Thursday, February 06, 2025 | Sha'ban 6, 1446 H
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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

It’s okay to not be okay

Interactive development has suffered, their ability to communicate with each other, adults, and teachers have suffered, preventing their investment in a respectful learning process
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It’s an absolute certainty that none of us, educators, educationalist, or parents, could have foreseen the effects of the global pandemic on pupil’s, now student’s, educational experiences, so it’s only now that its consequences are being felt.


Covid’s impact upon youth social skills, behaviour, and relationships is not a trickle however, and within education, it is becoming a tsunami of erratic conduct, disinterest, disrespect, ill-discipline, and couldn’t-care-less-it is,’ causing huge concern among parents, teachers, schools, and education authorities.


Reflecting on the challenges facing the wider educational spectrum, NEU Workplace Representative, Nick Jones, paused recently to reflect upon how students are having difficulty achieving balance between the pandemic requirements for disassociation from others, and their reliance upon TEAMS, ZOOM, and social media for their lessons and social interactions.


“These precautions, though necessary at the time, have created artificial environments in which to live and work for so long, resulting in poor socialisation, self-help skills, failing relationships, language, communication, and the ability to read social clues, among their peers.”


In short, their interactive development has suffered, their ability to communicate with each other, adults, and teachers have suffered, preventing their investment in a respectful learning process, and these are just some of the difficulties that they, and schools, are challenged by.


Covid’s educational shortcomings have been ‘papered over,’ for the sake of expediency, and while confident, articulate students will always progress enthusiastically, what of those for whom intellectual and social resilience are just words?


We face an epidemic of immense proportions in youth mental health adding further woe to a generation’s learning challenges. In the North East of England, the Harrogate and North East NHS Trust, through their Emotional Health and Resilience Team is working hard to increase awareness of these many challenges, by talking about what many don’t want to, facing the issues instead of turning their backs on a very clear need.


Their research has found that in every class of thirty-four students, the UK national average... One will have suffered a bereavement; five will have diagnosed SEN or mental health issues that severely affect their learning experience; nine will have experienced a significant traumatic event; six will have self-harmed; and eighteen will have experienced, or are close to, mental health problems.


The slippery slope towards youth mental health chaos is littered with bullying, alcohol and drug abuse, intra-family conflicts, loneliness, unresolved bereavements and loss, body shaming, homophobia, racism, gender insecurity, workplace stress, failed relationships, financial worries, cyber bullying, and misplaced banter, just to name a few.


It’s also easy to ‘call out’ social media due to the false imagery it portrays. Today’s youth are misled by Facebook and the like to feel that sunrises, sunsets, and million-dollar backgrounds are the norm, like hourglass figures and six-packs, and that anyone with a more diverse’ body is not just ‘unwelcome at parties,’ but probably undesirable as a friend, socially backwards, and probably ‘not all there.’


Social media is currently seen by healthcare professionals as more addictive than cigarettes, alcohol or drugs. You can see why can’t you? Every time your mobile ‘pings’ you reach for it like a drowning man for a lifebelt, and it is inextricably linked to sleep deprivation, anxiety and depression.


Though not always, there are signs, and anxiety can be observed, especially in times of stress such as tests and exams, when we don’t have enough money, when we’re angry, tired, sad, frustrated, or when relationships are tested, or we are over-emotional. And really, it’s okay to be anxious, just not to let it take over. Easier said than done though.


Remarkably, and shamefully, only one in three students with identified mental health issues get access to NHS care and support. Can you imagine if only one in every three people taken to hospitals with broken legs were treated? Shameful doesn’t even come close, does it?


Four schoolchildren commit suicide every week... and by the time they are 17 years old, 7 per cent of our youth population will have contemplated suicide. We must do more to mitigate their Covid ‘hangovers,’ because what we are doing now, is just not enough.


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