MODERN FAMILY
OUTNUMBERED three to one, I can turn a blind eye to the toilet seat always being up, it doesn’t matter that I get completely ignored on Sunday mornings because Match of the Day is on, and it’s fine that I am always the goalie and that our garden is ruined by the continuous pounding of football boots.
None of it really bothers me – the shouting, the yelling, the constant whirr of the washing-machine are all wonderful sounds of their childhood.
What does worry me is what you don’t hear, what boys find very difficult to shout about and talk about... how they are actually feeling.
The mental health of our children and getting help for those who are struggling is quite rightly in the headlines this week.
Alarmingly, 70% of children and young people who experience a mental health problem have not had appropriate interventions at a sufficiently early age.
Like adults, children get angry, sad, frustrated, nervous, happy, or embarrassed, but they often do not have the words to talk about how they are feeling.
Thankfully, it is an issue that is being addressed. This week it was announced that children in England will be able to access mental health support in their school or college under government plans to transform the treatment of mental illness in young people.
And in Wales, it was announced in September that there would be a £1.4m investment to strengthen the support for specialist children and adolescent mental health services.
Dedicated practitioners are being recruited to work with pilot schools in three areas across Wales to help give teachers vital extra support.
Compare this, though, to the £300 million in additional funding over the next three years Jeremy Hunt has announced for schools in England, and more is needed.
Giving evidence to the Children, Young People and Education committee last month, the Children’s Commissioner, Professor Sally Holland, said that while there had been progress in some areas “we haven’t really properly touched the surface of reforming prevention and early intervention aspects of children’s emotional and mental health” and she has admitted there is a “long way to go”.
New structures are being put in place, and Professor Holland adds that if “all of our services join up together, to plan a really strong service that would help prevent mental ill-health and help children when they start to display problems, or experience problems, with mental health... what that would look like, that would be really excellent”.
None of us knows what the future holds, but it would give peace of mind to an extent to know there is someone in their school environment who they feel they can talk to, and to know that someone will listen if they need it.