Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Do Mental Health Lessons in Schools Help Our Kids or Make Things Worse?

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Do Mental Health Lessons in Schools Help Our Kids or Make Things Worse? · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: Hello, this is the Happy Families Podcast. What if everything
0:09
Speaker 1: that we think that we know about mental health education
0:12
Speaker 1: in schools is wrong? What if the mindfulness sessions, the
0:16
Speaker 1: CBT exercises and the wellbeing lessons that are now mandatory
0:20
Speaker 1: and classrooms across the country and not just failing our
0:24
Speaker 1: kids but are actually making some of them worse. Well,
0:27
Speaker 1: it's not actually mandatory, but a lot of schools are
0:29
Speaker 1: making it essentially mandatory. The well being movement is in
0:32
Speaker 1: full swing and education. Today, we're diving into the explosive
0:35
Speaker 1: new research that's turning the mental health education world upside down.
0:40
Speaker 1: We're going to explore why a leading Oxford psychologists says
0:43
Speaker 1: we need to stop these universal mental health lessons immediately,
0:49
Speaker 1: what the evidence really shows about their effectiveness, and what
0:52
Speaker 1: this means for Australian parents whose kids are sitting through
0:55
Speaker 1: these classes right now. Stay with us. Hello and welcome
1:01
Speaker 1: to a Doctor's Desk episode of the Happy Families podcast,
1:04
Speaker 1: where you get real parenting solutions every day. We are
1:07
Speaker 1: Justin and Kylie Colson. This is the most download parenting
1:09
Speaker 1: podcast in Australia. How awesome is that? Doctor Lucy Folks
1:13
Speaker 1: is an academic psychologist at the University of Oxford, who
1:16
Speaker 1: researches mental health and social development in adolescence and is
1:20
Speaker 1: the author of What Mental Illness Really Is, And she's
1:24
Speaker 1: arguing that universal mental health lessons in schools should be
1:27
Speaker 1: stopped immediately, Kylie. Initial reactions when you hear this, given
1:31
Speaker 1: that everybody is talking a lot about mental health. It's
1:34
Speaker 1: in the ether, it's in the atmosphere in twenty twenty five.
1:36
Speaker 2: My head is going in so many different directions at
1:39
Speaker 2: the moment. I think about how simplistic school was in
1:43
Speaker 2: the beginning of time, right, Her teachers were teaching arithmetic
1:46
Speaker 2: and English, punctuation.
1:49
Speaker 1: And reading, writing, arithmetic.
1:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what we're now expecting of our teachers. You
1:56
Speaker 2: think about a psychologist. You've done a four year degree,
2:01
Speaker 2: but in order for you to be qualified as a psychologist,
2:05
Speaker 2: a practicing clinical psychologist, you would have needed to do
2:08
Speaker 2: another two years of clinical practice minimum.
2:11
Speaker 1: And many have done other stuff. They've done doctoral dissertations
2:13
Speaker 1: and that kind of thing as well.
2:14
Speaker 2: Yep, Right, but we're asking teachers who do a three
2:17
Speaker 2: year teaching degree.
2:19
Speaker 1: I think it's four, it's four to.
2:20
Speaker 2: Then step in and be not only an expert in
2:25
Speaker 2: mass in English, but all things to do with mental
2:28
Speaker 2: health and you know, kind of life skills. It just
2:31
Speaker 2: is so much. So my head is my head is
2:33
Speaker 2: definitely kind of just reeling with the magnitude of what
2:37
Speaker 2: we're expecting of our teachers. But then secondly, I'm really
2:41
Speaker 2: curious to know why she's saying that they that these
2:44
Speaker 2: things need to stop, because from personal experience, We've got
2:49
Speaker 2: a daughter going through grade twelve at the moment, and
2:52
Speaker 2: her school is adamant that the lessons that they're putting
2:55
Speaker 2: on for her well being essentially are going to make
3:00
Speaker 2: the biggest difference to her, and she's actually cowering away
3:03
Speaker 2: from them. They're not something that she feels are a
3:06
Speaker 2: positive experience for her.
3:08
Speaker 1: So somebody who's done a PhD, which meant that I
3:10
Speaker 1: did the four years of undergrade side, including the honest year,
3:12
Speaker 1: and then I did the PhD and then it became
3:14
Speaker 1: a university lecturer for a couple of years, I can
3:17
Speaker 1: tell you categorically that it how do I say this politely,
3:20
Speaker 1: It concerns me. It concerns me that school educators who
3:25
Speaker 1: are just like, if there's one line that really upsets me,
3:28
Speaker 1: it's the line it's not my job. It's not my job.
3:31
Speaker 1: And yet when I look at mental health instruction, I
3:35
Speaker 1: just don't think it's a teacher's job to be doing it.
3:37
Speaker 1: It doesn't fit for me because this is a specialized area.
3:40
Speaker 1: It's an air of really distinct qualification that's required. As
3:45
Speaker 1: it is, I think that so many mental health professionals
3:47
Speaker 1: are not even up to the job.
3:48
Speaker 2: And it was about to say that. I can't tell
3:51
Speaker 2: how many conversations I've had with people who've been talking
3:54
Speaker 2: to their therapists and they've shared something with me, and
3:56
Speaker 2: I'm like, they said, what.
3:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the mental health indust complexes alive and well,
4:01
Speaker 1: and I think, well, let's talk about what doctor Lucy
4:04
Speaker 1: Folks has to say about it and why this matters.
4:06
Speaker 1: And I'm just going to add my commentary in and
4:08
Speaker 1: around it. So there's three central reasons that she highlights
4:11
Speaker 1: that it needs to stop. And I'll tell you whether
4:13
Speaker 1: I think she's right and wrong and where this sits
4:16
Speaker 1: for me. But I think mostly I'm in agreement with it,
4:19
Speaker 1: which is why I'm bringing it up. And bear in mind,
4:21
Speaker 1: I go in to schools and do mental health education, right,
4:23
Speaker 1: that is part of what I do. So I am
4:26
Speaker 1: making an exception for people like myself and doctor Lucy Folks.
4:29
Speaker 1: But I'll explain why as we go vested interest in
4:32
Speaker 1: all that. Yeah, yeah, okay, So number one, the evidence
4:35
Speaker 1: shows that these programs don't work. Where do we start here?
4:38
Speaker 1: So I remember when I was doing my doctoral dissertation
4:41
Speaker 1: back in the two thousands, like two thousand and seven,
4:44
Speaker 1: three to ten or something like that, and there was
4:46
Speaker 1: this big hooha happening because Martin Seligman, who was the demigod,
4:51
Speaker 1: the doi en of all things positive psychology, was out
4:55
Speaker 1: there flogging his book Flourish, after he'd written Authentic Happiness.
4:58
Speaker 1: I quite liked Authentic Happiness. I fel like Flourish was
5:00
Speaker 1: a great, big sales spill basically, and it didn't really
5:03
Speaker 1: tell us anything. And there was this research project that
5:07
Speaker 1: he'd run with another researcher, Karen Rievitch, and a couple
5:10
Speaker 1: of others, And I don't want to get into the
5:12
Speaker 1: weeds too much, but basically they're touting the incredible impact
5:15
Speaker 1: that it's had on the well being of these fifteen
5:17
Speaker 1: year old school students. But everywhere I looked, I couldn't
5:21
Speaker 1: find the program. It was not available for peer review,
5:24
Speaker 1: it hadn't been written up, it hadn't been published. The
5:28
Speaker 1: research around it was skint. At the same time, he
5:31
Speaker 1: went into the US military and was doing this comprehensive
5:35
Speaker 1: mental fitness for soldiers stuff to avoid post traumatic stress disorder.
5:40
Speaker 1: But there was no research published, and of course it's
5:42
Speaker 1: in the military, so they didn't want to get the
5:44
Speaker 1: secrets out there. But all of the research that was
5:46
Speaker 1: being done, you couldn't find it anywhere. There was no
5:49
Speaker 1: peer reviewed research. And the more I did my PhD
5:52
Speaker 1: in this area of positive psychology, the more I became
5:55
Speaker 1: skeptical of it. And the more I found that the
5:57
Speaker 1: interventions were being touted as world change and life changing
6:01
Speaker 1: and world leading and all these things. And yet I'd
6:04
Speaker 1: look at the stats, I'd look at the methodology, I'd
6:06
Speaker 1: look at the participants, and I just had these big questions, like,
6:10
Speaker 1: I don't think positive psychology is living up to the promise.
6:14
Speaker 1: So doctor Lucy Folks has had a look at it
6:16
Speaker 1: herself and basically said, and I'm sort of quoting here
6:19
Speaker 1: while I'm paraphrasing, high quality research demonstrates that universal school
6:24
Speaker 1: mental health interventions produce no improvement in mental health symptoms
6:29
Speaker 1: and some studies show they actually increase symptoms and cause
6:33
Speaker 1: other negative outcomes.
6:35
Speaker 2: Without reading her manuscript, her research, and sitting in the
6:40
Speaker 2: place that I see it, I always get nervous about
6:45
Speaker 2: wanting to educate the wider community on all of the
6:50
Speaker 2: symptoms and challenges that one can experience, because in doing so,
6:55
Speaker 2: we highlight all the things that are possible, and all
6:58
Speaker 2: of a sudden, we have a whole group of teenage
7:01
Speaker 2: kids who start self diagnosing yeah, and ruminating over, Oh,
7:06
Speaker 2: that sounds like me, I've got that. And the reality
7:09
Speaker 2: is all of the symptoms we each experience them at
7:13
Speaker 2: some point in our lives. We go through stages where
7:16
Speaker 2: we have these you know, downtimes, we're really struggle, We
7:19
Speaker 2: ruminate over hard situations and hard conversations, and then we
7:23
Speaker 2: start kind of thinking negative thoughts and we all go
7:27
Speaker 2: through the you've.
7:28
Speaker 1: Used the key word stages. When I was growing up,
7:32
Speaker 1: the key would that my parents would often say is, Oh,
7:34
Speaker 1: they're just going through a stage. But we don't say that. Yeah,
7:37
Speaker 1: we don't say that anymore. People aren't going through stages
7:39
Speaker 1: and phases anymore. They're getting diagnosed. And I believe I
7:45
Speaker 1: want to really tread gently here because I recognize we're
7:47
Speaker 1: on very, very sensitive ground. Overwhelmingly, though, the more we
7:51
Speaker 1: talk about these issues, the more people start to dwell on, ruminate, investigate,
7:56
Speaker 1: step into, and even accept labels and say, well, I'm
7:59
Speaker 1: going to stick label on myself. I still hold the
8:03
Speaker 1: line that, as a general rule, with only very few exceptions,
8:05
Speaker 1: labels belong on jars, not people. And the more we
8:08
Speaker 1: step into this, the more it becomes part of our identity.
8:11
Speaker 1: And once it becomes part of our identity I'm an
8:12
Speaker 1: anxious person, for example, it's harder and harder to shake that.
8:17
Speaker 1: It's like, Okay, I'm not going through a phase anymore.
8:19
Speaker 1: This is going to become an ingrained component of who
8:21
Speaker 1: I am. So that's to me a big red flag.
8:25
Speaker 1: And the more we talk about mental health in schools
8:27
Speaker 1: and to kids, the more possibility and certainly the research
8:31
Speaker 1: bears it out. The mental health industrial complex is winning.
8:33
Speaker 1: Here and more people being diagnosed, going to see counselors,
8:36
Speaker 1: going to see psychologists, going to see specialists of one
8:39
Speaker 1: kind or another, because of all of the challenges that
8:41
Speaker 1: we're becoming increasingly aware of, and the definition of what
8:44
Speaker 1: counts as anxiety or post traumatic stress or depression or
8:47
Speaker 1: whatever keeps on expanding, it becomes more inclusive because we
8:51
Speaker 1: want anyone who's experiencing any kind of suffering or trauma
8:54
Speaker 1: to make sure that they are being seen and heard
8:57
Speaker 1: and labeled where appropriate. So this is her first, big, big,
9:03
Speaker 1: I guess challenge to the mental health industry and to
9:07
Speaker 1: schools generally about pumping out the wellbeing stuff, which I mean,
9:11
Speaker 1: I've been at the forefront of for years and I'm
9:13
Speaker 1: not anymore. I've really pulled back from it. I have
9:15
Speaker 1: concerns around it.
9:17
Speaker 2: It's interesting because the more we talk about this, the
9:20
Speaker 2: more I am aware of the moments in my life,
9:24
Speaker 2: moments in time where I have experienced anxiety, And as
9:29
Speaker 2: I get older, I actually think that I experienced it
9:31
Speaker 2: a whole heap more than I did as a younger person,
9:34
Speaker 2: with all the different facets to life and being a
9:38
Speaker 2: mom and looking after children and worrying about them, and
9:41
Speaker 2: just the different places and spaces that I find myself in.
9:45
Speaker 2: But I don't ever think, oh, I'm a person with anxiety.
9:49
Speaker 2: I think I'm a person who's experiencing.
9:52
Speaker 1: And that's adaptive. That's how it's supposed to be. One
9:55
Speaker 1: of the challenges when it comes to anxiety. Is we
9:59
Speaker 1: actually shared a meme about a month ago on Facebook
10:01
Speaker 1: where we said me, what could possibly go wrong my anxiety?
10:04
Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked right. And so that's the difference
10:08
Speaker 1: between adaptive versus maladaptive, or healthy versus unhealthy anxiety. After
10:12
Speaker 1: the break, I want to talk about the two other
10:13
Speaker 1: reasons that doctor Lucy Folks says we've got to stop
10:16
Speaker 1: mental health education instruction in schools immediately as coming up
10:21
Speaker 1: in just a sec on the Happy Families podcast Stay
10:23
Speaker 1: with us. Doctor Lucy Folks, the author of the book
10:34
Speaker 1: What Mental Illness Really Is, is making a strong and
10:38
Speaker 1: provocative critique saying that we are talking about mental health
10:41
Speaker 1: too much in schools and it's not serving our children well.
10:44
Speaker 1: In fact, the evidence shows number one that these programs
10:47
Speaker 1: don't work, and number two doesn't work because the one
10:49
Speaker 1: size fits all program or approach. So let me step
10:53
Speaker 1: through this with you, Kylie. In any classroom, you're going
10:56
Speaker 1: to find that most students don't have mental health problems,
10:58
Speaker 1: which makes lessons er. I remember I was asked to
11:01
Speaker 1: speak at a school about the topic of anxiety, and
11:05
Speaker 1: I said, Okay, who am I going to be speaking with,
11:06
Speaker 1: and they said, all of grade eleven, how many students
11:09
Speaker 1: do you have? We have three hundred students in grade eleven,
11:12
Speaker 1: And I said, so, one of the challenges that I'm
11:14
Speaker 1: going to have as keynote speaker is I'm going to
11:15
Speaker 1: speak about anxiety to three hundred students and probably at
11:18
Speaker 1: absolute tops, one hundred of them are going to be
11:21
Speaker 1: struggling with anxiety. Just when you look at the numbers,
11:24
Speaker 1: somewhere around one hundred. It could be a touch more,
11:26
Speaker 1: but it's likely to be less, particularly given the demographics
11:29
Speaker 1: of this particular school. So we're going to have a
11:32
Speaker 1: whole lot of kids now start to worry about whether
11:33
Speaker 1: they should be worried. They're going to be anxious about
11:35
Speaker 1: whether they do or don't have anxiety, and they're also well,
11:38
Speaker 1: they're going to be sitting there thinking I could be
11:40
Speaker 1: doing other things. I've been sitting here and listening to
11:41
Speaker 1: a talk that has nothing to do with what I'm
11:43
Speaker 1: going through.
11:43
Speaker 2: And more, you're going to have a hoy of kids
11:45
Speaker 2: who are going to hear something that you say and
11:47
Speaker 2: then ruminate over that and getting worry and get.
11:50
Speaker 1: More anxious, which goes back to point number one.
11:51
Speaker 2: But then you're also going to have a holy of
11:53
Speaker 2: kids who are going to sit there and go, what
11:54
Speaker 2: the heck would he know?
11:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, So fortunately I gave a really great talk and
11:57
Speaker 1: I made sure that I accounted for all those issues,
12:00
Speaker 1: and nobody ended up with anxiety because they were listening
12:02
Speaker 1: to my talk. From what I understand, we got great
12:04
Speaker 1: feedback on the talk, and it was engaging enough that
12:06
Speaker 1: everyone who didn't have anxiety was still able to benefit
12:09
Speaker 1: from it because it was more about strategies for helping
12:11
Speaker 1: us to just regulate our emotions, which is quite beneficial,
12:14
Speaker 1: especially when you're hearing it from the right person. But
12:16
Speaker 1: I just I really want to emphasize this when you
12:19
Speaker 1: have this one size hits or program. Most students don't
12:23
Speaker 1: have mental health problems. Those who do have serious issues
12:27
Speaker 1: do not need this global approach. They need targeted, one
12:29
Speaker 1: to one support. They don't want this light touch kind.
12:32
Speaker 2: Of Well, you're almost diluting the message, right, So it
12:34
Speaker 2: kind of will fit everybody.
12:37
Speaker 1: Right across the board. And when you say everybody, we're
12:39
Speaker 1: not just we've got to include the neurodivergent kids. We've
12:42
Speaker 1: got to include kids that come from diverse cultural backgrounds.
12:45
Speaker 1: We know that issues in rural areas are different to
12:49
Speaker 1: issues in urban areas. There is so much going on there.
12:53
Speaker 1: I just think that doctor Lewis Folks is right. Let's
12:55
Speaker 1: talk about the third one really quickly, because I want
12:57
Speaker 1: to give parents some solutions, some practical things that they
12:59
Speaker 1: can do. The last thing that I want to emphasize
13:01
Speaker 1: is that I don't think schools are the right environment
13:03
Speaker 1: for this kind of conversation.
13:05
Speaker 2: I just don't like being half of our children's mental
13:08
Speaker 2: health challenges actually a result of.
13:10
Speaker 1: School kinda yeah, Like there's so many kids that don't
13:13
Speaker 1: feel safe at school because of bullying or because of
13:15
Speaker 1: social insecurity or whatever else. And that means that if
13:18
Speaker 1: you want them to be vulnerable and have a conversation
13:20
Speaker 1: about mental health challenges, it's just inappropriate. In a classroom
13:23
Speaker 1: setting where they can't trust their peers, it just doesn't work.
13:28
Speaker 1: So to me, they're the Big Three based on what
13:30
Speaker 1: I've read from doctor Lucy Folks. And because we need
13:33
Speaker 1: to wrap up, our time's done, I just wanted to
13:35
Speaker 1: share a couple of things that parents might do with
13:37
Speaker 1: these things in mind. If you're in a school that's
13:39
Speaker 1: really pushing mental health interventions, at a global level for
13:43
Speaker 1: all students. The first thing is that if your child
13:46
Speaker 1: is struggling with mental health, you cannot and should not,
13:48
Speaker 1: and ideally will not rely on any kind of a
13:51
Speaker 1: universal school program for the school says, oh, we've got
13:53
Speaker 1: this universal well being curriculum. That's great, but probably not.
13:57
Speaker 1: Don't rely on that. You need to seek specific and
14:00
Speaker 1: qualified credential help. The second thing is that you're really
14:05
Speaker 1: going to benefit from having conversations at home with your
14:09
Speaker 1: kids and talking with them about what they're going through
14:12
Speaker 1: and helping them to problem solve. Whilever your focus is
14:15
Speaker 1: on solving problems and guiding your children and letting them know, well,
14:19
Speaker 1: this is a stage that you're going through, and you
14:20
Speaker 1: can get through this, and building their resilience, you're going
14:23
Speaker 1: to find that you're going to be much more successful.
14:25
Speaker 1: And I think the last thing is just that vulnerable
14:29
Speaker 1: mental health work when something significant and serious is going on,
14:32
Speaker 1: needs a safe and trusting environment, which may or may
14:35
Speaker 1: not depending on the school, and your child may or
14:37
Speaker 1: may not exist in a classroom setting, So it's just
14:39
Speaker 1: worth keeping that in mind. I love that high school
14:42
Speaker 1: teachers are now in most states in grade eleven and twelve,
14:45
Speaker 1: you can take on psychology as a subject. But quite honestly,
14:49
Speaker 1: we could do so much to teach kids about emotions
14:52
Speaker 1: without having a PhD or a clinical psychology degree. There's
14:56
Speaker 1: so much that we could be teaching kids about relationships
14:59
Speaker 1: and about emotions. We're not, and we're packing a whole
15:01
Speaker 1: lot of other stuff into the curriculum that's not helpful.
15:03
Speaker 1: Teachers with the right qualification, the right training could teach
15:07
Speaker 1: stuff that is not about mental health per se, but
15:10
Speaker 1: is about life skills, and frankly, it would help the
15:12
Speaker 1: teachers as well as helping the students. I wish we
15:15
Speaker 1: were heading down that path instead. Politicians, I've got some ideas.
15:18
Speaker 1: Feel free to reach out. I reckon we could have
15:20
Speaker 1: some valuable and productive conversations. Anyway, That's about it for today.
15:24
Speaker 1: I just wanted to share that as a doctor's desk
15:26
Speaker 1: and flag it. And this is why I don't teach
15:28
Speaker 1: positive psychology much anymore. I really focus on meaningful interventions
15:32
Speaker 1: that work with an emphasis on self determination theory, which
15:35
Speaker 1: does happen to have the deepest body of research evidence
15:39
Speaker 1: underpinning it of all the psychological theories that exist on
15:41
Speaker 1: the planet, which is why I'm such a fan. If
15:43
Speaker 1: you'd like to know more about the stuff that I
15:45
Speaker 1: think will make your kids happier, visit happy families dot
15:47
Speaker 1: com dot you and check out the book The Parenting Revolution.
15:51
Speaker 1: All right, that's about it for today. Tomorrow we step
15:54
Speaker 1: into I'll Do Better Tomorrow and share our wins and
15:56
Speaker 1: losses from the week. The Happy Families podcast is produced
15:58
Speaker 1: by Justin Rulan Bridge Media. Mimhammon's provides additional support through
16:03
Speaker 1: admin and research and so on. And if you are
16:06
Speaker 1: a school teacher, or if you're somebody who's involved with
16:08
Speaker 1: mental health in schools and you think this conversation is
16:11
Speaker 1: intriguing and provocative, please share it around. Click the share
16:14
Speaker 1: button and send it to your colleagues and ask them
16:16
Speaker 1: what they think, or get in touch with us at
16:18
Speaker 1: happy families dot com dot you. Caroline would love to
16:20
Speaker 1: book me in to come along and do a special
16:23
Speaker 1: session at your school talking about well being for teachers,
16:26
Speaker 1: well being for students and what we do know that
16:28
Speaker 1: actually works