How schools can support mental health

Here's what makes a difference

Welcome to Techno Sapiens! I’m Jacqueline Nesi, a psychologist and professor at Brown University, co-founder of Tech Without Stress, and mom of two young kids. If you like Techno Sapiens, please consider sharing it with a friend today. Thanks for your support!

---

5 min read

This fall, there’s been a lot of talk about school cell phone policies. As I’ve written before, I think the evidence supports limiting phone use during the school day to promote students’ academic engagement and socialization. When it comes to mental health, though, we cannot rely on cell phone bans alone. Certainly, limiting students’ phone use could promote mental health, but there are many other things schools should be doing, too.

The logical next question, of course, is what are those other things? What can schools do to support students’ mental health, particularly during the vulnerable middle school years?

Well, as luck would have it, a new report lays it all out for us. Last week, the National Scientific Council on Adolescence¹ released some very helpful guidance in a report titled: Early Adolescence: A Window of Opportunity for Educators to Support Positive Mental Health.

Let’s get to it!

The basics

Alright, first things first. What is mental health, anyway? Mental health includes our “emotional, psychological, and social well-being.” Here are some important things to know about mental health:

• Everyone has mental health, and a person’s mental health can be good, bad, or anywhere in between

• Mental health does not mean feeling happy all the time! Good mental health involves feeling a range of emotions.² It might mean feeling sad when a best friend moves away, or feeling angry when a parent tells us we can’t stay on Snapchat all night.

• When a child’s negative feelings like sadness or worry are extreme and do not get better with time, this might mean they are struggling with their mental health.

And why do we care about this for adolescents, in particular?

• Early adolescence (roughly ages 10-13) is, in scientific terms, an absolutely wild ride. So many changes happening all at once! New types of relationships with friends, major physical changes happening to the brain and body, greater independence, more intense emotions, and so on.

• This can heighten risk for mental health challenges, but—here’s the important part—it also means this is an incredible time to promote positive mental health. 

Think of adolescents like little balls of fresh play-doh, whereas adults are more like those old, crusty pieces of play-doh that sat out too long (sorry, fellow adults).³ Adolescents are more malleable. Every little poke and prod will have a significant influence in shaping them. This heightened sensitivity means that efforts to promote mental health can be particularly impactful during these years.⁴ 

What can schools do?

Onto the recommendations! What can schools do to support positive mental health for early adolescents? The report offers four suggestions:

1. Create a positive environment where students can take charge of their learning

Adolescents learn best when they can take initiative, try new things, make their own decisions, and engage with their peers. This includes opportunities to succeed and fail, with support from adults when needed. Some ideas for implementing this:

• Opportunities for oral and group presentations

• Socratic teaching styles that promote critical thinking (i.e., dialogue between teachers and students, where teachers ask lots of questions)

• Lectures with chances for independent note-taking

• Group work, with groups composed of students with a range of backgrounds and skills

• Extracurriculars (electives, clubs) offered during school hours

• Disciplinary practices that are equitable and fair across all students, regardless of race, sex, language, disability status, and other factors

2. Teach students to regulate their emotions and behaviors

Middle schoolers are very much still learning how to manage their feelings and behaviors, and for some, the school day (along with the peers they encounter there) can be highly emotionally charged. Helping students navigate this is crucial. Here are some ideas:

• Use the classroom as a place to practice social skills and self-regulation techniques

• Actively teach these skills using proven frameworks (see below)

• Consider evidence-based classroom mindfulness interventions. Note: it’s important to stick with the science on these. General “mental health awareness” campaigns or poorly implemented mindfulness programs can backfire when not done correctly (see this New York Times article).

Evidence-based resources:

• CDC: Recommendations for promoting mindfulness in schools

• The CASEL framework for teaching social and emotional skills in schools

• CDC: Resources and toolkit for promoting mental well-being in schools

3. Help students build strong relationships (with teachers and other students)

Positive relationships are key for supporting mental health, and this may be especially true during the middle school years. Schools should prioritize helping students feel a sense of connection to their teachers and peers. Some ideas:

• Be intentional about building relationships between teachers and students. This might mean creating opportunities to connect one-on-one, or facilitating respectful classroom debates about a range of topics.

• Cooperative group activities in the classroom, to encourage students engaging with one another

• Emphasize a school climate of trust and respect

4. Encourage students to sleep

You’ve heard it before, but it never hurts to repeat: sleep is critical for both mental and physical health. Kids (ages 6-12) should be getting 9 to 12 hours a night, and teens should be getting 8 to 10 hours. So, what can schools do?

• Start later! In schools that implement later start times, students show less daytime sleepiness, better attendance, better academic performance, and fewer mood concerns. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends middle schools start no earlier than 8:30am.  

• Educate students on the importance of sleep, and on strategies that might help (e.g., limit screen use before bed)

• Treat daytime sleepiness as a sign that students need support, not a cause for disciplinary action

• Consider monitoring students’ sleep health with simple self-report measures, and referring students for interventions as needed

For more on supporting student mental health, check out the full report here.

---

A quick survey

What did you think of this week’s Techno Sapiens? Your feedback helps me make this better. Thanks!

The Best | Great | Good | Meh | The Worst

1. Full disclosure: The National Scientific Council on Adolescence is a group of U.S.-based scientists with expertise in adolescence, of which I also happen to be a member. Note, though, that all opinions expressed here are mine. Especially that play-doh analogy. No one to blame but me for that one.

2. I love psychologist Lisa Damour’s definition of mental health, which has two parts: (1) having feelings that fit the situation and (2) managing those feelings well (i.e., not coping in ways that are dangerous or make the situation worse). Also, highly recommend her book The Emotional Lives of Teenagers to all parents, but especially parents of tweens and teens. It is one of the only books I own in both Kindle and hard copy versions.

3. Is this really how you spell “play-doh”? I’ve now triple-checked the containers in my own house, but still do not trust myself. Has there always been a hyphen? Wikipedia seems to confirm this spelling, and also informs me that the official mascots are giant play-doh containers called, of course, the “Doh-Dohs.” I love play-doh, I really do, but might we be getting a bit carried away with the hyphens?

4. The heightened sensitivity of the adolescent years is also why you probably have some extremely vivid, emotional memories from that time period. I, for example, can remember the exact moment I stepped out of my mom’s car to enter the seventh grade “Mistletoe Magic” dance, including who was nearby, how cold it was, the nervous anticipation I felt, and exactly what I was wearing (a black dress that was, by choice, nearly identical to the dress every other 12-year-old girl was wearing). Meanwhile, I sometimes forget my own age. [Anyone else sometimes have to do the math from your birth year when people ask how old you are? Really hoping this isn’t just me.]