Why aren't children happy?
At present, people are paying more and more attention to and discussing the topic of student mental health, and the state has also placed student mental health work in a more prominent position, as can be seen from the publicity theme of this year's "World Mental Health Day (October 10)" - "Promote children's mental health and jointly protect a better future".
Going back in time, in April, 17 departments, including the Ministry of Education and the National Health Commission, jointly issued the Special Action Plan for Comprehensively Strengthening and Improving Student Mental Health in the New Era (2023-2025), marking that strengthening students' mental health has become a national strategy. This action plan clarifies the responsibilities of governments at all levels and relevant departments to strengthen students' mental health work, emphasizes multi-department cooperation, medical, educational, and sports integration, and home-school-community coordination, and jointly promotes students' mental health, and at the same time includes students' mental health work in the evaluation of provincial people's governments' performance of educational duties, as an important indicator for the evaluation of school running level and the annual assessment of leadership groups, and increases financial support as needed. At the same time, it also encourages all localities and schools to innovate work measures and play a leading and exemplary role.
In addition to the national policies, relevant departments, public welfare organizations, and all sectors of society are also working hard to deal with the mental health problems of children and adolescents. On October 20, China Philanthropist held an influential charity salon with the theme of "Gathering the Power of Philanthropy to Build a Defense Line for Children's Mental Health". People from frontline medical staff, psychologists, volunteers and public welfare charities shared and discussed the mental health problems of children and adolescents.
Why aren't children happy?
Guan Lili, a psychiatrist and associate researcher at Peking University Sixth Hospital, found through a survey that children from families with mental disorders are at higher risk of emotional neglect, emotional abuse or domestic violence, and the proportion of depression, anxiety symptoms and suicidal ideation is also higher than that of the general population. In her view, the biggest problem in mental health lies in the lack of multidisciplinary human resource support, and the lack of family-centered services in hospital psychiatric departments. In recent years, destigmatization has become a social consensus and needs to be promoted.
Kaiwen Xu, a doctor of clinical psychology at Peking University, a psychiatrist and founder of Daru Psychology, has long been concerned about adolescent mental health, and he found that the epidemic has a great impact on the psychological level of adolescents. The suicide incidents of children and adolescents in the later stages of the epidemic increased significantly compared with before the epidemic, with an increase of 200%-1000%. Behind the extreme events, there is a high incidence of depression and anxiety, and the phenomenon of school boredom and school refusal is becoming more and more common. "The reasons for children's unhappiness come from academic pressure, serious parent-child relationship problems, online influences, social mentality influences and other aspects." Kevin Xu said.
Kaiwen Xu, Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Peking University, psychiatrist, and founder of Daru Psychology, delivered a speech
However, in the current adolescent mental health work, there are still some problems, such as low effectiveness of psychological assessment, insufficient scientificity, and only 5%-10% of extreme cases predicted by psychological assessment. And the Ministry of Education's requirement of "one psychology teacher for every 2,000 students" has not been met in most cities. Front-line teachers, especially psychological teachers, generally have a sense of professional exhaustion, insufficient training of psychological teachers, and insufficient professional ability, especially crisis intervention ability. In addition, home-school communication is not smooth, parents do not pay enough attention to mental health, and do not cooperate enough with school work.
What is more worrying is that the risk of suicide infection is high, and after a suicide case occurs, it will be transmitted in the community, school and even class, and 3-5 suicides occur in schools in a short period of time. "The Internet has become the main route of non-suicidal self-injury, suicidal contagion, and a key factor in the serious contagious effects of extreme events." Kevin Xu said.
Xu Shihai, a volunteer of "Internet Persuasion", is deeply touched by this point. In recent years, he has often gone undercover in various learning groups and game groups to observe children's emotional and psychological changes. Among them, the network about dead groups is a scenario that needs to be vigilant. According to Xu Shihai's observation, most of the online dead groups evolved from learning groups and game groups. At first, some children complain in the group and show unhappiness, and after receiving the echo of others, they will form small groups with common topics. "They don't talk about learning or games in such groups, they talk about all kinds of unhappy things." Eventually, this small group developed into a group of only a few people, specifically discussing the time and process of dating death, and at this point, the real sense of the covenant death group was born. "Online deaths are often short-lived, difficult to detect, and difficult to prevent." Xu Shihai said.
Huang Shengli, executive director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, advocated for the openness and transparency of data related to suicide. In his opinion, these real data help professionals to better analyze research and solve problems. Public welfare organizations, civil affairs systems, communities and other forces can do more exploration in the field of family education, so that children have more freedom and growth space, "transform children's attention, and not be bound by test-oriented education." ”
In terms of guiding the mental health of adolescents, Ma Hong, a psychiatrist who has worked for 40 years, believes that it is necessary to establish a hope orientation for adolescents, so that they can feel that life is valuable, life is hopeful, and life is meaningful. "It's not about the scores, and after the scores, these two tests are determined for life, but whether you can reflect your self-worth in altruistic help."
From unhappiness to depression, to self-harm and suicide, why did this process fail to attract the attention of teachers and parents?
In Xu Shihai's view, how to be a competent parent who can keep pace with the times and keep pace with their children's thoughts is a problem that parents should always think about. "It's not that they don't want to take care of their children, but they don't know how to take care of them."
As the chief physician of Peking University Sixth Hospital and an expert in disease prevention and control of the National Health Commission's Disease Control Bureau, Ma Hong is often confused by parents' lack of in-depth understanding of their children, "such as not understanding the needs of children's growth and development at different stages, and lagging cognition of children's abnormal behaviors, often missing opportunities for early intervention, so that children's conditions develop to the severe stage." Ma Hong reminded that parents who find that their children have abnormal behaviors that do not match their age can first seek help from the school psychology teacher, and once there is a change in social function, they should go to the hospital in time for further diagnosis and receive professional treatment.
However, the lack of psychological talents makes it difficult for adolescents and parents to get professional support and help quickly and timely when they encounter problems. Zhang Zhenhe, secretary general of Guangdong Richi Foundation, and his team found that the prevalence rate of mental health courses and the coverage of psychological counseling rooms in schools are not high, that psychological counseling rooms in rural schools are often idle and fail to perform their proper functions, and that schools lack full-time psychological teachers. Another prominent problem is that the professional level of psychological teachers also needs to be improved, and the psychological support around teachers is generally ignored. Zhang Zhen believes that public welfare charities can work with the medical system to play their respective strengths to jointly address the mental health challenges of children and adolescents. To this end, the Nichi Foundation has launched core projects such as "Mind Magic Academy - Rural Children's Psychology Course" and "Heart Benefit Program - Rural Children's Psychology Summer Camp", focusing on children's mental health and happy growth.
Build a defense line for children's mental health
The participants conducted in-depth discussions and exchanges on issues such as intervention and solving problems in children's mental health problems, which areas urgently need breakthroughs and guiding force intervention, and how public welfare charitable organizations intervene.
Qiu Lili, founder of Beijing Angel Mother Charity Foundation and founder of Beijing Pinglan Public Welfare Foundation, used her relationship with children as an example to describe the process of introducing search and rescue dogs to give more emotional support to adolescent children and relieve stress. In addition, taking children to do public welfare and doing good deeds together also helps children understand the meaning of life and shape positive psychology.
In building children's mental health defense, in addition to schools assuming corresponding responsibilities, it is also necessary to give more attention and support to family parents, and in this regard, public welfare has great potential.
Vitality Future is a non-profit organization that provides migrant and left-behind children and their families with continuous access to early parent-child education opportunities, and supports partner institutions and individuals to carry out parent-child activities and courses that meet the characteristics of early childhood development. According to Hou Weixia, executive director of Vitality Future, through the implementation of the project, it has been observed that the part that has the greatest impact on children is manifested in social emotions, in addition, parents' parenting anxiety has also been alleviated to a certain extent. "Parents know how to interact with their children, stop feeling like they're just looking after their children, and start helping others. A change in parents can have a significant impact on a family and children. ”
Providing mental health services for rural children is an area of focus and support for the HeungKong Social Assistance Foundation. According to Hu Yuping, secretary general of the foundation, in addition to promoting ideas, the foundation also provides free psychological counseling for rural children, and has successfully warned more than 20 cases of suicide and self-harm. Hu Yuping also saw that rural schools have been given too many functions, and the lack of families and parents and other prominent problems, she said that the next step of the foundation will be to supplement and improve the education of family parents and link more resources to support.
Cai Jianhua, senior consultant of the Child Development Research Institute of the China Development Research Foundation, said that it is necessary to distinguish between depression and depression, improve publicity and education, and focus on monitoring and combating the methods and behaviors of online suicide. At the same time, society should further adjust its expectations for becoming talents, attach importance to the popularization of knowledge of parents, and make full use of the achievements of AI to explore new practices and new paths. In addition, more support should be given to non-governmental organizations.
Ma Hong believes that the difficulty in the intervention and solution of children's mental health problems lies in the lack of systematic research and resource integration, and industry professionals should not only promote policies and laws and regulations, but also make efforts in cultural construction.
For direct psychological intervention for adolescents, public welfare charity can focus on high-risk groups and high-risk stages, such as before the middle school entrance examination and the college entrance examination, six months after students enter school, "because this period is the high incidence of children's adjustment disorders." Ma Hong said.
"We mainly carry out prevention from the perspective of positive psychology, help teachers and children in schools build positive psychological strength, and when they encounter problems, have the ability and tools, and have methods to help themselves recover and regulate." Ni Zijun, chairman of Beijing Happiness Public Welfare Foundation, introduced that in terms of details, everyone calls the psychological counseling room and other relevant departments "happiness experience centers" to reduce children's stigma. In her opinion, the focus should be on teaching children how to be people, live happily, and live their own lives.
Dai Jie, Executive Secretary-General of Beijing Qiaoai Charity Foundation, introduced the "Spiritual Screening Room" project, mainly using "film" as a means to create a mental health curriculum system around the four themes of "self-development", "social communication", "learning skills" and "life education", to help non-professional, zero-based teachers to take good school mental health courses. In addition, the Foundation also organizes home-school joint activities to help improve the mental health problems encountered by adolescents through diversified methods, such as painting therapy, music therapy, and activity therapy.
Zhang Fan, deputy secretary-general of the Roundtable Forum (CDR), offered his own perspective. In her view, a large number of school-going projects and support teacher projects in the field of education may be facing transformation, and whether these teacher support systems and educational projects that have established channels can become the direction of psychological support in the new transformation process. "Can mental health be included in more public welfare projects focusing on children and public welfare projects focusing on education as a perspective way, so that more solution providers can be provided?"
Jingdong Health Psychological Service Center reduces diagnosis and treatment costs by building channels and innovative Internet technology, and better matches and serves patients. According to the person in charge of public welfare operation of the marketing department of JD Health, JD Health launched the "Children's Heart Thrive - Children's Mental Health Protection Action". This is the first socialized public welfare action launched by JD Health in the field of "children's mental health", and the first phase will coordinate public welfare resources worth 10 million yuan to provide mental health public welfare support for migrant children, left-behind children and other groups. "We need to be co-builders, link, promote and help more social forces to participate in this cause, and truly improve the mental health of these children."
In Xu's view, to systematically solve the mental health problems of adolescents, we should build and improve the crisis intervention system - screening, early identification, and help for high-risk students. In terms of short-term response, we must first strengthen network supervision and solve the problem of youth online information security. At the same time, establish a psychological assessment system with the characteristics of Chinese culture and the times to timely identify adolescents in need of help. In addition, strengthen the crisis prevention and intervention training of front-line grassroots teachers, and further improve the crisis intervention ability of mental health teachers. Finally, children also get enough sleep and full physical outdoor activities.
In the long run, it is necessary to change the concept of utilitarian examination-oriented education, return to cultivating people with virtue, and learn from adults. Adopt legislation to address the cyber crisis and stem the trend of suicide transmission. Carry forward China's excellent traditional culture and values, and strengthen family education and family style education. Kaiwen Xu expects socially responsible enterprises, organizations and philanthropists to share worries for the government, relieve worries for schools, worry about parents, and seek happiness and joy for children.
Author: Wan Xiaojun
Image source: Photo by Yan Fei, Visual China
Photo editor: Zhang Xu
Duty editor: Yang Yongjie