We'll be looking at three of the big mental health issues that kids face: Stress, Bullying and Body Image. After each one I'm going to be asking the students with me to share some of their feelings and experiences about it. And to help us out with the discussion, we have school councillor Bill Handsberry here as well to give his expert guidance and tips.
Stress
Our first story is all about some statistics that came out recently revealing that kids are more stressed now than ever before. Here's Tash.
[Please see the Resilience story page for the full transcript]
Okay so that's the statistics but let's open it up to you guys... How much stress and anxiety is there in your life?
STUDENT: When I'm doing schoolwork and stuff I get really stressed when there's tests and stuff coming up and sometimes it affects my other learning because I'm just focusing on my stress to do with that particular subject.
STUDENT: I get stressed when I don't understand something and it takes over all my other learning because I keep thinking about that same thing and don't really concentrate other stuff.
STUDENT: I think I get stressed when if I'm arguing with my friends i'm kind of like thinking about what could happen if it gets worse or anything.
STUDENT: When I get stressed I get really mad at everyone and I often say things that I don't mean but I get really upset with myself afterwards for getting mad at whoever I got mad at. I get really disappointed in myself and then I get sad and lonely
STUDENT: I find that when I'm stressed it's actually harder to get things done and I don't really concentrate as well.
NATHAN: Okay Bill let's bring you in there... There was a few people touching on schoolwork, family and friends as big issues for stress in their life, what do you see?
BILL: Everyone, most of the people who spoke talked about stress being triggered by something going on in your life that's not normal. And it's really important I reckon at your age to know that stress has got a job. Like all your feelings, it gets you ready for something, it makes you alert. And often, stress's job is to get you to think differently or act differently. But what I think a lot of young people experience is when stress gets overwhelming it kind of locks you into a place where you can't use the problem solving part of your brain. Someone said when they get stressed it kind of closes their thinking down and they can't problem solve their way through.
So as you get older you develop things that you can do to calm your brain down a little bit to turn on your problem solving thinking again and different people do different things. Some people tell me exercise does the trick, some people just like to lie on their bed and listen to music. But whatever you can do to just calm yourself down and let stress do that job to switch the problem solving part of your brain on is important.
NATHAN: Okay thanks bill
Bullying
Now while stress and anxiety can often be the kind of thing kids struggle with behind closed doors, bullying is an issue that is much more out in the open. Next up we're going to take a look at the problem and find out what some kids are doing to stop it. Here's Sarah.[Please see the Beating Bullies story page for the full transcript]
NATHAN: Okay let's bring you guys in now, how big a problem is bullying in your lives?
STUDENT: One of my friends was being bullied by one of my other friends and I didn't know what to do because I didn't want to ruin either of my friendships with either of the people.
STUDENT: I think it can be really bad because cyber-bullying is so silent and nobody ever knows it's happening.
STUDENT: I think with cyber bullying it's a lot harder to track down but with physical bullying you easily tell when it's happening and so that's why cyber bullying is increasing a lot.
STUDENT: I think cyber bullying is increasing and the physical bullying is decreasing because when you're cyber bullying you can say stuff that you wouldn't normally say and you can continuously say it and continuously put the person down instead of someone else standing up for the other person because you can just hide behind the computer screen and just bully them.
BILL: I've just got a question for you guys. What types of things stop people reporting that they're being bullied or that somebody else is being bullied?
STUDENT: Because if they report them they might feel that they're gonna get bullied more so they just wanna stay safe instead of tell someone then they might get bullied even more.
NATHAN: So Bill I suppose there's a lot of experiences here between cyber bullying and the traditional physical bullying that everyone's experienced whether it's themselves or with friends. What tips do you have for that sort of situation?
BILL: What we know about bullying is it's undercover and like someone mentioned really accurately before when it's behind the computer screen it's even more undercover, it's just not out there. So when we can work together we can actually have conversations about how we're treating each other. Not necessarily about bullying but we can get whole classes together, we can get whole year levels together and we can ask how are we going as a group, how are we going? Are we looking after each other? It tends to bring it out and I think that's one of the ways we really defeat bullying. There's a lot of talk about putting pressure on one or two people who might be bystanders to report it but as mentioned before what stops a lot of people doing that is if they say something then all of a sudden the bullying will turn on to them. So I think safety in numbers and teachers always talking it up, always in groups, in circles talking about it is one of the key things. If you're being bullied yourself then old advice is really good advice, talk to somebody. You don't have to cop it on your own.
Body Image
Now our final topic today is Body Image. A recent study found that half of all kids are unhappy with their body shape and that by the age of 11 most are already trying to change how they look. Our next rookie reporter, Brooke, used to be one of them but now she's doing something positive to change that. This is her story.[Please see the Fresh Face Friday story page for the full transcript]
NATHAN: Now that was a positive response to the issue of body image... But is it a big issue for you guys?
STUDENT: Everyone at school, like everyone would like at some point talk about themselves in a bad way. About any flaw that they have and say that they wish they didn't have that and wish they had this. And they just constantly complain about it. And like I would do that as well and like it affects everyone. Not just a certain amount of people, everyone has it at some point in their lives [when] they reflect on themselves badly.
STUDENT: I think there's more expectation for girls because of everything in the magazines and stuff but it still is like a big expectation for guys as well because of all the celebrities and all the special surgeries to get perfect and people want to look like them but it's just unrealistic expectations.
STUDENT: I saw an add on TV just the other day and it was about make-up and the voice-over said you can put the make up on and have perfect flawless skin but that's not true. You don't get that flawless skin from wearing make-up. You can have flawless skin without wearing makeup. You can have flawless skin just by believing in yourself.
STUDENT: In ads, without directly saying it to you they make you feel like you're not the way you should be and your not perfect and they do that because they want you to buy the product and they do it by having perfect people and perfect images on the ads to make you want to buy the product but it doesn't always do that it just makes you feel bad about yourself.
NATHAN: We might bring you back in there Bill. Body image is a very tough one because it can keep coming up again and again over your life. Do you have some things that kids around Australia can focus on when they're worried about their body image?
BILL: Just before we start I need to check, how is my good side looking? Is it okay?
AUDIENCE LAUGH
It's about remembering some key things and some very clever young people in the room mentioned a few of them.
Number 1 - the popular media are trying to sell the image that there's the perfect body. I don't know if you guys saw a few weeks ago on Facebook I saw this clip played. They started off with a lady without make-up, without any touching up done. Then they showed everything they did to her. And they stretched her neck, not really, but her neck got stretched out, they airbrushed, they used colouring and we ended up with something that looked nothing like the lady in the beginning so you're completely vulnerable to these messages and these images of perfect people but as you said they just don't exist.
[Number 2] And you know what, as you get older - you're right - you start to focus on different things about yourself but everyone of us, doesn't matter how old we are would have something we'd change about ourselves if we could. I wish my forehead shone less, I wish I had a little less fat there. And it's true for everybody if we could wave a magic wand and change something about ourselves or our appearance we'd all do it. And it doesn't matter how perfect we look, if you speak to a supermodel they'd give you a list of 10 things about themselves that they're not happy with and they'd change. So we're all in the same boat in that idea of how we look and how we wished we looked.
NATHAN: Thanks Bill and that's all we have time for on today's Behind the News, Mental Health Week special!
I'd like to thank Concordia College for having us here today and talking so openly for us,
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And a big thanks to Bill for his expert help.
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Thanks for watching and bye for now!
