In this episode of “Roadmap to Joy,” our host, Bailey Petty, Learning, and Development Manager at Embark Behavioral Health, and guest, Maddy Little, Licensed Associate Counselor at Embark Behavioral Health in Phoenix, Arizona, dive into signs your teen could benefit from a mental health day from school. Bailey and Maddy describe restorative activities, give tips on communicating with your teen’s teachers and school and provide examples of how parents can model healthy stress management techniques for their children.

Related Blogs:

How Much Stress is Too Much? A Caregiver’s Guide (embarkbh.com) 

School Stress: How Student Life Affects Your Teen (embarkbh.com) 

Ask a Therapist: Does Going to School Cause Depression or Make It Worse? (embarkbh.com) 

How Should Parents Handle It When Their Teenager Refuses To Go to School? (embarkbh.com)  

Related Videos:

School Anxiety: How to Help Your Child | Roadmap to Joy 

Gratitude Journal with Me 

How Can Yoga Help an Adolescent or Teen When Dealing with a Difficult Situation? 

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Have a question for our experts? We want to hear from you! Submit your questions to: askatherapist@embarkbh.com.

Guest Bio:

Maddy Little is passionate about fostering a safe, non-judgmental space for teens and young adults to process their thoughts, feelings, and experiences. She received her master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Walden University and her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Colorado Christian University. She is trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and specializes in working with trauma, anxiety, mood disorders, suicidal ideations/self-harm, identity development, and interpersonal relationships. Outside of work, Maddy loves spending quality time with her husband and 3-year-old son, getting creative with art and baking, and leaning into personal development.

About Embark Behavioral Health:

Embark has been helping people overcome behavioral health issues that may be affecting their everyday lives for over 25 years.   

Conditions We Treat Include:  

• Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
• Depression.  
• Anger/mood regulation. 
• Family conflict.
• Anxiety.  
• Self-harm/cutting.   
• Bipolar disorder.  
• Social isolation.   
• Borderline personality disorder (BPD).  
• High-risk behavior.
• Bullying.

The Embark team has some of the most compassionate and educated professionals in the industry. Its core purpose is to create joy and heal generations. Embark’s big hairy audacious goal is to lead the way in driving teen and young adult anxiety, depression, and suicide from the all-time highs of today to all-time lows by 2028. Exceptional treatment options, like short-term residential care, makes Embark the world's most respected family behavioral health provider.   

Check out our locations.

Hi, I'm Bailey Petty. Welcome to Roadmap to

Joy. I am the Learning and Development Manager here at

Embark Behavioral Health. And today we are going to be talking

about school mental health days. And today I have with me Maddy

Little, who is actually one of our clinicians at our Phoenix

location. I'll go ahead and let her introduce herself.

Yeah, I'm Maddy, I'm excited to be here. I love

working with our teens and talking about mental health and

the importance of mental health days. So I'm excited.

Awesome. Let's go out and get started. So one of

the reasons we want to talk about taking mental health days

from school is because in the recent years, 12 states have

actually passed legislation that allows school districts to

provide mental health days as a reason for calling out of

school. So we want to talk a little bit more about what a

mental health day is, when it's an appropriate time to take it,

and what you should do on a mental health day and those

kinds of things. Many, what would you say is a mental health

day.

So a mental health day would be a day off from

school, or work for parents where you're prioritizing your

emotional and mental well being.

Okay, and what kinds of activities are good to

do on a mental health day?

Yeah, we want to look at restorative activities.

So things like yoga, or taking a walk, getting some rest things

that help us rest and replenish, so that we can feel more e

nergized going back into school or work. We don't want to sit in

bed and scroll on TikTok all day, which I think can be

enticing for people. But that's the opposite of what we want to

do. We want it to be restorative and healing.

Yeah, absolutely. How can you kind of navigate

having that conversation? If you're a parent, and your

student is needing a mental health day? Like, how can you

approach that?

Yeah. So I think there are always signs to be

looking for changes in behaviors or for teenagers being able to

say, I don't feel well, today, I'm feeling anxious, or I'm

feeling confused about things that are going on. And as a

parent, being able to listen to those concerns and listening,

knowing maybe a mental health day is on the line or is

available to my child. So there's a lot of specific things

that we can get more in detail about as we journey through the

podcast.

What are some of those signs that parents can

look out for and be aware of?

Yeah, so let's say a teenager comes to their parent

and says, "I'm feeling really anxious today" , as the parent

looking for those physical signs of anxiety, the child may be

tense or shaky, they could be more emotional with that tearful

expression. A lot of times teenagers don't have the words

to express how they're feeling and being able to say I need

help. I'm feeling anxious, or I'm feeling depressed. So other

things parents can look for are changes in behaviors. It could

be increased irritability, or the child withdrawing from the

family withdrawing from their friends, is significant

increase, or a significant change in grades and academic

performance? Or the child saying, I don't want to go to

school anymore. I'm done. I'm like sick of this and making

those statements of like, I can't do this anymore. So being

attuned to what is my child saying? What are they presenting

in their symptoms and behaviors? And what can I do as the parent

to pay attention to that, and hopefully help with some of

those things that they're showing and expressing?

Yeah, absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. I

guess I'm a little more curious on your perspective of how to

know like, why it is an appropriate amount of stress or

school related anxiety and those kinds of things. And what really

is more significant, like, how do you kind of differentiate

that? Yeah.

So teenagers experience stress, as we all do,

because they're human. So school stress can be really good. And

it can be really healthy for the child to experience the stress,

the pressure of academic performance, or performing in

sports, navigating personal relationships, all those types

of stress can be healthy and productive for the teenager.

When it becomes distressing, and it becomes too much for the

child to handle. The parents might see some of those

significant changes of behaviors, like we had

mentioned, where the child's performance is hindered by that

stress. So they're paralyzed by that fear of how failing a test

my impact to them, or they're unable to step onto the court

for sport because they're so afraid of what might happen or

they're feeling so overwhelmed by everything that's being

presented to them.

Okay, that makes sense. So, it's kind of like if

that stress or anxiety is almost like debilitating, or it kind of

prevents them from participating in like the things that they

normally do or the things that they enjoy.

Yeah. Another thing that I think comes up a

lot with teenagers is bullying and interpersonal distress that

they experienced at school. So the interpersonal conflict a

teenager might have with their friends can be a healthy way to

learn, "how do I interact with my friends? How do I

communicate? How do I express my emotions, learn how to relate to

this other human?", but when it becomes a fear of interacting

with people, or a fear of how these people are treating me,

that can become so distressing and debilitating, and can cause

a lot of that harm on the child's emotion and mental

health.

You mentioned, when you do take a mental health

day that you should participate in like more restorative

activities, and like we don't want to just be scrolling social

media for hours. Can you give us some more examples of those

healthy activities?

Absolutely. So two mental health concerns that come

up frequently with teenagers are depression and anxiety for

depression. Some specific restorative activities that

could be very beneficial for the teenager are things like yoga,

doing a like activity outside going on a walk, moving their

body, when we're feeling depressed, our natural urge is

to retreat and stay in bed and kind of freeze and feeling like

"I don't want to do anything today, I just want to lay in bed

I want to be here." So if we can do the opposite of that, if we

can go on that walk, get that movement and be intentional

about where we're putting our body or what we're doing with

our body, that can be very restorative. And then for

anxiety, we want to look at relaxation and relaxation

techniques. So yoga could be that form of very specific

movement, it's focused, it guides that tension in the body,

the strength of the body, and can help feel more restorative

or relaxing. With anxiety, maybe taking a nap is a helpful

restorative activity, being able to give your mind and your body

some of that rest, or taking a nice bubble bath or stretching,

doing things that are intentional slow movements that

promote that relaxation,

what's the significance of like doing those

slow activities, because like, all of those are very, you know,

I think maybe with school, like a lot of times, things are so

fast paced. And then you're saying like, on mental health

day to literally do the opposite of that. And like take that

moment and to like completely slow down.

Yeah. When our brains are feeling overwhelmed,

whether it's the anxiety or the depression, when we have that

emotional distress, we are often overstimulated by everything

else that's going on around us. So if we can be more mindful,

which is really hard and feels very uncomfortable, so it's not

like hey, just do some yoga, it's gonna be fine. If the

teenager has never done an activity like that, and they're

feeling highly anxious, it will be very hard, but it can be very

healthy and very healing, to slow down and take that moment

of, "how can I intentionally engage with my body and with my

mind, to be more aware of what's happening inside of me?"

Okay, great. This kind of leads me to into

something that I think about a lot. I used to be a special

education-elementary education teacher. And one of the things

that I think about a lot is like, I love that when the time

comes to take that day to rest and practice those like

restorative activities. That's great. But I guess I'm more

concerned about like, "what can we do to prevent some of this or

limit it?" So I think about, you know, my students, they would

get to school, like at 7:30am, we'd start the day at eight, and

it's pretty much go, go go all day long. The schedule is kind

of chosen for them. There's really not a lot of rest in the

day. And then I know most of my students were very involved in

like extracurricular activities, and so while my school we didn't

require very much homework, it was very minimal. I know that's

not the case. In a lot of places, especially like in high

school, so our kids are in school for basically a full

workday. They go to their extracurricular activities, and

then they go home, and some of them will have hours of homework

every single night. And then, you know, like, that is

overwhelming. So what can parents do to be like empathetic

to those pressures, but also have like conversations or help

them build those skills to, you know, manage their time better

and to limit the stress and anxiety because like, they

really do have such full plates? So I'm really curious on like,

the clinical perspective of that.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, teenagers face a lot and

school is really hard and that stress is real, it's happening,

and schools are becoming, I think, more demanding over time,

along with all those added pressures of social media and

relationships and academic- that academic components sports, all

those things. that are involved. For parents, a big piece of it

is that balance and structure. So our teenagers or kids need

consistency, and they need that structure to thrive. A kid

doesn't come up out of the womb, knowing how to create that

structure for themselves. They are taught how to do that by

their parents and the other adults around them. And some of

those kids don't have the privilege of having that

structure taught to them in a healthy way, because parents are

modeling that. And some parents have never been taught that

healthy structure as well. So if we can look at, "Is my child

getting enough sleep? That's so important. Is my child getting

enough to eat? Are they eating frequently? Are they drinking

enough water? Are they moving their body? Do they have some

trusting relationships in their life?" Whether it's in the

Sure, like with that being said, How can parents-like say your

family or with friends, people that helped contribute to their

emotional development and their well being, if they have each of

these things, we're more likely to experience that consistency

of that structure that helps the child thrive. But when sleep is

off balance that can throw everything out of whack and

create that distress for the child where if they don't aren't

getting enough sleep, they're not going to be paying attention

in school because their body just wants to rest. From a

teacher's perspective, I think looking at "How can I help my

classroom, seeing each child individually," which is so hard

because the teachers have an overwhelming amount of students

that they're responsible for. But thinking through, "Are these

academic requirements useful for each of these children?" there

will be some kids that have more needs and need more

accommodations. So as the teacher being able to realize,

maybe this child doesn't need to do this assignment, and they're

not missing out on the academic demands, I can excuse it, and it

will be okay. Which I know is easy to say and really hard to

implement, because teachers have so many responsibilities as well.

student does, like needs a mental health day, or they're

really just dealing with a lot of school anxiety or just

difficulties going? How can parents approach that

conversation with teachers from a place of, you know, wanting to

build a trusting relationship or partner together or work

together to truly like, make sure that the student's needs

are being met? So like, How can parents kind of approach that?

Yeah, absolutely. I think for parents getting to know the

teacher a little bit, building, that relationship is key. If the

parents shows they're invested in their child's education, and

they're able to advocate for their child and say, I want to

help out, how can I help? Or how can I help you, as the teacher

invest in my child's education, the teacher is far more open and

far more likely to be able to step in and say, "Absolutely, I

want to be able to help and I care about your child, as a

person and as a student, what can I do to help them meet those

academic demands?" Another piece of that is ongoing

communication. So if a parent hasn't talked to a teacher all

semester, and all of a sudden, they're stepping in and they're

like, "You need to be lighter on my child, or my child is too

overwhelmed, they won't be doing the assignments," that can be

coming out of nowhere for the teacher, and the teacher might

be confused about, I don't really know, I didn't know any

of this was going on, I don't really know how to help this

specific student. So being open and communication, being

transparent about "This is what my child needs are, this is what

we've been looking at at home. And this is what we think could

be best. Is there any way you can meet us halfway? Or could I

step in? And could I have the homework before the child, or

can you help me understand this assignment so I can help my

child get through it?"

Yeah, so that makes a lot of sense. I do agree

with you like that open communication is so crucial.

Because, you know, in an elementary school, it's a lot

easier to know your students very well, maybe you've got 20,

30, 40, even if you're on the high end, but you do get to know

your students very well. But I think as you go through the

upper grades, and you're with students for shorter periods of

times, it's a lot harder to know what's going on at home and what

those additional stressors are. So I think it's really important

for like families and, you know, school, school teachers, staff,

like all the adults involved to like, you know, navigate those

open conversations, because otherwise, if you don't know

what's going on, it's gonna be really hard to, you know, make

the adjustments needed. So I think that's-thanks for bringing

that up.

Yeah and, I think a thing I would add to that,

being, as the parent, being transparent with your child

about, I think it's important that your teacher knows some of

these things that are going on so they can help you, but also

being very sensitive to "Does my teenager want their teacher to

know everything that's happening in the home, is my child okay

with the teacher knowing they have panic attacks or that they

struggle with depression?", because if not, that could

hinder the child's comfort or the teenagers comfort in the

classroom or with that teacher. So being very sensitive to,

"Okay, we need to share some of this information because it

could be very helpful. But if my child's uncomfortable with their

teacher knowing these things, that could be more detrimental

if I share that, and that could break the trust between the

parent and the teenager."

So when might be like a good idea to bring in-or

go speak with the school counselor, like encouraging your

teenager to go speak with a school counselor, or connecting

with them as a family? If would that be beneficial in a

situation like that?

Yeah, I really liked the the point that you made about like

Yeah, yeah. And I think the the overarching piece

of talking about mental health days is that we're continually

having that conversation as a family, because the more

breaking down the stigma. Mental health is health. And it's

comfortable and the more practice your teenager has

important, and we all need to pay attention to our mental

health. So the more that we can create these conversations

within the home of "Everybody needs help, nobody's made to do

this life alone. I as the parent or I, as the teacher, as the

school counselor, also struggle with my mental health, I am not

good 100% of the time, because I'm human." So fostering that

environment in the home, in the schools, in the podcast and

talking through, "How can we continue to break down that

stigma and create that support of-" everybody needs that

additional support at some point, or at many points in

their life, and that's okay, that's, it's human, there's

nothing wrong with that. So creating that space for

teenagers to feel more comfortable, instead of feeling

like, "I don't want people to know, I'm going to the school

counselor," or "I feel really awkward. I don't even know my

school counselor, I've never talked to them." So there's a

lot that schools can be working on as well to continue creating

that open door policy for the school counselor to be more

involved in the students lives, and we also need more school

counselors in the schools, because the demand is so high.

So there's a lot of issues in the system, but-

having these conversations in like a productive, healthy way.

And kind of being like solution oriented and like recognizing,

like what you're struggling with, and like finding ways to

deal with that anxiety or depression or whatever it is.

And, you know, a way that's, you know, more sustainable is great,

but then that also translates to them being able to like advocate

for themselves, because developmentally, teenagers

are-that is something that they're learning, they're being

able to advocate for themselves, they do have their own ideas,

they do want to share those things. So if they're able to

have those conversations in the home, it's more likely they'll

be able to have those conversations with their

teachers and advocate for themselves, or be more

comfortable talking to their peers. And then, you know,

potentially the counselor as well.

Yeah, absolutely. If a child learns in the home that it's not

safe to talk about my feelings, they will not feel safe to talk

about their feelings with really anybody. So if we can see in the

home, that this child has the experience of feeling validated

and feeling heard, and trusted, that what they're saying is

true-for example, I hear a lot of teenagers who will tell their

parents, "I'm feeling anxious," and I hear the parents say, "You

have nothing to be anxious about." And although that can be

said, with good motivation of like comfort, it's really

invalidating to the teenager who is really experiencing that

anxiety, the tension in their body, the shortness of breath,

the fear of the outcome. So being able to say, "Oh, I hear

that you're anxious, can you tell me what that's like for

you? Can you tell me what I can do to help? How can I meet you

where you're at?" and opening that conversation and welcoming

those topics that are hard to talk about and can be really

awkward to talk about and families, but opening that

conversation and creating that safe space to share what's going

on.

Yeah, I think a lot of us grew up, you know, not

really having these conversations. Or, you know, we

did kind of have a lot of comments like, you know, "Just

wait till you're older you have a job," or, you know, kind of

downplaying those stressors. But I do think it's really important

to keep in mind, like, as we talked about before, like our

students do have a lot of stress. They are really short on

time, you know, compared to all of their responsibilities. So

can you tell us I, I liked how you explain how parents can

approach that conversation more empathetically? Can you give us

like some more examples of how to navigate that because it is

hard to open up those conversations. Your kid gets in

the car and you say, "How was your day?" "It's fine." You

know, that's pretty common for for most parents.

Yeah, yeah. As a parent, so I'm a parent myself,

I have a three year old, he's not a teenager, but I can relate

to the parenting aspect. So as a parent things that we want to

try to do to communicate with our children is creating that

open space for validation and the safety where they can come

and express what they're feeling knowing "It's safe for me to

share even if my parents don't agree," we don't have to agree

everything with everything that our child says, but just

validating, "Okay, I hear that you're anxious, I hear that this

is happening for you. I imagine that's really difficult. Can you

tell me more?" Also approaching that with curiosity. So as the

parent, "I'm curious what your internal world is like, because

I can't read your thoughts. I'm not you, I don't know what's

happening inside, I can observe your body language, I can

observe your tone of voice, I can observe when you jump in the

car and sit back and you're like, 'it was fine, don't talk

about it', I can observe that." But a child who may present that

way of like, "It's fine, I don't want to talk about it," might be

going through depression, they might be going through anxiety,

they might have gone through a breakup or lost a friend, they

might be having scary thoughts inside, but they don't know how

to navigate. So as the parent, I was telling my clients putting

on this hat of curiosity, put on the ball cap and say, "What is

going on here? What can I do about this? How can I understand

this better?" So being curious and asking those questions,

"Tell me more? How do you know that you're feeling anxious? I

want to know, so I can help you."

Yeah, and you mentioned, that's kind of a

transition for parents too, because you know, your

children's so intimately, especially when they're young,

and you're able to anticipate their needs. And then there's

that shift in like the preteen teen years. And suddenly, like

they do have their own internal world going on. And it's a lot

more difficult to kind of protect them or those kinds of

things. And I think like we've all you know, I think a lot of

people when they were teenagers, "My parents just don't

understand me." So I think that's a really great point of

being curious because they are encountering different kinds of

people. And they are being exposed to just all sorts of

different things, especially with like social media. So their

life experience is going to be different than even what you

guys share as a family. So I like that being curious.

Because, you know, if you open that conversation up without

presuming that you know exactly how something's affecting them,

or what that behavior means, like, I know when, like, I sat

with, like my students, like, if you make the assumption about

what that behavior means, that can be very frustrating and

cause them to shut down. Because your behavior like that might

not be the intention that your parents are assuming, so yeah,

it makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, and it's not easy. Parenting a teenager is

very difficult, and being a teenager is very difficult. So

I'm glad we're talking.

Okay. So what would you suggest for parents,

let's say they've already, you know, been having open honest

conversations with their teenager or their student, and,

you know, they've kind of taken this preventative measures are

working on like time management, they're having this open

discussions, maybe they've taken a couple of mental health days,

and they're, you know, making that day about like, rest and

restore-like restoration and, you know, doing things that are

mindful and those kinds of things, but what if, how do you

know when it's something more significant? Like, what are the

warning signs for? Do you look for patterns? Like, is there a

reason they're continuously taking these mental health days?

Or has it been a prolonged period of time? How do you know

when it's time to kind of seek additional support outside of

just taking a mental health day?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we-mental health days are

helpful and important, but when they become used excessively, or

they become a pattern of that behavior, we're able to see,

"Okay, we've taken three mental health days this week, what else

could be going on?" Because the hope is that when we take one

mental health day, or maybe two days in a row, depending on what

the stressor was, that indicated the need for a mental health

day, if we take those one or two days, the hope is that we can

return to school and feel restored and feel health, feel

more, like healthy and ready to engage. But if we go back to

school, and we're calling our parents and it's like, "Hey, can

you pick me up early, I just can't do this." And now we've

gone several days or a week of missing those classes. That can

be the biggest warning sign for the parents realizing, "My child

hasn't gone to school this week," or, "My child has missed

half days of school each day this week, because I've had to

pick them up early. Okay, I'm going to put on this hat of

curiosity, and I'm gonna approach it with 'what else is

going on?' I don't think it's just that they want to miss

school because most teenagers want to miss school. They'd

rather be at home some of them would rather be doing other

things than sitting in class getting lectured all day, which

is understandable. But if they're really like 'I do not

want to be at school, I can't do this. I'm so anxious or I'm so

depressed, I just I have to disengage.'" That's the first

warning sign for the parents of, "Okay, I think something else is

going on here. Let's talk to somebody," whether it's

scheduling a meeting with the school counselor if they're

available to that, or reaching out to a mental health

professional, like a therapist who can ask those questions and

create that space for the child to be more open about what's

happening. And the child may not know what's happening either. So

as parents, we don't want to pry and ask those questions and say,

like, "You have to go to school, I can't pick you up anymore. I'm

so frustrated with you." That might be what's happening inside

for the parents, because it is frustrating when you don't

understand what's happening with your child, but being frustrated

at your child openly and punishing them for wanting to

miss school is not going to help the problem, it's only going to

contribute to that stress the child's facing. So being willing

to say, "I'm frustrated, and I'm confused. And I can deal with

that within myself as the parent, but when I talk with my

child, 'how can I help you? It seems like something else is

going on? What can we do? Because missing school forever

is not an option. We have to go to school, it's a state

requirement. It's good for your academic development, it's good

for your brain. What can we do to help support you as you're

figuring this out?'"

Okay, well, then, because this is so new for a lot

of us in terms of like, talking about our mental health and like

seeking additional support, how do parents know, like, when they

should go to the school counselor, or, you know, you

said contact a mental health professional, how do I know who

to go to? Or how do I know the difference between just, you

know, reaching out to a therapist or going through my

insurance or looking to like, program or service that offers

more intensive therapy? How do I even navigate that world?

Yeah, yeah. And that's a huge question. I love

it. So the first thing, I have a lot of teen clients who have

told me time and again, "I've been telling my parents, I need

to talk to somebody for months, and they haven't taken me, and

now finally, I'm sitting with you, but I've been telling my

parents for the last six months that I wanted to talk to

somebody." So part of that is as the parent, if your child says,

"I need to talk to somebody, I don't know what's happening,"

or, "I'm feeling things inside, and I don't want to talk to you

about it. But I do want to talk to someone," please listen to

your child's because that is the best way they know how to

communicate, "I need help, I need to talk to someone who

knows what they're doing, who's an expert in this mental health

issue that I'm facing." So that's the first part. And then

with insurance, I think calling your insurance to find a

provider can be a really helpful way to do it because every

insurance policy is different. So teenager tells parent, "I

need to talk to someone," parent can then say, "Okay, I'm going

to try to get the ball rolling, I can't promise we'll have

something available this week." Some providers are very tight in

their schedule. So part of the issue is that some therapists

are very full, and it can be hard to find a therapist that

fits the needs. And I definitely understand that. So calling the

insurance and saying, "I have a child struggling with anxiety, I

need a provider in my area who's covered by our policy," the

insurance company can provide a list of people or provide more

direction that's very specific to the policy to help the parent

finds the next step. The school counselor could also have

resources. I'm not a school counselor, so I can't speak for

them, but they might also have resources that are helpful in

the community or support groups or different, like, clubs or

programs at school that create more opportunities to talk about

mental health as well.

Okay, so I think a good starting point, then if

would be to talk to the school counselor and try and see

what-they're going to know a little bit more about what's

available in the community.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay. Okay, so kind of building on that idea

of-kind of building that relationship with your child and

working together to kind of solve the problem or find

resources that are going to be helpful, what is what else can

parents do to more effectively like model those healthy coping

strategies, especially if parents maybe grew up in a

situation where they didn't really learn those things until

much later in life?

Yeah, yeah. So in short, parents are human too, no

surprise there. So parents also deal with the same emotions and

physical and mental, psychological challenges that

teenagers face, it looks different, because they're not

the same stressors and struggles, but as parents, we

also have all of those needs for ourselves. So for parents, it's

really important, I think, first and foremost, to set aside that

time for yourself away from your kids. If you have a partner

spending that time together, having date night dates or times

where you can talk about what's going on with the kids without

the kids present. Going out to stores by yourself, taking walks

by yourself taking care of your basic needs, because you're

human, and if we as the parents are not well, and we're

struggling a lot, and we can't take care of ourselves because

there's so much going on in our internal world, it makes it a

million times harder, and it feels very impossible to meet

the needs of our child. So if I'm feeling very anxious, if I'm

feeling overwhelmed, or I'm feeling depressed, and I'm going

through my own battles, it's going to be very challenging to

help my child find that structure and balance and show

them the coping skills that they need to use to thrive in their

own life. So we can use some preventative measures to, again

with that structure routine we talked about with the kids to

prevent the overwhelm in school, as parents, we can use that

ourselves with making sure we're getting enough sleep or drinking

water. We're eating meals, and we're engaging in those

restorative activities on our own. Making sure that work is

not becoming our whole life, so that we have time for our basic

needs, we have time for family, we have time for other adult

friends that aren't our kids so that we can feel connected in

those trusting relationships. So meeting all of those needs,

helps us feel well so that we can then model for our kids, "I

take care of myself too. And there's nothing wrong as me as

mom," we talked about mom guilt sometimes, but there's nothing

wrong as, for me as mom, to take time for myself, I need that

time for myself. That's what's healthy for my development and

healthy for my well being. And the kids understanding. "Yeah,

mom needs alone time because mom does better-mom's a better mom

when she's doing well."

Okay, so in addition to modeling those

healthy behaviors, and taking care of yourself, I'm curious,

again, more about the prevention and like kind of taking action

ahead of time, how can we better help teenagers who are getting

ready for life after high school, whether that's, you

know, a trade school, or military, or going to college,

or just getting a, you know, a job and kind of exploring their

options? How can we better help them prepare, because one of the

things that I think causes a lot of stress in that transition

from high school to college is, you've spent the last 13 school

years, having your day planned out for you, you know, at a

certain time you're doing a certain subject, and then the

rest of your day is kind of blocked out for you again,

because you have your extracurriculars, and you fit in

your homework in between that. And then they immediately go to

college, for instance, and now you have school a couple of

times a week, and that's when you have your classes. And now

you have all these days with unstructured time, and I think

for a lot of, you know, teens, young adults, like that's

probably the first time in their life, they're now having to plan

their own day, we've never really provided them that

practice. We've talked about time management skills, but

they've never even created their own day, you know, on a

consistent basis, or, you know, if you go to a trade school,

same kind of thing, or if you get a job, what do you do with

the rest of your time when you're not working? So how do we

help model that transition, Since that's our first time

encountering a new lifestyle?

Yeah, I think our most powerful tool is education,

and not just education from an academic standpoint, but

educating on what that looks like. So educating these teens

on, "The world is your oyster, you have all these choices," and

there's not a right or wrong way to do these things. There's not

a not a right or wrong decision, and, "Do I go to college first?

Do I get a job first? Do I go to trade school? Do I join the

military?" there are so many options, and it doesn't have to

be black and white. So helping them understand, "Here are your

choices, and here's what you can do with that. You get to decide

for you." empowering them to make those choices, knowing "I

can do what I want with my time. Here are some things that are

important to do with my time. I do need to get sleep and eat,"

and "I will have bills to pay. I do have responsibilities. And

when I have education on how to take care of those

responsibilities. I then understand 'how can I schedule

time to take care of each of these things that need to get

done?' If I am saving up for a car and I'm educated on how much

the car costs and how much I make. I'm then capable of making

that choice for myself to decide. This is how much I can

put away to save for this car." So I think it all comes back to

that education, and then for parents being able to model some

of that as well, helping the child understand, "There's time,

we can figure this out together, You're not alone in this, and

here's information that can help you make those informed

decisions."

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's really important.

Because, you know, teenagers, they're very intelligent, and

they do have their own opinions and their ideas, and so I think

sometimes, parents like we might assume that, "Well, you should

know how to do that," but I think it's kind of like taking

that step back, pausing, and then, like you said, being

curious and like, showing them and like, being explicit and

showing how to do these things, and like helping them recognize

that they do have autonomy and choices, and that, you know,

choices have consequences, but here's how we can consider all

the factors and what needs to be taken care of, and then

ultimately, that choice is still yours by showing them how to,

you know, approach situations, and think of them more

thoughtfully.

Yeah. And teenagers love to be

independent, and if we, as parents and adults around them

can help foster that independence in a healthy way of

offering those choices, giving them the information they need

to make those informed decisions, they can feel more

confident and more strong and who they are, as they're

developing their sense of self. So giving them that information

and that choice, they can say, "Oh, you know what, I do want to

go to college, or I do want to buy that car, I am capable of

doing these things," and then supporting them along the way,

and knowing, "They might be making a decision that's not as

healthy for them, but as the parent, I can help guide them,

and not just shut them down each time that they're trying to be

independent, because they'll learn those consequences of the

choices," and that's a necessary part of developing as a human being.

Yeah, absolutely. Something else that kind of

keeps coming back to my mind is something that you said, about,

you know, some of your clients that you've had, or that you've

worked with, they've kind of share that they've been wanting

to talk to somebody for a while that really keeps coming back to

my mind, and, you know, it's kind of been put off, and it

took a while for them to be able to, you know, get with get to

you. What are some of the misconceptions that families or

students or people just still have about seeking support for

mental health services? Like how can we close that gap or still

work on reducing the stigma?

Yeah, absolutely. I think you had mentioned

earlier where kids have this stress, and we might say, "Oh,

you have nothing to worry about, you're not stressed, you're

fine." So part of the misconception is parents,

ultimately knowing their child very well. But not knowing

everything. We don't know everything about our child's

internal world, we can't read their minds, we can only observe

through our senses. And if that child is struggling, they know

themselves best. They know that they're struggling, they know

something's going on. So when they communicate, "I need to

talk to somebody. I don't know what's happening, I don't have

the answers for myself, but I need help." As the parent,

believing that and saying, "I trust that you know yourself

best, and I trust that I don't know everything about you. I've

known you for a long time, I do know you very intimately and

very well, but I don't know everything about you. So if I

can create that opportunity for you to learn more about yourself

through seeking help. I'm going to do that as best as I can. And

I can't promise that we'll have weekly sessions because of

scheduling, or money, or these other factors that come into

play in a realistic world, but I can promise that I'm here to

support you, and I believe you and your experience." Yeah.

When families come to you, is there still kind of a

sense sometimes that parents are worried about, you know, seeking

out support for their children? Like, are they- is there any

kind of idea that like, "If we talk about it, then the problem

becomes real?" or "If we like, kind of ignore it or downplay

that. It'll be okay." Is there a concern about actually seeking

help from a professional or talking about it, that it's

going to make it worse? Is that something that's experienced?

Yeah, absolutely. I think with the parents and

teens that I've been working with over the past year, I

experienced that more with the parents then with the teenagers.

From most of my teenagers, it seems, or they've told me that

they're open with their friends about what they're struggling

with, and that they're going to therapy, and they're, they're

Okay, so we've talked about a lot of different things: What a

finding help. So it seems that more so the teenagers

comfortable with their people knowing that they're seeking

help, but I do feel some of that pushback from the parents and

not every parent and I think it has gotten so much better as

we've become more aware of how important mental health is. So I

think overall, that stigma has decreased a lot over the years,

but there's still a lot of growth to do. But with the

parents helping them understand, "Just because your child needs

help does not mean that that's a reflection on you as a parent,

you have not created the anxiety, you have not forced

them into depression, you are not a bad parent, just because

your child is struggling. If anything, you're an amazing

parent for being willing to be attuned to that and see 'my

child is struggling and they need help.'" And, it's like

making me emotional, because it's such a powerful thing to

think about, as the parent, you're doing your best, and it's

so hard. And knowing these parents are so needy for like,

"I just need help. I just need something can somebody please

mental health day is, what you should do when you take a mental

help me." So I love that I get to walk alongside parents say,

"You're doing your best you're doing the best that you know how

to do, you're doing an awesome job. And we can do better.

health day, maybe knowing when you need to get additional

There's more that we can do. Here's education, here are

coping skills here resources," but for the parents, if I can

offer any encouragement, knowing, "You are doing the best

that you know how to do with what you've been given, and

there's always more that we can learn. There's always more that

Yeah. So I'd say a key takeaway, if you take anything away from

we can do."

support, and just additional stressors that our teens are

facing. What's something that we can leave parents with is kind

of like a key takeaway, or just to kind of guide them, you know,

in continuing to build their relationship with their child?

today's adventure, ask yourself this guiding question. If your

child is experiencing a stressor, or they're saying they

need to take a day off from school, using this guiding

question to help inform that decision. So thinking through

when a potentially stressful event has occurred, or my child

has expressed a need to stay home from school, will taking a

mental health day benefit their mental health and be productive,

or could that potentially be more harmful for them at this

time? And then asking your teenager for their input as

well, because sometimes the teen might be in that state of "I

just don't want to go to school," and asking yourself as

the parent, "is there something really going on, or is it 'I

don't want to take my geometry test.'" And then for the

teenager being able to reflect on "No, I can face that today, I

am going to go to school today, I think that would be helpful,"

or them being able to advocate for themselves and say, "I can't

do it, I really need to stay home, do some stretching, do

some mindfulness movement, take care of myself, and then I'll be

ready to go tomorrow." So for the parents, when that

potentially stressful event occurs, asking your child, "Is

taking a mental health day going to be more beneficial, or could

it potentially be detrimental to them this week?"

Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and I

think what goes along with that is what you've been saying this

whole time is like, being curious. They're expressing a

need for that or you're noticing something, and you're thinking

they might need a mental health day. Being curious about why and

what's causing that so you guys can kind of dive in and have a

conversation about what's causing that stressor. Maddy,

thank you so much for joining us today and talking about mental

health days, and thank you to everyone that watched and

joining us for Roadmap to Joy. We'd love it if you subscribe

below, and we'll see you next time.