Commentary: What if young people find it hard to talk to parents or counsellors?
SINGAPORE: In light of the contempo River Valley High School case, Educational activity Minister Chan Chun Sing pushed for enhanced training in mental health literacy and the deployment of more instructor-counsellors.
While welcomed, in that location is an elephant in the room: Whether immature people who confront mental health challenges volition indeed open up to teacher-counsellors.
In an ideal world, kids will turn to their parents for support when they encounter difficulties. However, in my feel working with young people, some don't or can't for a diverseness of reasons.
Sometimes parents and their children have differing views, similar when the child chooses to be in a human relationship or friends with someone their family disapproves of. As these evolve, frayed fretfulness tin deepen. Or parents become worried when certain behaviours become concerning.
Issues can ascend when concerns are not communicated sensitively, discerningly or effectively. As a result, the child simply ceases reaching out for fright of judgement and rejection.
It'southward no surprise when instead of trying to see things from their perspective, parents tin can react negatively. I have dealt with cases where some teens resort to violence in retaliation.
In one case, a parent tried to stop their child from sending text messages in the wee hours of the night daily by cut off the wireless network in the business firm.
The teenager, already struggling through a relationship, acted out poorly by damaging household article of furniture in anger. Parents may experience cutting off Internet access is a minor thing, but for a young person, information technology is a dramatic and unreasonable move. Talking things through could have paved the mode for a compromise.
Of form, not all parents bargain with their children's mental health challenges or feel them in these extreme ways. In that location are those who simply do not know what to do or how to react – thinking these are temporary feelings that will go away with time. I take heard parents say: "It is simply a phase, at that place is no need to talk about it anymore, allow it go".
CAN TEACHER-COUNSELLORS Be OBJECTIVE?
How nearly counsellors or teacher-counsellors?
In a recent CNA Insider story, students interviewed voiced concerns almost relying on counsellors, specially those who can exist dismissive and brush aside concerns students might take, or have poor communication skills, leaving students more confused than before.
The story separately highlighted the conflict instructor-counsellors might take in working with students in schoolhouse.
For 1, the duty of psychological intendance requires a relationship of trust betwixt equals and a focus on a client'south well-existence. But an educator has a hierarchical relationship with their priority beingness a child's academic progress whereas a counsellor's priority is the child's social-emotional well-being.
For that reason, teachers are trained to exist proficient at pedagogy, whereas counsellors' skills are in empathic listening and close observation of conversation.
People can be competent at both, only it can be challenging to swop hats and remain even-handed. There is also the question of confidentiality. Would students' confessions be taken equally a lack of resilience or bookish capability, and seep into their grading for participation in class through staffroom gossip, even if the teacher-counsellor did not accept their class?
Worse, when counsellors are class teachers, students may fright that conversations in confidence could exist discussed with parents, say during a parent-instructor coming together. These real issues on the ground demand to be ironed out.
This pandemic has also fabricated online counselling intrusive in small homes where families spend 24/seven together. A range of service providers have sprung up to fill this gap – from organisations similar Fei Yue Family unit Service Centre to IMH which runs a hotline. Terminal twelvemonth, the Ministry of Health said there was a 60 per cent increase in calls in 2022 compared to 2019.
Despite the popularity of online counselling, my own experience is that some youths find it hard to log on in individual, peculiarly when parents are home. And they worry virtually text letters being read.
CAN PEER SUPPORT HELP?
If not parents or counsellors, where does that get out the troubled youth? Good friends tin can form a blazon of non-judgmental support group.
They provide security and a sense of belonging that comes from being in a community going through similar experiences.
Puberty and the onset of adolescence tin can be a physically and emotionally disruptive fourth dimension.
Neurological studies show why youths seek out personal affirmation from people who "get" them during this menstruum.
In teens, the emotional heart of the brain in the limbic organization that processes fear and anxiety matures earlier than the pre-frontal cortex responsible for impulse control and emotional regulation. This leaves the emotional sensors in their brain on their own for a while.
In other words, teenagers will accept a tendency to think almost problems and judge situations generally by how they experience. They are less inhibited and tend to experience heightened emotions.
Would the Pedagogy Ministry consider doing away with the PSLE or implement later starting time times for schools to ease the pressure off students? We asked Minister of State for Education Sun Xueling these questions in CNA's Center of the Matter podcast.
On the 1 hand, having a community of friends tin be a boon. For many, deep loyalty and a sense that they accept to "protect" their friends provide safety harbour for teenagers to share their woes and observe release.
Simply when professional assist is defective and something serious happens – like when a friend attempts suicide – teenagers tin can experience lost, confused, shocked and saddened. Youths tin can also be ill-equipped to brand sense of troubling situations.
Without the steady, trained hand of a mental health practitioner, youths in crisis can take trouble navigating situations that challenge their behavior and values. A young person's brain is still developing and they are still learning.
I recall seeing a client's social media mail saying he was contemplating suicide because of an incident in school earlier that 24-hour interval. Information technology was clear that his friends were trying to talk him out of it.
He shared with me how he finds information technology hard to deal with criticism. Merely through our session, we arrived at coping strategies and helped him develop a new perspective to harsh comments.
In that location is an opportunity for schools to train young people – to larn how to talk to each other positively, to listen with perspective, and discern when to seek out an developed for help. Peers can also learn to offer their trusted parent, caregiver or an adult to their friend in demand or crunch, and jointly continue the conversation together.
Understanding a little of the brain biology tin can help us realise nosotros need to prioritise fostering a positive emotional climate effectually our children.
Our prefrontal cortex only fully develops around the age of 25, while the limbic organisation is fully adult almost the age when puberty sets in. In that location is a x-twelvemonth window where the encephalon is going through rapid changes, where fight-or-flying blazon emotions can dominate and youths are susceptible to stress and anxiety.
A niggling fleck of help and guidance can go a long way. When immature people practise turn to us as caring adults, information technology would aid if nosotros took their "limbic thoughts" seriously.
To do this, we need to be curious, open up and willing to explore new options and ideas. Being open up means suspending your preconceptions. When a young person shares something personal, what you say to them is very important.
Listening to why they think in the style they do can become a long style. What they're looking for very frequently isn't a fixed set up of solutions simply someone to talk to.
Nicholas Gabriel Lim is Head, Graduate Diploma in Youth Work at the Singapore University of Social Sciences.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/youth-mental-health-counsellor-teacher-278711
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