Written by: Surabhi Ghimire - 26012, Grade IX
Posted on: 12 October, 2022
By now, I believe most people know what mental health is. If not, mental health is known as your mental well-being, same as your physical health but associated with your mind. What I have realized is that most kids tend to have bad mental health due to certain conditions or parenting. It’s not necessary that everyone has a parent but absent parent figures can do a lot with having bad mental health. The person in this situation might grow up and want attention or be an attention seeker due to not getting love from anyone (their parents mostly) but in another scenario it could be that they grow up not wanting affection at all since they’re not used to it.
Due to the technology taking over this century teens have access to social media which is both a good and bad place for them. Even though bad things like cyberbullying and stalking exist on social media there's also the good part of it, for example : safe venting places, online friends, knowledge about a specific area of things and help services. I believe that because of the quarantine most of the teenagers are involved with social media which could have affected their mental health in both wrong and right ways. Teens involved with cyberbullying might’ve become more self conscious whereas the teens involved with good online friends might have regained their confidence and started to accept themselves for who they are or some teens might have started procrastination and worsened their mental health. There are endless possibilities but I can say this was a small factor that largely affected mental health for teens, maybe even adults.
Another factor could be school, now I’m not saying that the school is responsible itself but it does provide a lot of stress in the student life. Example : A student goes to school and tries their best but never gets the proper results, they come home and all they hear from their parents is study, not a proper conversation. They could be demotivated and stop trying after. Another example : A student goes to school and tries their best, gets good results and comes home to their parents praising them. They become motivated to continue. One more, A student goes to school and gets good results but after coming home they realize their parents aren’t around because they are working. That could also be demotivating. Most teens' mental health depends on how their parents treat them and their school. School giving lots of pressure might be demotivational too. I’d say ⅓ times school is the reason “failing” students have bad mental health and stop trying. One thing I never understood, physical abuse is not okay in any way. Most people agree but physical abuse to children is “discipline”? I don’t know if I’m too young to understand it but I think physical abuse is physical abuse, even if it's to children to “teach them a lesson.” Then they aren’t studying to be a good person, they're studying to not get physically hurt.
