How going back to school affects kids’ mental health, what parents and teachers should know | News

Okla. — As kids in Green Country head back to school, FOX23 spoke to a child psychiatrist about how returning to class can also mean the return of social and mental issues for some students.

FOX23 spoke with Dr. Matthew Sharp, Child Psychiatrist and Director of Medical Education at Parkside Psychiatric Hospital & Clinic,  about how going back to school can bring back social and mental issues for some students like anxiety, stress, depression, bullying, etc.

It can also be a time of increased DHS reports from school staff on behalf of some students. 

Dr. Sharp says it’s one of the busiest times of year for child psychiatrists. 

He said anxiety and depression are the most common cases for kids admitted to in or outpatient care at Parkside.

He said most Parkside patients are victims of bullying. The most common type of bullying they see is social isolation.

Sharp said one out of four experience social isolation and one out of 10 face physically aggressive bullying.

“There’s lots of different ways that we bully,” Sharp said. “Bullying is just repetitive intimidation or repetitive aggression towards someone that is purposeful usually involves a difference between power or just social class.”

FOX23 also spoke with Dr. Sharp about how parents and teachers can talk to students about these issues, what they need to be aware of and how they can work together to resolve these problems.

“We have to identify what’s going on,” he said. “So step one would be being there for your kid, talking to them

“Because bullying happens everywhere, it can happen throughout a lifetime too, not just in kids,” Sharp said. “It can happen in school, after school programs, on the bus, in the neighborhood, in between your own siblings, so in your home. It can also occur in relationships like in teenagers when they’re starting to date and be in a relationship with someone that’s physically intimating them or emotionally abusing them to some degree.”

Dr. Sharp emphasizes fostering a level of trust and comfort with communication from the child.

“Teachers, it’s the same thing,” he said. “Teachers actually have another level to it where they actually do their own training at the school and stuff like that, on how to effectively communicate. But yeah, ultimately resiliency in children, which is defined on the odds that they can stand up on their own two feet no matter how ugly the world is, 100 percent dependent on how many close interdependent relationships you have with healthy adults.”

He said adults can’t fix a problem they don’t know about, and so the child needs to be comfortable talking to them. 

“We have to talk to our kids, we can’t solve problems we don’t know about until they tell us what’s going on,” Dr. Sharp said.

He also said to observe and listen. If a child’s grades are dropping, if they’re isolating, if they’re verbally or physically trying to avoid school, there might be a problem. 

“We should be able to identify what the concern is. So, if it’s like bullying, or just not able to learn, or having other things we may not even know about,” Sharp said.

Sharp lists some dos and don’ts like don’t blame the school. He said schools and parents need to work together. 

He said don’t just put two children together to “talk it out” because studies show that doesn’t work.

“Normalize the feelings of anxiety of depression, those things we all have it.” Sharp said. “And then start to work with schools to build that up.

He said what families can do individually to help their kids is building a script for what they’re going to say to the bullies.

“And then individually what families can do to help their kids is work on, either, or they can do both, is building a script that they’re gonna say to these bullies, so that they can be prepared for, that they can go over and say,” Sharp said. “And then also working to really be assertive. In the sense that a firm ‘no’ can dramatically change things, because bullying is also really looking for is a response. And if you take that response and give it the consistent bullying response saying, “No I’m not gonna take this anymore,’ and walk away, it can reduce the bullying as well.”

He said don’t tell a child just to fight back because that is not productive adult behavior and only teaches children to fight back when feeling anxious.

He also said the “tell an adult” rule only works for kids before middle school levels, after that they are usually too embarrassed to talk. So, a level of trust and compassion needs to be established to avoid that.

Sharp said families need to start partnering with schools.

“Over time things change, I didn’t have a cell phone in my pocket when I was in school really at all, and especially not smart phones,” he said. “So as these things change and evolve, what we need to be asking of our families and schools is to be evolving with it and to work together to partner to work on overcoming the bullying situations, setting firm boundaries, setting expectations for what happens with these things and continuing to build it up as things change overtime.”