Teachers report spending an increasing amount of time needing to support students’ and families’ mental health, per a new RAND study, and it’s seriously burning them out. In large part, this problem is unintentionally self-induced by the education system, which has increasingly taken on more the responsibilities of the mental health system. Schools and educators have been misled to think mental health programs would improve education outcomes at scale, and that “good mental health” is necessary for students to learn (even though students had been learning at schools for forever before the rise of mental health). The mental health programs that are marketed to schools as good for education are are explicitly teaching students and teachers alike to think about mental health more, talk about mental health more, and encourage seeking support for mental health. That explicitly takes time away from education: it’s a mechanical, unavoidable effect. Doing all this has not improved education outcomes or mental outcome. Growing evidence shows it can be harmful and make kids feel worse. It’s often NOT the best thing to think or talk about how one feels, and instead get past the momentary/transitory feelings of stress, anxiety, discomfort, etc. EdWeek writes that “in most schools, counselors and psychologists juggle up to twice the recommended ratio of students—leaving teachers to pick up the slack for students waiting for additional help.” That gives the impression that what’s necessary is more counselors and school psychologists. This is another way the education system has been misled. Recommended ratios come from professional associations that have an incentive to say there’s a need more of their members—they’re not based on empirical evidence. And more school mental health staff would perpetuate the cycle: more responsibility for mental health taken on by the education system, leads to more time spent on it, leads to more investment, leads to more time spent, etc. edweek.org/leadership/dealin… edweek.org/leadership/dealin…

This is incredibly useful because a constant refrain from many mental health industry advocates, who are constantly pushing their services toward younger and younger kids, is that “half of all mental health conditions develop by the age of 14.” That is totally misleading. Because (1) it’s not true, (2) the younger-age diagnoses are generally more mild conditions and forms of conditions that don’t necessarily improve with or require treatment—not the serious nor functionally impairing mental illnesses, and (3) its suggests that efforts to prevent mental illness “upstream” work, when they’re really WILDLY limited: we don’t know the causes of mental illnesses so we can’t prevent them. We’ve been pumping kids full of therapy speak, therapy itself, and pills. None of it is going to prevent mental illnesses from developing among those who will go on to develop one, and for the vast majority who will never go on to develop of a serious mental illness—statistically, between ~94-96% of kids—they’re being exposed unnecessarily to treatments and interventions that could put them at greater risk of harm than potential benefit. And since so much of youth mental health care is low-quality and doesn’t meet best clinical practices, kids are even more exposed to potential harm than they’d be otherwise. Mental healthcare is important and can be useful. But youth mental healthcare should be pursued/ delivered judiciously and thoughtfully.