July 24, 2018, Long Island, NY, Greater Patchogue: The existential mental health crisis in K-12 and the need for play, recess https://patchogue.greaterlongisland.com/2018/07/24/89437-the-existential-mental-health-crisis-in-k-12-and-the-need-for-play-recess/ As superintendents, principals and teachers plan for the upcoming school year, one thing is certain: we are serving a generation of children who are more anxious, depressed and suicidal than any generation before. A recent NPR Education Series broadcast states, “Up to one in five kids living in the U.S. shows signs or symptoms of a mental health disorder in a given year.” … Today, by at least some estimates, five to eight times as many high school and college students meet the criteria for diagnosis of major depression and/or anxiety disorder as was true half a century or more ago.” If that doesn’t alarm you as a parent, educator, or concerned citizen, you might have to check your pulse. The fact is, we have an existential mental health crisis in K-12 education and beyond. The big question is, what can schools do about it? … We can reference the noteworthy increases of screen time with technology, social media, cyber-bullying, diabetes and obesity in children, school shootings, standardized tests and the hyper-focus on academic scores in schools. However; I believe there is one noteworthy reason that has contributed to this mental health crisis like no other: recess and play are on the endangered species list in our public schools…. ... Over the past 50 years in the United States, recess and children’s free play with other children has declined significantly. … It’s hard to conceive that the 2017 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on Strategies on Recess in Schools identified only eight states that have policies requiring daily recess in schools….
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Childhood Lost
Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).
Addressing mental health needs is as important as academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories here are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.
Anne Dachel, Media editor, Age of Autism
http://www.ageofautism.com/media/
(John Dachel, Tech. assist.)
What will happen in another 4 years? How can we go on like this? This is a national (and international) problem of monumental proportions. We have an entire new class of children who cannot be accommodated by the system: many are manifestly neurologically impaired. Meanwhile, the government and the medical profession sleep on regardless.
John Stone,
UK media editor, Age of Autism
The generation of American children born after 1990 are arguably the sickest generation in the history of our country.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
It seemed to me that with rising autism prevalence, you’d also see rising autism costs to society, and it turns out, the costs are catastrophic.
They calculated that in 2015 autism cost the United States $268 billion and they projected that if autism continues at its current rate, we’re looking at one trillion dollars a year in autism costs by 2025, so within five years.
Toby Rogers, PhD, Political economist
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