♪ Jack: tonight, healthy minds and kids, a mental health crisis.
We share resources for students of all ages, from managing emotions, relaxation skills, tips, and expert advice.
"MetroFocus" starts right now.
♪ >> This is "MetroFocus," with Rafael Pi Roman, Jack Ford, and Jenna Flanagan.
"MetroFocus" is made possible by the Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund.
Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation.
Barbara Hope Zuckerberg.
And by Jody and John Arnhold.
Bernard and Denise Schwartz.
Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn foundation.
The Ambrose Monell Foundation.
Estate of Roland Karlen.
♪ Jack: good evening and welcome to "MetroFocus."
.
American children are experiencing a mental health crisis, something that affects families everywhere.
The challenge is brought on by the pandemic and have only exacerbated the need for support and solutions.
Now, PBS is providing free resources through a project called healthy minds, thriving kids, developed by the child-mind Institute, a leader in child psychology.
These resources are available through the PBS learning media website and include videos from parents, educators and students that teach children critical mental health and coping skills.
Let's take a quick look at one of those videos for middle schoolers talking about how to manage and control intense emotions.
>> I felt like screaming at the top of my lungs.
>> I want to be happy but sometimes those thoughts overpower your happiness and it feels like you will never be happy.
>> I had a very like, disturbing point of view to stuff.
It was always violence was the answer.
If they are not going to stop, then pain will stop it.
>> These urges can feel all-consuming that here is the good news your body often can't keep up with that level of intensity for too long.
No feeling last forever, even if you feel like it will, and we can ride these emotions like a wave in their intensity would decrease overtime.
>> I feel like it gets more manageable the more I go and you have to take a break.
>> I have to let time go and over time it will get better.
>> One strategy is to focus on the sensory experience that will help tie you to the world around you.
For example.
>> Music puts me in a mood changer every day.
>> Candles or essential oils and sniffing them.
>> They teach us the starfish motion and that helped me a lot.
>> I like it but not to dark.
I take it bit by bit, one piece and focus instead of a mouthful and a bunch of flavor.
It yeah is more relaxing if you have that.
>> Sometimes when I am angry I use that in a good way to work out and after that my anger was burned out and I felt fine.
>> Looking at pictures of your family, music you enjoy, comfort food, smelling perfume or candles can help you ride out overwhelming emotions.
>> I play soccer so kicking the ball is like I'm putting the energy into the soccer ball and kicking it away.
Jack: joining us now to talk about kids mental health and the resources available from PBS learning in partnership with the child-month Institute is the president of the child-mind Institute.
It is always a pleasure to see you.
>> It is a pleasure.
Let's start off with context for our conversation and for the project in partnership and to talk about how big a problem this has become in terms of children's mental health.
Dr. Harold koplewicz: suicide rates had gone this 6600 depth from 2014 to 2016 and the number of kids going to emergency rooms after attempts or severe suicidal.
went from 600,000 year to 1.2 one million, one every 30 seconds of that is before COVID hit.
COVID is toxic.
COVID made kids and adults feel unsure, unsettled, and more anxious even if they did not have a mental health disorder.
Considering only 30% of kids with mental health disorders in the United States get treatment, those other 70% have become more symptomatic.
Even if you have the most resilient, delightful, robust child, coming out of COVID after not going to school for two years, hybrid school, or worried that your grandmother or grandfather would die or the fact that 170,000 kids lost a caregiver became a problem to get them back in school and our idea was how do you take mental health fitness skills that we have been doing for years and teach teachers in person and take it to scale?
That is how we came up with healthy minds for our kids.
Jack: we'll go back to bed in one second but I'm curious about something you said when you talk about the numbers that are frightening.
Have you those of you who live in this world and study this world and look for treatments, have you been able to pinpoint causes for these dramatic increases?
Dr. Harold Koplewicz: I think these numbers are incredibly upsetting and if you thought about any other set of diseases that had a mortality rate that jumped by 50% or a morbidity rate that doubled, it would make the front page of every newspaper and it would be on the news 24/7, and since it is mental health disorders, America has had a lot of trouble wrapping their head around this in the over silver learning as far as I am concerned that COVID is people are talking about children's mental health, but let's go back to the 2014-2018 change.
The only big difference in society that occurred with social media and the Internet.
If you realize our brains evolved for us to know that very few people very well and in about 2011, a device that connected us to every human on the planted -- planet 24/7, that is a big change in the fact our kids, especially preteens and teenagers got a hold of this, and in many ways we exposed them to a jungle, and jungles have nutritional and wonderful things in it, and dangerous things, snakes, animals, and things that can kill you, and unfortunately we did not put any safeguards on this and we just said the parents, you know, it is your responsibility to make sure your kit does not get her by social media -- hurt by social media.
We have figured out with social general -- Murphy, there have been ill effects and we know kids I been watching and participating in social media six hours to eight hours a day and have problematic Internet usage on the more hours you spend on that the less hours you are spending in real-life intersections, exercising, or sleep, and all three of those things are essential for healthy bring development, so while I can't prove a scientist is out there who can say with social media that did this, there is correlation here, and if we did not change the telephone in the water supply and somehow this whole effect happened to our entire nation, then you have to think that the only major change was social media, and this is completely you know off the top of this, but the fact the Surgeon General has put out an advisory and it reminds me of Everett Koop when he started making is be aware of cigarettes, and even though a Surgeon General does not have any legal teeth or a budget, by the time Everett Koop was done we had warning labels on cigarettes and we do not smoke in hospitals, schools, airplanes, and smoking rates have on down and he got the CEOs of all three big tobacco companies to raise their hands in Congress and say I did not know.
Well, they now know.
I think the tech industry cannot regulate itself and the good news is that states, state legislatures, and may be the Fed are thinking about the difference that a social media intervention has with a child or a teenager versus what it has with an adult comes of those algorithms are very dangerous.
And I think, this is a warning, because the numbers are not going down, and COVID just made things exponentially worse for our kids mental health, and by the way, Jack, it is a global crisis.
Jack: Yeah.
Dr. Harold Koplewicz: We talk about it more in the United states in a better identifying kids and treating them but this has become a global crisis in child mental health.
Jack: I think you're jungle metaphor is compelling and apt.
We have said before social media is wonderful except when it is not and this is one of those situations.
That may come back to something you touched on before and that is the Genesis of your program healthy minds-driving kids.
What is the concept and what is the mission?
Jenna: First and foremost I think everybody including the parents could use these mental health fitness techniques.
We learn that we are supposed to sleep eight hours and exercise every day but we need a new vocabulary.
We have to help kids and these videos are for middle school elementary school and high school and from the ground up in Spanish and in English, and it is really thanks to Governor Gavin Newsom, and a remarkable public figure, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and in 2021, the state of California put $4.7 billion into their budget for children's mental health and one of the many projects that we started to fund was healthy minds, thriving kids , the idea that Justin kids back-to-school and pretending that everybody is going to be OK is problematic but that certainly the kids who were anxious before may be did not have such a tough time during COVID because they had access to their parents.
They did not have to separate.
I did not have to deal with social interactions.
Those kids need more skills company exercises, new tools, and by the way teachers need more tools on helping kids with this in the same way this is social-emotional learning, just mental health fitness skills that everyone should have, and we thought about how could we take this to scale, how could we in a state like California with 6 million public school students , how could we do this?
In the way to doIt is we realized videos the kids would enjoy, teach curriculums that were not overwhelming, and we did not make it mandatory.
We basically marketed it to teachers and said we have an interesting toolbox that might be helpful to you if you spend 30 minutes on it.
We will give you $100.
We know you are overworked.
And what happened was 60,000 teachers did it in and another 12,000 dead at later and did not get the $100 and now we have close to 80,000 educators who have reached 1.4 million students in California, and they have given us feedback that says these materials are engaging and more importantly effective, that you can see kids being able to use these skills, and also working with professional moviemakers, I think nothing is more definitely than having a scientist or clinician talking to you on the screen.
We are great.
We are hypnotized.
We didn't know it was hypnosis.
But when you go to creative people and that was a big expense and sat with him and clinicians in the center us, by the way, you want to get the little kids?
The way you get to buy drugs and managed to get five-year-olds to eight-year-olds, nine-year-old's, you need hedgehogs.
These are humans dressed as hedgehogs bear I thought this was absurd but they focused it on kids and kids got engaged with it here the middle school students on the Heisel students that use real-life kids in California and comedians who were talking to them.
Whatever the engagement and the fact that kids could watch some of these videos more than once meant that it was a success that they were not falling asleep and they were remembering the facts being taught in some of the skills that were so essential to giving them the wise moment, giving them ability to calm down in the ability to understand feelings have an effect on your body.
Jack: It is so important and you stress different paths for different age groups cap, I'm think is not work for everybody.
We have realized that it should understand that in the educational process.
I want to run here very quickly and this one is produced for high school-age students helping them understand how to manage their thoughts.
Let's take a quick look at this.
>> You know, I used to ask my brother for advice on text messages all the time.
He got so annoyed, bite, Reagan, stop over thinking.
I'm like uh they stop using emojis, are they mad at me, and I would be tempted to ask like I don't know I don't want to overthink it but I am so I would ask my brother, do you think they are mad because are not using emojis?
They just stop using emojis, like, I was completely overthinking it.
♪ Jack: -- >> OK. We are going to get a little existential and talk about thinking.
Our thoughts are completely imaginary but also very real, and at any time in your life your thoughts can be negative and is negative thoughts set in during middle school and high school.
We have all been there.
>> Sometimes I think everything will be all bad and I only have negative thoughts.
>> I think a lot about my relationship to other people.
>> If no colleges except me, you know.
>>, messed up.
>> Look at you, go again >>.
, actio certain way and I'm perceiving myself wrong.
>> What if I tore my ACL and I could never dance again?
>> What if someone else work harder for this but did not get it?
>> My parents are gone for like 10 more minutes unlike the dude, what if they got in a crash, what if they got robbed, what if they got stolen, but if I'm here and robbers took over my house, maybe they don't like me anymore and they abandoned me and moved out of the country and maybe they just left me then I get off like the present unlike, nobody likes me, and that is ahrd thought to kick.
>>>> There are so many versions of overthinking and are best on are bright and in Beta changing the world and making great art or the invention of the ice cream sandwich, but often they pop up and make it hard for us to be present in the middle of doing something.
>> My parents always tell me you overthink.
>> You ever have that moment where it's like after a conversation you just realize, though, I could have done this were done it this way?
>> One voice is telling you to worry about every little thing, things you should not be worrying about but one voice is telling you to not care about anything.
And those two voices are really competing with each other and it's just like, ah, I don't know what to do.
Jack: So coming out of this talk about from a clinical perspective why are the ideas of negative thoughts so common at that age group?
Dr. Harold Koplewicz: So let's talk about a child's bring, and teenagers bring, and an adult bring.
One of the reason social media is so particularly risky for teenagers is that their brains are different.
They feel more intense.
They hate you.
They love you.
They are boiling.
They are freezing.
And when they tell you they are really upset, you have to believe them and cannot minimize it and say, oh, it's not a big deal because it is a big deal.
They are also moved by a peer group with more influence never before but the thing every parent should remember, they still come parents are still the most influential factor but teenagers are moved by their peer group, and in fact I would think that when I was a kid and I said to my mother as a teenager I want to wear such and such clothing and everyone is wearing it and my mother said if they were jumping off the George Washington Bridge would use jumpoff?
The truth is I would jump out.
Jack: I know.
By the way our mothers went to the same school and vaped got the same line but you're right the answer is -- [crosstalk] Dr. Harold Koplewicz: You feel everything intensely, the acceptance, rejection, and by the way the teenage bring is a great way to learn stuff.
Your brained is fresher and you can learn a foreign language and you can still learn advanced mathematics and therefore the fact that you can turn so negatively that I am awful, that I am worthless, that interaction is interpreted as on me being terrible and I am so embarrassed because I said this and everybody will remember I said this, these kinds of intense also really particular and specific for teenagers, more than kids and adults, so being able to understand your thoughts, what the power is and how you can get power over them is so important in the fact that we can do this with five-minute clips, you know, everybody can pay attention for five minutes if it's engaging in the teacher has a curriculum that can reinforce it, and parent guides if parents want.
If schools are not adopting this terrific, these are free video thanks to the use know funding from California that you can use at any time, and most of the time you connection watch it come up a ticket your young kids together.
I watch the video for understanding your feelings with my den-four-year-old grandson, and remember it was designed for fibrils, ask him what was the name of the characters, what happened, why were they upset and what did you learn?
He said you can have two feelings at the same time.
I said, great, what are the things?
He said excitement and other feeling.
What is the other feeling.
Irritability.
I don't know [LAUGHTER] what your debility is.
[LAUGHTER] He's not supposed to know, but the fact that grandpa and him could talk at this and the fact that he went home and told his parents, grandpa let me watch a video, you know, they thought, OK, I am guilty as charged, but the next video which we watched was about the ability to take your feeling and not let it upset her body.
Jack: What are some of the signs that parents or caregivers should be alert to?
Dr. Harold Koplewicz: So I think that we should all know our kids.
What is that mean?
Does your kid have a really good appetite, do they like sweets, or are they carbohydrate eaters, do they like hamburgers, are they passion about sports, are these kids who you know, besides playing, they love watching it is follow teams, are they a loner tomorrow these kids with only one or two friends, or is your kid the mayor of the town and there is always another eight or nine kids in your house, how does your kid sleep you know, there are kids who have trouble sleeping but there are others who put the head on the pillow and they are out, and how are they doing at school, do you always think this is easy but this isn't a-student or pre-student edits effortless?
That is knowing your kid and when there is a change, that is what I want parents to be aware of.
If all of a sudden they are more isolated and all of a sudden there appetite is change or the ravenous and starving themselves or their phone is not ringing anymore are the phone, they are not texting friends all the time, or they're not going out with that is when you should cite you know, that is a red flag.
What is going on?
The need for these endless open dialogues needs to happen.
What is going on?
You know, we can go to to the New York Knicks of the New York Mets, the Yankees, the Giants and they say no, I'm not interesting, what would happen, you don't like the team anymore?
And it is so easy if you're not judgmental and if you are just asking questions.
I am curious.
I'm not trying to be intrusive.
I'm curious.
I want to understand what is going on.
If these changes in behavior less more than two weeks it is time to consider a quick call to the pediatrician to make sure nothing physically is wrong and if nothing is physically wrong, don't hesitate to go get some help.
The help should be what is it.
That's what you want from a mental health official, a diagnosis.
You know that the average parent in the United States waits eight years from the onset of symptoms until they get some help?
That seems absurd to me.
If you kid had a rash you would within 24 hours you would get them some cortisone and you would go to the pediatrician five days later.
Within two weeks you would be in the dermatologists office.
A kid spraying is so much more important than their skin not to take anything away from dermatology, but the fact is that these are the most common Elvis is a childhood and adolescence and the American Academy of pediatrics has said more common than infectious disease, so in the best news is that they are all very treatable.
This is not psychoanalysis were your kid will have to be in treatment for a year.
The biggest advances made in the last 20 years is an evidence-based psychotherapy, of psycho-social interventions, cognitive bearable therapy, dialectical therapy, they were content sessions districting sessions other investments worth it because most the time your kid's learning skills to diminish symptoms and to be able to have less stress in their life.
Jack: I have about three or four minutes left in a couple things I want to get with you here and one of them is something I have heard you talk about often and that is the importance of reducing the stigma that surrounds mental health.
Are we making progress with that?
Dr. Harold Koplewicz: So I would tell you yes and I don't have data, right?
So yes, because in 20 we start a campaign called #my younger self and able to get a lot of influential celebrities like Jesse Eisenberg and Emma Stone and Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom who has dyslexia, Jay Leno, and we thought that was a big deal but then the number one diagnosis they wanted to talk about with learning disabilities.
Over the years we see that anxiety has come out of the closet.
Celebrities are willing to talk about their anxiety or depression.
I think that is a positive sign.
What I worry about is that no one is really evaluating this.
Even though more celebrities and athletes who are so important to us because her healthy looking and they are strong and when they say like Kevin Love, I have an anxiety disorder that needs treatment, need to do the following things to manage it helps, but we should look carefully because what bothers me most is that the insurance for mental health disorders is not equivalent to physical health or physical disorders, and that means there is a discrepancy and I think it is the stigma that keeps parents and workers and companies from demanding insurance companies give equity.
So I think we are going the right direction and I love the fact that you know, governors are talking about it and they are spending money on it and I think that you know COVID help us to get out of the closet of the shame of mental health disorders.
I worried that we will go back and because were going back to normal, but I do not know definitively if we are really making progress.
I know that kids talk about it much differently than adults when you watch what they're talking about, TikTok, or on their channels, you are amazed how people talk about the fact that I need to see a mental professional or I am taking medication in a way that never occurred when I was a kid and in fact I don't think anyone told anyone else they had that or that they were seeing a mental health professional, so Jack, I think it's good, but I'm not sure we have the proof that what were doing is really making a change that insurance coverage will improve, that an eight-year distance from onset of symptoms to the start of treatment is shrinking, but I do know it is essential and it is one of our missions at the Institute.
We are consummate looking at it I know it is a big bear if we don't decrease it.
Jack: I have less than a minute left.
Somebody watching and listening and saying all right, I know someone that need some help.
Where did they go?
Dr. Harold Koplewicz: The most important thing is to get more information and it happens that the child-mind.org has a symptom checker.
In the privacy of your home you can put in the symptoms your child or teenager's experience in and it will give you a differential diagnosis and say one of five things.
You are now better informed and you can now call the pediatrician and say according to the symptoms my child has it seems it is a learning problem or it seemed some kind of emotional mood disorder.
Can you help me get to a mental health professional who has expertise in that area?
I think the important part is that when a parent is better informed they get help that is more specific and therefore will be more effective.
The work Jack: You are doing Jack: at Healthy Minds, Thriving Kids in these partnerships are so essential and so important to us, as you said, especially now.
Dr. Harold Koplewicz, always a pleasure to talk with you.
Take care.
We will talk soon.
Dr. Harold Koplewicz: Yes, Jack, you take care.
♪ Jack: thanks for tuning in to "MetroFocus."
.
You can take it where to go with "MetroFocus" the podcast.
Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts again never miss an episode or ask your smart speaker to play "MetroFocus" the podcasts and also available at metrofocus.org and on the NPR one app.
♪ MetroFocus is made possible by the Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund.
Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation.
Barbara Hope Zuckerberg.
And by Jody and John Arnhold.
Bernard and Denise Schwartz.
Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn foundation.
The Ambrose Monell Foundation.
Estate of Roland Karlen.
♪ ♪ ♪
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