August 27, 2025 • 16 mins
Every school talks about teaching mental health, but is it actually helping kids? Or could some programs be doing more harm than good?
In this episode, Justin unpacks the latest research on school-based mental health lessons — what works, what doesn’t, and why good intentions aren’t always enough. If you’ve ever wondered whether your child is really benefiting from these classes, this is the conversation you need to hear.
KEY POINTS
- Why mental health lessons don’t always translate into healthier kids
- The risk of programs that label or pathologise normal emotions
- What research really shows about long-term impact
- How parents and teachers can support mental wellbeing in practical, everyday ways
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE
"We can’t just teach kids about mental health in theory — we have to live it with them in practice."
RESOURCES MENTIONED
- Happy Families Website
- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/20/mental-health-lessons-school-dont-work-mindfulness
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS
- Ask your child what they really think about mental health classes at school.
- Focus on daily connection — listening, empathy, and open conversations.
- Model healthy coping strategies at home rather than relying only on school programs.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, this is the Happy Families Podcast. What if everything
that we think that we know about mental health education
in schools is wrong? What if the mindfulness sessions, the
CBT exercises and the wellbeing lessons that are now mandatory
and classrooms across the country and not just failing our
kids but are actually making some of them worse. Well,
(00:27):
it's not actually mandatory, but a lot of schools are
making it essentially mandatory. The well being movement is in
full swing and education. Today, we're diving into the explosive
new research that's turning the mental health education world upside down.
We're going to explore why a leading Oxford psychologists says
we need to stop these universal mental health lessons immediately,
(00:49):
what the evidence really shows about their effectiveness, and what
this means for Australian parents whose kids are sitting through
these classes right now. Stay with us. Hello and welcome
to a Doctor's Desk episode of the Happy Families podcast,
where you get real parenting solutions every day. We are
Justin and Kylie Colson. This is the most download parenting
(01:09):
podcast in Australia. How awesome is that? Doctor Lucy Folks
is an academic psychologist at the University of Oxford, who
researches mental health and social development in adolescence and is
the author of What Mental Illness Really Is, And she's
arguing that universal mental health lessons in schools should be
stopped immediately, Kylie. Initial reactions when you hear this, given
(01:31):
that everybody is talking a lot about mental health. It's
in the ether, it's in the atmosphere in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
My head is going in so many different directions at
the moment. I think about how simplistic school was in
the beginning of time, right, Her teachers were teaching arithmetic
and English, punctuation.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
And reading, writing, arithmetic.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, and what we're now expecting of our teachers. You
think about a psychologist. You've done a four year degree,
but in order for you to be qualified as a psychologist,
a practicing clinical psychologist, you would have needed to do
another two years of clinical practice minimum.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
And many have done other stuff. They've done doctoral dissertations
and that kind of thing as well.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yep, Right, but we're asking teachers who do a three
year teaching degree.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I think it's four, it's four to.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Then step in and be not only an expert in
mass in English, but all things to do with mental
health and you know, kind of life skills. It just
is so much. So my head is my head is
definitely kind of just reeling with the magnitude of what
we're expecting of our teachers. But then secondly, I'm really
(02:41):
curious to know why she's saying that they that these
things need to stop, because from personal experience, We've got
a daughter going through grade twelve at the moment, and
her school is adamant that the lessons that they're putting
on for her well being essentially are going to make
the biggest difference to her, and she's actually cowering away
(03:03):
from them. They're not something that she feels are a
positive experience for her.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
So somebody who's done a PhD, which meant that I
did the four years of undergrade side, including the honest year,
and then I did the PhD and then it became
a university lecturer for a couple of years, I can
tell you categorically that it how do I say this politely,
It concerns me. It concerns me that school educators who
are just like, if there's one line that really upsets me,
(03:28):
it's the line it's not my job. It's not my job.
And yet when I look at mental health instruction, I
just don't think it's a teacher's job to be doing it.
It doesn't fit for me because this is a specialized area.
It's an air of really distinct qualification that's required. As
it is, I think that so many mental health professionals
are not even up to the job.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
And it was about to say that. I can't tell
how many conversations I've had with people who've been talking
to their therapists and they've shared something with me, and
I'm like, they said, what.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the mental health indust complexes alive and well,
and I think, well, let's talk about what doctor Lucy
Folks has to say about it and why this matters.
And I'm just going to add my commentary in and
around it. So there's three central reasons that she highlights
that it needs to stop. And I'll tell you whether
I think she's right and wrong and where this sits
for me. But I think mostly I'm in agreement with it,
(04:19):
which is why I'm bringing it up. And bear in mind,
I go in to schools and do mental health education, right,
that is part of what I do. So I am
making an exception for people like myself and doctor Lucy Folks.
But I'll explain why as we go vested interest in
all that. Yeah, yeah, okay, So number one, the evidence
shows that these programs don't work. Where do we start here?
So I remember when I was doing my doctoral dissertation
(04:41):
back in the two thousands, like two thousand and seven,
three to ten or something like that, and there was
this big hooha happening because Martin Seligman, who was the demigod,
the doi en of all things positive psychology, was out
there flogging his book Flourish, after he'd written Authentic Happiness.
I quite liked Authentic Happiness. I fel like Flourish was
a great, big sales spill basically, and it didn't really
(05:03):
tell us anything. And there was this research project that
he'd run with another researcher, Karen Rievitch, and a couple
of others, And I don't want to get into the
weeds too much, but basically they're touting the incredible impact
that it's had on the well being of these fifteen
year old school students. But everywhere I looked, I couldn't
find the program. It was not available for peer review,
(05:24):
it hadn't been written up, it hadn't been published. The
research around it was skint. At the same time, he
went into the US military and was doing this comprehensive
mental fitness for soldiers stuff to avoid post traumatic stress disorder.
But there was no research published, and of course it's
in the military, so they didn't want to get the
secrets out there. But all of the research that was
(05:46):
being done, you couldn't find it anywhere. There was no
peer reviewed research. And the more I did my PhD
in this area of positive psychology, the more I became
skeptical of it. And the more I found that the
interventions were being touted as world change and life changing
and world leading and all these things. And yet I'd
look at the stats, I'd look at the methodology, I'd
look at the participants, and I just had these big questions, like,
(06:10):
I don't think positive psychology is living up to the promise.
So doctor Lucy Folks has had a look at it
herself and basically said, and I'm sort of quoting here
while I'm paraphrasing, high quality research demonstrates that universal school
mental health interventions produce no improvement in mental health symptoms
and some studies show they actually increase symptoms and cause
(06:33):
other negative outcomes.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Without reading her manuscript, her research, and sitting in the
place that I see it, I always get nervous about
wanting to educate the wider community on all of the
symptoms and challenges that one can experience, because in doing so,
we highlight all the things that are possible, and all
(06:58):
of a sudden, we have a whole group of teenage
kids who start self diagnosing yeah, and ruminating over, Oh,
that sounds like me, I've got that. And the reality
is all of the symptoms we each experience them at
some point in our lives. We go through stages where
we have these you know, downtimes, we're really struggle, We
(07:19):
ruminate over hard situations and hard conversations, and then we
start kind of thinking negative thoughts and we all go
through the you've.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Used the key word stages. When I was growing up,
the key would that my parents would often say is, Oh,
they're just going through a stage. But we don't say that. Yeah,
we don't say that anymore. People aren't going through stages
and phases anymore. They're getting diagnosed. And I believe I
want to really tread gently here because I recognize we're
on very, very sensitive ground. Overwhelmingly, though, the more we
(07:51):
talk about these issues, the more people start to dwell on, ruminate, investigate,
step into, and even accept labels and say, well, I'm
going to stick label on myself. I still hold the
line that, as a general rule, with only very few exceptions,
labels belong on jars, not people. And the more we
step into this, the more it becomes part of our identity.
And once it becomes part of our identity I'm an
(08:12):
anxious person, for example, it's harder and harder to shake that.
It's like, Okay, I'm not going through a phase anymore.
This is going to become an ingrained component of who
I am. So that's to me a big red flag.
And the more we talk about mental health in schools
and to kids, the more possibility and certainly the research
bears it out. The mental health industrial complex is winning.
(08:33):
Here and more people being diagnosed, going to see counselors,
going to see psychologists, going to see specialists of one
kind or another, because of all of the challenges that
we're becoming increasingly aware of, and the definition of what
counts as anxiety or post traumatic stress or depression or
whatever keeps on expanding, it becomes more inclusive because we
want anyone who's experiencing any kind of suffering or trauma
(08:54):
to make sure that they are being seen and heard
and labeled where appropriate. So this is her first, big, big,
I guess challenge to the mental health industry and to
schools generally about pumping out the wellbeing stuff, which I mean,
I've been at the forefront of for years and I'm
not anymore. I've really pulled back from it. I have
(09:15):
concerns around it.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
It's interesting because the more we talk about this, the
more I am aware of the moments in my life,
moments in time where I have experienced anxiety, And as
I get older, I actually think that I experienced it
a whole heap more than I did as a younger person,
with all the different facets to life and being a
(09:38):
mom and looking after children and worrying about them, and
just the different places and spaces that I find myself in.
But I don't ever think, oh, I'm a person with anxiety.
I think I'm a person who's experiencing.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
And that's adaptive. That's how it's supposed to be. One
of the challenges when it comes to anxiety. Is we
actually shared a meme about a month ago on Facebook
where we said me, what could possibly go wrong my anxiety?
I'm glad you asked right. And so that's the difference
between adaptive versus maladaptive, or healthy versus unhealthy anxiety. After
the break, I want to talk about the two other
(10:13):
reasons that doctor Lucy Folks says we've got to stop
mental health education instruction in schools immediately as coming up
in just a sec on the Happy Families podcast Stay
with us. Doctor Lucy Folks, the author of the book
(10:34):
What Mental Illness Really Is, is making a strong and
provocative critique saying that we are talking about mental health
too much in schools and it's not serving our children well.
In fact, the evidence shows number one that these programs
don't work, and number two doesn't work because the one
size fits all program or approach. So let me step
through this with you, Kylie. In any classroom, you're going
(10:56):
to find that most students don't have mental health problems,
which makes lessons er. I remember I was asked to
speak at a school about the topic of anxiety, and
I said, Okay, who am I going to be speaking with,
and they said, all of grade eleven, how many students
do you have? We have three hundred students in grade eleven,
And I said, so, one of the challenges that I'm
going to have as keynote speaker is I'm going to
speak about anxiety to three hundred students and probably at
(11:18):
absolute tops, one hundred of them are going to be
struggling with anxiety. Just when you look at the numbers,
somewhere around one hundred. It could be a touch more,
but it's likely to be less, particularly given the demographics
of this particular school. So we're going to have a
whole lot of kids now start to worry about whether
they should be worried. They're going to be anxious about
whether they do or don't have anxiety, and they're also well,
they're going to be sitting there thinking I could be
(11:40):
doing other things. I've been sitting here and listening to
a talk that has nothing to do with what I'm
going through.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
And more, you're going to have a hoy of kids
who are going to hear something that you say and
then ruminate over that and getting worry and get.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
More anxious, which goes back to point number one.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
But then you're also going to have a holy of
kids who are going to sit there and go, what
the heck would he know?
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yeah, So fortunately I gave a really great talk and
I made sure that I accounted for all those issues,
and nobody ended up with anxiety because they were listening
to my talk. From what I understand, we got great
feedback on the talk, and it was engaging enough that
everyone who didn't have anxiety was still able to benefit
from it because it was more about strategies for helping
us to just regulate our emotions, which is quite beneficial,
especially when you're hearing it from the right person. But
(12:16):
I just I really want to emphasize this when you
have this one size hits or program. Most students don't
have mental health problems. Those who do have serious issues
do not need this global approach. They need targeted, one
to one support. They don't want this light touch kind.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Of Well, you're almost diluting the message, right, So it
kind of will fit everybody.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Right across the board. And when you say everybody, we're
not just we've got to include the neurodivergent kids. We've
got to include kids that come from diverse cultural backgrounds.
We know that issues in rural areas are different to
issues in urban areas. There is so much going on there.
I just think that doctor Lewis Folks is right. Let's
talk about the third one really quickly, because I want
(12:57):
to give parents some solutions, some practical things that they
can do. The last thing that I want to emphasize
is that I don't think schools are the right environment
for this kind of conversation.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I just don't like being half of our children's mental
health challenges actually a result of.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
School kinda yeah, Like there's so many kids that don't
feel safe at school because of bullying or because of
social insecurity or whatever else. And that means that if
you want them to be vulnerable and have a conversation
about mental health challenges, it's just inappropriate. In a classroom
setting where they can't trust their peers, it just doesn't work.
So to me, they're the Big Three based on what
I've read from doctor Lucy Folks. And because we need
(13:33):
to wrap up, our time's done, I just wanted to
share a couple of things that parents might do with
these things in mind. If you're in a school that's
really pushing mental health interventions, at a global level for
all students. The first thing is that if your child
is struggling with mental health, you cannot and should not,
and ideally will not rely on any kind of a
universal school program for the school says, oh, we've got
this universal well being curriculum. That's great, but probably not.
(13:57):
Don't rely on that. You need to seek specific and
qualified credential help. The second thing is that you're really
going to benefit from having conversations at home with your
kids and talking with them about what they're going through
and helping them to problem solve. Whilever your focus is
on solving problems and guiding your children and letting them know, well,
(14:19):
this is a stage that you're going through, and you
can get through this, and building their resilience, you're going
to find that you're going to be much more successful.
And I think the last thing is just that vulnerable
mental health work when something significant and serious is going on,
needs a safe and trusting environment, which may or may
not depending on the school, and your child may or
may not exist in a classroom setting, So it's just
(14:39):
worth keeping that in mind. I love that high school
teachers are now in most states in grade eleven and twelve,
you can take on psychology as a subject. But quite honestly,
we could do so much to teach kids about emotions
without having a PhD or a clinical psychology degree. There's
so much that we could be teaching kids about relationships
and about emotions. We're not, and we're packing a whole
(15:01):
lot of other stuff into the curriculum that's not helpful.
Teachers with the right qualification, the right training could teach
stuff that is not about mental health per se, but
is about life skills, and frankly, it would help the
teachers as well as helping the students. I wish we
were heading down that path instead. Politicians, I've got some ideas.
Feel free to reach out. I reckon we could have
some valuable and productive conversations. Anyway, That's about it for today.
(15:24):
I just wanted to share that as a doctor's desk
and flag it. And this is why I don't teach
positive psychology much anymore. I really focus on meaningful interventions
that work with an emphasis on self determination theory, which
does happen to have the deepest body of research evidence
underpinning it of all the psychological theories that exist on
the planet, which is why I'm such a fan. If
you'd like to know more about the stuff that I
(15:45):
think will make your kids happier, visit happy families dot
com dot you and check out the book The Parenting Revolution.
All right, that's about it for today. Tomorrow we step
into I'll Do Better Tomorrow and share our wins and
losses from the week. The Happy Families podcast is produced
by Justin Rulan Bridge Media. Mimhammon's provides additional support through
admin and research and so on. And if you are
(16:06):
a school teacher, or if you're somebody who's involved with
mental health in schools and you think this conversation is
intriguing and provocative, please share it around. Click the share
button and send it to your colleagues and ask them
what they think, or get in touch with us at
happy families dot com dot you. Caroline would love to
book me in to come along and do a special
session at your school talking about well being for teachers,
well being for students and what we do know that
(16:28):
actually works
Hello, this is the Happy Families Podcast. What if everything
that we think that we know about mental health education
in schools is wrong? What if the mindfulness sessions, the
CBT exercises and the wellbeing lessons that are now mandatory
and classrooms across the country and not just failing our
kids but are actually making some of them worse. Well,
(00:27):
it's not actually mandatory, but a lot of schools are
making it essentially mandatory. The well being movement is in
full swing and education. Today, we're diving into the explosive
new research that's turning the mental health education world upside down.
We're going to explore why a leading Oxford psychologists says
we need to stop these universal mental health lessons immediately,
(00:49):
what the evidence really shows about their effectiveness, and what
this means for Australian parents whose kids are sitting through
these classes right now. Stay with us. Hello and welcome
to a Doctor's Desk episode of the Happy Families podcast,
where you get real parenting solutions every day. We are
Justin and Kylie Colson. This is the most download parenting
(01:09):
podcast in Australia. How awesome is that? Doctor Lucy Folks
is an academic psychologist at the University of Oxford, who
researches mental health and social development in adolescence and is
the author of What Mental Illness Really Is, And she's
arguing that universal mental health lessons in schools should be
stopped immediately, Kylie. Initial reactions when you hear this, given
(01:31):
that everybody is talking a lot about mental health. It's
in the ether, it's in the atmosphere in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
My head is going in so many different directions at
the moment. I think about how simplistic school was in
the beginning of time, right, Her teachers were teaching arithmetic
and English, punctuation.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
And reading, writing, arithmetic.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, and what we're now expecting of our teachers. You
think about a psychologist. You've done a four year degree,
but in order for you to be qualified as a psychologist,
a practicing clinical psychologist, you would have needed to do
another two years of clinical practice minimum.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
And many have done other stuff. They've done doctoral dissertations
and that kind of thing as well.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yep, Right, but we're asking teachers who do a three
year teaching degree.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I think it's four, it's four to.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Then step in and be not only an expert in
mass in English, but all things to do with mental
health and you know, kind of life skills. It just
is so much. So my head is my head is
definitely kind of just reeling with the magnitude of what
we're expecting of our teachers. But then secondly, I'm really
(02:41):
curious to know why she's saying that they that these
things need to stop, because from personal experience, We've got
a daughter going through grade twelve at the moment, and
her school is adamant that the lessons that they're putting
on for her well being essentially are going to make
the biggest difference to her, and she's actually cowering away
(03:03):
from them. They're not something that she feels are a
positive experience for her.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
So somebody who's done a PhD, which meant that I
did the four years of undergrade side, including the honest year,
and then I did the PhD and then it became
a university lecturer for a couple of years, I can
tell you categorically that it how do I say this politely,
It concerns me. It concerns me that school educators who
are just like, if there's one line that really upsets me,
(03:28):
it's the line it's not my job. It's not my job.
And yet when I look at mental health instruction, I
just don't think it's a teacher's job to be doing it.
It doesn't fit for me because this is a specialized area.
It's an air of really distinct qualification that's required. As
it is, I think that so many mental health professionals
are not even up to the job.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
And it was about to say that. I can't tell
how many conversations I've had with people who've been talking
to their therapists and they've shared something with me, and
I'm like, they said, what.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the mental health indust complexes alive and well,
and I think, well, let's talk about what doctor Lucy
Folks has to say about it and why this matters.
And I'm just going to add my commentary in and
around it. So there's three central reasons that she highlights
that it needs to stop. And I'll tell you whether
I think she's right and wrong and where this sits
for me. But I think mostly I'm in agreement with it,
(04:19):
which is why I'm bringing it up. And bear in mind,
I go in to schools and do mental health education, right,
that is part of what I do. So I am
making an exception for people like myself and doctor Lucy Folks.
But I'll explain why as we go vested interest in
all that. Yeah, yeah, okay, So number one, the evidence
shows that these programs don't work. Where do we start here?
So I remember when I was doing my doctoral dissertation
(04:41):
back in the two thousands, like two thousand and seven,
three to ten or something like that, and there was
this big hooha happening because Martin Seligman, who was the demigod,
the doi en of all things positive psychology, was out
there flogging his book Flourish, after he'd written Authentic Happiness.
I quite liked Authentic Happiness. I fel like Flourish was
a great, big sales spill basically, and it didn't really
(05:03):
tell us anything. And there was this research project that
he'd run with another researcher, Karen Rievitch, and a couple
of others, And I don't want to get into the
weeds too much, but basically they're touting the incredible impact
that it's had on the well being of these fifteen
year old school students. But everywhere I looked, I couldn't
find the program. It was not available for peer review,
(05:24):
it hadn't been written up, it hadn't been published. The
research around it was skint. At the same time, he
went into the US military and was doing this comprehensive
mental fitness for soldiers stuff to avoid post traumatic stress disorder.
But there was no research published, and of course it's
in the military, so they didn't want to get the
secrets out there. But all of the research that was
(05:46):
being done, you couldn't find it anywhere. There was no
peer reviewed research. And the more I did my PhD
in this area of positive psychology, the more I became
skeptical of it. And the more I found that the
interventions were being touted as world change and life changing
and world leading and all these things. And yet I'd
look at the stats, I'd look at the methodology, I'd
look at the participants, and I just had these big questions, like,
(06:10):
I don't think positive psychology is living up to the promise.
So doctor Lucy Folks has had a look at it
herself and basically said, and I'm sort of quoting here
while I'm paraphrasing, high quality research demonstrates that universal school
mental health interventions produce no improvement in mental health symptoms
and some studies show they actually increase symptoms and cause
(06:33):
other negative outcomes.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Without reading her manuscript, her research, and sitting in the
place that I see it, I always get nervous about
wanting to educate the wider community on all of the
symptoms and challenges that one can experience, because in doing so,
we highlight all the things that are possible, and all
(06:58):
of a sudden, we have a whole group of teenage
kids who start self diagnosing yeah, and ruminating over, Oh,
that sounds like me, I've got that. And the reality
is all of the symptoms we each experience them at
some point in our lives. We go through stages where
we have these you know, downtimes, we're really struggle, We
(07:19):
ruminate over hard situations and hard conversations, and then we
start kind of thinking negative thoughts and we all go
through the you've.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Used the key word stages. When I was growing up,
the key would that my parents would often say is, Oh,
they're just going through a stage. But we don't say that. Yeah,
we don't say that anymore. People aren't going through stages
and phases anymore. They're getting diagnosed. And I believe I
want to really tread gently here because I recognize we're
on very, very sensitive ground. Overwhelmingly, though, the more we
(07:51):
talk about these issues, the more people start to dwell on, ruminate, investigate,
step into, and even accept labels and say, well, I'm
going to stick label on myself. I still hold the
line that, as a general rule, with only very few exceptions,
labels belong on jars, not people. And the more we
step into this, the more it becomes part of our identity.
And once it becomes part of our identity I'm an
(08:12):
anxious person, for example, it's harder and harder to shake that.
It's like, Okay, I'm not going through a phase anymore.
This is going to become an ingrained component of who
I am. So that's to me a big red flag.
And the more we talk about mental health in schools
and to kids, the more possibility and certainly the research
bears it out. The mental health industrial complex is winning.
(08:33):
Here and more people being diagnosed, going to see counselors,
going to see psychologists, going to see specialists of one
kind or another, because of all of the challenges that
we're becoming increasingly aware of, and the definition of what
counts as anxiety or post traumatic stress or depression or
whatever keeps on expanding, it becomes more inclusive because we
want anyone who's experiencing any kind of suffering or trauma
(08:54):
to make sure that they are being seen and heard
and labeled where appropriate. So this is her first, big, big,
I guess challenge to the mental health industry and to
schools generally about pumping out the wellbeing stuff, which I mean,
I've been at the forefront of for years and I'm
not anymore. I've really pulled back from it. I have
(09:15):
concerns around it.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
It's interesting because the more we talk about this, the
more I am aware of the moments in my life,
moments in time where I have experienced anxiety, And as
I get older, I actually think that I experienced it
a whole heap more than I did as a younger person,
with all the different facets to life and being a
(09:38):
mom and looking after children and worrying about them, and
just the different places and spaces that I find myself in.
But I don't ever think, oh, I'm a person with anxiety.
I think I'm a person who's experiencing.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
And that's adaptive. That's how it's supposed to be. One
of the challenges when it comes to anxiety. Is we
actually shared a meme about a month ago on Facebook
where we said me, what could possibly go wrong my anxiety?
I'm glad you asked right. And so that's the difference
between adaptive versus maladaptive, or healthy versus unhealthy anxiety. After
the break, I want to talk about the two other
(10:13):
reasons that doctor Lucy Folks says we've got to stop
mental health education instruction in schools immediately as coming up
in just a sec on the Happy Families podcast Stay
with us. Doctor Lucy Folks, the author of the book
(10:34):
What Mental Illness Really Is, is making a strong and
provocative critique saying that we are talking about mental health
too much in schools and it's not serving our children well.
In fact, the evidence shows number one that these programs
don't work, and number two doesn't work because the one
size fits all program or approach. So let me step
through this with you, Kylie. In any classroom, you're going
(10:56):
to find that most students don't have mental health problems,
which makes lessons er. I remember I was asked to
speak at a school about the topic of anxiety, and
I said, Okay, who am I going to be speaking with,
and they said, all of grade eleven, how many students
do you have? We have three hundred students in grade eleven,
And I said, so, one of the challenges that I'm
going to have as keynote speaker is I'm going to
speak about anxiety to three hundred students and probably at
(11:18):
absolute tops, one hundred of them are going to be
struggling with anxiety. Just when you look at the numbers,
somewhere around one hundred. It could be a touch more,
but it's likely to be less, particularly given the demographics
of this particular school. So we're going to have a
whole lot of kids now start to worry about whether
they should be worried. They're going to be anxious about
whether they do or don't have anxiety, and they're also well,
they're going to be sitting there thinking I could be
(11:40):
doing other things. I've been sitting here and listening to
a talk that has nothing to do with what I'm
going through.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
And more, you're going to have a hoy of kids
who are going to hear something that you say and
then ruminate over that and getting worry and get.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
More anxious, which goes back to point number one.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
But then you're also going to have a holy of
kids who are going to sit there and go, what
the heck would he know?
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yeah, So fortunately I gave a really great talk and
I made sure that I accounted for all those issues,
and nobody ended up with anxiety because they were listening
to my talk. From what I understand, we got great
feedback on the talk, and it was engaging enough that
everyone who didn't have anxiety was still able to benefit
from it because it was more about strategies for helping
us to just regulate our emotions, which is quite beneficial,
especially when you're hearing it from the right person. But
(12:16):
I just I really want to emphasize this when you
have this one size hits or program. Most students don't
have mental health problems. Those who do have serious issues
do not need this global approach. They need targeted, one
to one support. They don't want this light touch kind.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Of Well, you're almost diluting the message, right, So it
kind of will fit everybody.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Right across the board. And when you say everybody, we're
not just we've got to include the neurodivergent kids. We've
got to include kids that come from diverse cultural backgrounds.
We know that issues in rural areas are different to
issues in urban areas. There is so much going on there.
I just think that doctor Lewis Folks is right. Let's
talk about the third one really quickly, because I want
(12:57):
to give parents some solutions, some practical things that they
can do. The last thing that I want to emphasize
is that I don't think schools are the right environment
for this kind of conversation.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I just don't like being half of our children's mental
health challenges actually a result of.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
School kinda yeah, Like there's so many kids that don't
feel safe at school because of bullying or because of
social insecurity or whatever else. And that means that if
you want them to be vulnerable and have a conversation
about mental health challenges, it's just inappropriate. In a classroom
setting where they can't trust their peers, it just doesn't work.
So to me, they're the Big Three based on what
I've read from doctor Lucy Folks. And because we need
(13:33):
to wrap up, our time's done, I just wanted to
share a couple of things that parents might do with
these things in mind. If you're in a school that's
really pushing mental health interventions, at a global level for
all students. The first thing is that if your child
is struggling with mental health, you cannot and should not,
and ideally will not rely on any kind of a
universal school program for the school says, oh, we've got
this universal well being curriculum. That's great, but probably not.
(13:57):
Don't rely on that. You need to seek specific and
qualified credential help. The second thing is that you're really
going to benefit from having conversations at home with your
kids and talking with them about what they're going through
and helping them to problem solve. Whilever your focus is
on solving problems and guiding your children and letting them know, well,
(14:19):
this is a stage that you're going through, and you
can get through this, and building their resilience, you're going
to find that you're going to be much more successful.
And I think the last thing is just that vulnerable
mental health work when something significant and serious is going on,
needs a safe and trusting environment, which may or may
not depending on the school, and your child may or
may not exist in a classroom setting, So it's just
(14:39):
worth keeping that in mind. I love that high school
teachers are now in most states in grade eleven and twelve,
you can take on psychology as a subject. But quite honestly,
we could do so much to teach kids about emotions
without having a PhD or a clinical psychology degree. There's
so much that we could be teaching kids about relationships
and about emotions. We're not, and we're packing a whole
(15:01):
lot of other stuff into the curriculum that's not helpful.
Teachers with the right qualification, the right training could teach
stuff that is not about mental health per se, but
is about life skills, and frankly, it would help the
teachers as well as helping the students. I wish we
were heading down that path instead. Politicians, I've got some ideas.
Feel free to reach out. I reckon we could have
some valuable and productive conversations. Anyway, That's about it for today.
(15:24):
I just wanted to share that as a doctor's desk
and flag it. And this is why I don't teach
positive psychology much anymore. I really focus on meaningful interventions
that work with an emphasis on self determination theory, which
does happen to have the deepest body of research evidence
underpinning it of all the psychological theories that exist on
the planet, which is why I'm such a fan. If
you'd like to know more about the stuff that I
(15:45):
think will make your kids happier, visit happy families dot
com dot you and check out the book The Parenting Revolution.
All right, that's about it for today. Tomorrow we step
into I'll Do Better Tomorrow and share our wins and
losses from the week. The Happy Families podcast is produced
by Justin Rulan Bridge Media. Mimhammon's provides additional support through
admin and research and so on. And if you are
(16:06):
a school teacher, or if you're somebody who's involved with
mental health in schools and you think this conversation is
intriguing and provocative, please share it around. Click the share
button and send it to your colleagues and ask them
what they think, or get in touch with us at
happy families dot com dot you. Caroline would love to
book me in to come along and do a special
session at your school talking about well being for teachers,
well being for students and what we do know that
(16:28):
actually works
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