The COVID-19 epidemic introduced a wide range of difficulties that had an impact on everyone's mental health, especially kids and teenagers. The mental health of children has been significantly impacted by parental tiredness, grief, worry, uncertainty, social isolation, and increasing screen usage.
Friends and family support are vital for the social and emotional development of kids, which was missing due to online schooling.
National Education Policy 2020 bring to the fore student’s mental health and well-being for their holistic development. In children well-being of mind is crucial for ensuring their success both inside and outside of the classroom.
A Survey conducted by the Manodarpan Cell Department of Educational Psychology and Foundation of Education in 2022, for “The Mental Health and Wellbeing of School Students’ shed a light on the mental status of children. The study shows children suffer from anxiety due to their academics and pressure increases as they get older. During the lockdown, 40% of students experienced mood swings due to social isolation.
The NCERT mental health recommendations emphasised the need for regular, age- and gender-specific mental health interventions. The body recommended schools be the focus of this initiative since most children felt it was safer to confide in their classmates. It is essential to make sure that schools develop into secure settings for kids so pupils may be open with their classmates and instructors. Being at school for a significant portion of the day makes it simpler for authorities to see youngsters' self-harm, drug use, and other mental or emotional problems.
An educational institution should conduct training for teachers to help them understand children's requirements better. Mentors should be able to identify early signals for anxiety, mood swings, emotional problems or learning disabilities in students. Self-report tests act as a quantitative measure for students’ current mental status.
Due to these collective efforts timely intervention is possible to enhance the mental health and well-being of school-going children. Moreover, the authorities have instructed to have strict policies for bullying, harassment etc.
NCERT guidelines emphasise maintaining the confidentiality of students who want to share their problems. The aim is to encourage a kid’s safe environment by taking futuristic steps and creating awareness about mental health in children.
In 2023, Indian kids as well as their parents are reticent to take help for mental problems. Most mental health disorders in children remain undiagnosed due to hesitation. Hence, there is an increasing need to have cognizance of the mental health of children and schools should be proactive about it.
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