacts on our mental health are equally challenging. It's all uncomfortable, and messy, and what's worse is there's no clean way out of it and no timeline. Even for deaths we "expect" of a loved one, for instance, we are left empty and struggling to pick up the pieces of our lives and carry on.

I remember a couple of years ago when I saw a Facebook post from a former student about the sudden death of her friend. The young woman who died was also a former student, and when I learned that she'd been killed in a drunk driving accident, it was as though someone had reached into my chest and crushed my heart with their fist. I'd not been in touch with this student for years, but I had taught her for a couple of years, and had always been struck by her intelligence, her wit and her candor, and to know that at 25 she was simply gone was devastating.

I was taken back to those feelings this week upon learning of this sudden death this week, and knew that my kids who were in the same grade as this student were feeling that sudden hole in their lives. They may not have known the young lady, but the simple knowledge of one of their own was just no longer there - or would be again - had to be incredibly painful, and that pain was as palpable a presence as a living, breathing human in our school. We had extra counsellors, staff who were wanting to talk about it, and still, there were kids who either felt as though they couldn't talk or that they shouldn't talk.

Grief, death and their respective impacts on our collective mental health are difficult subjects to discuss. They should be. Death in general is not a pleasant subject, and when it comes to a young person having died, it's so much more painful. There are many teachers who are also parents, and there was that struggle of "what if that had been my kid?" On hearing the news, I just wanted to grab my kids, hug them and never let them go...but I had students who were also hurting. I asked my students if they were OK - some didn't know the young woman who died, but many did and many were just struggling with the idea that someone their own age was simply not there anymore - and advised them that if they needed to talk, my door was open and there were extra counsellors in the school. It was a time where I felt completely inadequate, knowing that nothing I'd say or do would be near enough for these kids in the desks in front of me to feel like their world was set right again.

We need to be able to appreciate that there are simply times when conversations are going to be difficult and painful to have, but sometimes, we just need to have them, or at the very least, open the door.

We need to at least be comfortable with the uncomfortable moments that create challenges for us as far as having conversations about painful situations go.

If we, as adults, don't at least try to have these conversations with our kids, or with each other, regardless of how painful these moments might feel to us, how are our kids going to learn to talk about them freely?

How are we going to let people know it's OK to talk about grief and death and how it affects us if we don't actually talk?

Start the conversation - sooner, rather than later.

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)