***WARNING: This article should be read in its entirety.***
Are we preparing children for the road or the road for the children?
I’ve recently returned from the National Education Show in Llandudno, where I was talking about the importance of crafting resilient classrooms. In short, we’ve got to equip children and young people to engage positively with challenge and change. Why?
The London School of Economics and Finance suggests primary aged children will likely live to a 100, and throughout the course of their working lives do 40 different jobs, 65% of which don’t exist yet. That’s not just a steep learning curve, it’s a rollercoaster. Being able to navigate the numerous ups and downs matters, but… are more children and young people going off the rails?
There is a widely reported mental health crisis in our schools. Maybe one of the reasons why there’s a mental health crisis in our schools, is because it’s widely reported. Or perhaps the way that it’s reported. There’s an audible narrative of negativity that risks inadvertently victimising young people. By uniformly introducing strategies such as mindfulness and breathing exercises, for instance, the suggestion is there’s a condition to treat.
Which, in some cases, of course, there is. But not all. Experiencing anxiety doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ill, rather you’re experiencing. You’re living. You’re alive. You’re human. We’re built to absorb a certain amount of stress and strain; it helps us to grow stronger. Rather than trying to craft a world where we continuously try to mitigate challenge, we should instead be excited about rising to it. The key to success is to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’. I’m not suggesting we petrify our young people, rather facilitate growth and development through experiencing an appropriate spectrum of emotions. Moving out of your comfort zone is, by definition, a little uncomfortable.
It’s normal to experience anxiety, trepidation, excitement, nervousness… the whole gamut of emotions. Eliminating them from life is both impossible and self-defeating. It’s only by exposure to such feelings that we learn to self-regulate and co-regulate. Please note: this isn’t a dig at mindfulness or breathing exercises, just a cautionary word regarding how they are used. It’s very easy to categorise emotions as ‘positive’ or ‘negative’, whereas in truth, they are neither. We need all of our emotions to navigate life. They’re all useful in different ways at different times. Fear is not something to be feared, if you have had sufficient experience of dealing with it. It keeps you safe.
Resilience requires positively channelling emotions. It is something that can be nurtured and developed. Challenge and change are not dirty words. The truth? It’s simply not possible to be happy all day every day, and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise. We certainly shouldn’t try and legislate for it.
Fixating upon mental health suggests children are unwell and need to be cured. They don’t. They just need to be allowed to live. That doesn’t mean smoothing the way, it means buckling up for the ride of your life.