After the pandemic we’ll face the cost for mental health, especially among young people. But the problems are longterm, and we need to rethink meditation. The new Welsh curriculum, which prioritises wellbeing approaches, including mindfulness points the way forward
This is Children’s Mental Health Week and we’re hearing stories of the pandemic’s impact on young people. For many children, lockdown has been been okay. For some it’s been a welcome a break from schoolyard pressures or a chance to address underlying issues. But many are struggling with no sport, little play and being cooped up with parents who may have their own problems. One expert told MPs this week: ‘When we close the schools, we close their lives’.
We also know that young people’s mental health has been steadily worsening. NHS England reports that the proportion of children experiencing a probable mental disorder rose from one in nine in 2017 to one in six in 2020. So, in addressing the immediate crisis, can we build back better, reshaping education to address the underlying problems?
I teach mindfulness in many secular settings and, with colleagues, I’ve been exploring with schools in Wales how they can support the wellbeing of staff and students. The connection with my faith background is the Buddhist teaching that our minds are fundamental to everything we experience. Buddhism also teaches practices, of which mindfulness is just the best known, that let us get to know our minds and influence them for the better. As well as addressing problems, this also means developing the inner resources that help us flourish. And because these principles are universal, mindfulness can be taught in wholly secular ways, according to the research evidence.
However distant this may seem from traditional schooling, the growing problems with young people’s mental health mean that the mind has become the business of education. The main context for my work is the new Welsh Secondary curriculum, due to start operating in 2022, which makes Health and Wellbeing one of six core Areas of Learning Excellence, meaning that schools must foster not just children’s intellectual and physical development, but their emotional development as well.
That’s a challenge for the schools. Teachers are educators not therapists; and the approach in Wales includes an understanding that really addressing wellbeing has implications for the whole education system including its ethos, assessment and the inspection regime.
But the education leaders I work with say they know they must face the challenge. The mental health crisis makes it urgent, but they also understand that capacities like self-awareness and the ability to regulate one’s emotions and communicate effectively are important life-skills that we can no longer take for granted.
