Kids and Mental Health

With the days of being stuck at home and attending school on zoom behind us, the mental health of our children is still very important.  School is still tough on a good day but nearly impossible on days when kids might be getting bullied.

Let’s define bullying so we can assess what we are looking at.  Bullying is unwanted aggressive behavior that involves a person with a real or a perceived power imbalance.  We can all look back at a time in our lives when we experienced bullying.  

Physical bullying is the easiest to see, pushing, shoving, and hitting.  Verbal bullying consists of name-calling, threats, and harassment.  Social bullying is harder to notice, the rumors, the gossip, and being excluded. Now,  it can be compounded by the huge access to technology. Before the days of being digitally connected bullying stopped when kids left school. . Today it follows them everywhere.  Texts, social media, online gaming, and anywhere online where kids gather,  are opportunities for bullies to seek out targets.  Our children need to be taught about these different types of bullying and know they are wrong. 

The effects on a child’s mental health can cause feelings of isolation, low self-esteem, anxiety, and severe depression.  Being beat up (because it happened to me) can make children suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome and scar a person for decades.  Personally, I remember the bad dreams, the headaches, the stomachaches, and the general fear of leaving the house.  The emotional upset is world-changing and does not just go away.  Even witnessing bullying can affect the observers and have a detrimental effect on their well-being.

Bullying can change a child for a lifetime. If bullied at a young age, while going through different developmental stages, a child can be stuck at a point where they fear anything new. Being bullied leaves footprints of anger on a child’s psyche, creating anger at the bullies and developing self-loathing because they could not stand up for themselves.  Thinking thoughts like, why am I so stupid, or so fat, or so ugly affirms to them they deserve to be bullied. 

As an instructor of martial arts as well as a former school counselor I recommend a strong emphasis on the mind and body connection.  I have preached for decades that with a strong body comes a strong mind. The solution- we need to get our kids moving.  The best way is a structured and timed event like a 45-minute karate class or a game of soccer or basketball with a few friends.  It does not need to be competitive because then someone needs to lose. The real benefit is the ability to practice a skill that is fun and gets circulation and movement, especially through the brain!

Let's not allow our kids to wallow in self-pity.  Remember, pushing our kids to be successful is not something we do to kids, it is what we do for kids.

Mike Bogdanski is a martial arts Grandmaster and holds degrees in psychology and counseling