Hi everyone,
I want to start with the asynchronous material, "Growing up poor in America." What stood out very strongly to me was that, while the focus was on the children, their journey, and their mental health, the role of the family seemed very central. This fit well with the Boyd-Webb reading which mentioned that social work practice with kids requires involvement of parents and/or guardians. For example, Shawn's mother's health issues, the lack of a father figure, the amount of overwork and struggle of the mothers, placed stressors on the kids that were beyond what they should be dealing with at their ages. Poverty heightened these issues and threatened the kids' basic needs of food, stable housing, privacy, dental care in one case, and the ability to just be kids. It struck me too that these parents seemed very well-meaning and over-burdened. This reminded me of all the stipulations and restraints put on how folks can use things like food stamps and other assistance. These restrictions seemed to me to add insult and injustice to the terrible circumstances these families were already navigating. While not all parents act with the best interests of their children in mind, it did seem like these parents were really trying to do that. The social safety nets were failing them and their kids. I would be really interested in seeing a follow-up on these kids and their lives. What happened to them post-pandemic? How are they doing now? What is being proposed to help with this lasting problem in the future? This wasn't really discussed.
The article "Teenagers are telling us that something is wrong with America" was really fascinating. I was immediately struck by the statistic that suicidality has increased by 54% from 2007 to 2020. That's wild to me how much that is. Further, I really appreciated how the article attempted to let the teens explain what was going on for them and what was wrong. Often it seems to me that these kinds of articles focus on statistics or experts, not the teens themselves. The idea that teens want to escape because all options are seemingly on the table and all seem like terrible options makes a lot of sense. I appreciated too how the therapist described their role as slowing things down and giving space when the clients' wanted to rush to action, or had big feelings and inner critics to navigate.
The video on "Teens are in crisis-here's why" fit very nicely with the above article. I appreciated how the makers of the video offered a perspective that wasn't black and white about the challenges facing teens. They discussed how social media played a role but wasn't the only problem. Earlier puberty and its stressors before the body had adequately developed the capacity for emotional regulation, as well as less sleep due to screen time, and greater isolation all seemed to play a role. While the video also attempted to discuss solutions or aids (more sleep, unplugging, following passions, discussions with adults around difficult topics), I would have liked to see it lean a bit further into this. As for social work, I do see these behaviors aimed at helping as part of the work we can encourage, and I'm curious about larger societal changes that might also be needed. If you all have thoughts about the things that might need to change to reverse some of the alarming trends in mental health for teens, I'd love love to hear them!
-Melissa