Improving the mental health of children and young people should, if it isn’t already, be at the absolute pinnacle of ambition for all educational establishments. From great mental health flows many other positive developments in life, and this is one of the most important focuses we can have as educators.
The Early Years Library, a compilation of evidence-informed skills and practices to support children’s cognitive and social-emotional development (see link below) explains that, “Before their first birthday, children develop attachment with key people in their lives, and they begin to express their emotions, and understand that people’s faces and voices can tell you something about how they are feeling. The development continues through to adulthood.” Usually, the development of these skills is integrated into the activities they do each day, and a potential by-product of this process is sound mental health as a child grows and matures.
Yet there is a sense that the mental health of young children is not as robust as perhaps it once was. Statistics from the Children’s Society state that one in six children aged 5-16 are likely to have a mental health problem. That’s five children in a classroom of 30. In the last three years, the likelihood of young people having a mental health problem has increased by 50%. And alarmingly, of those children and young people who do experience mental health problems, 75% are not getting the help they need. This is a shocking reflection of the priorities we are giving to supporting the mental health of children and young people, especially when we consider that suicide was the leading cause of death for males and females aged between five and 34 in 2019 (Mental Health Statistics UK | Young People | YoungMinds). Whatever it is that we are doing to help, we are very obviously not doing enough.
Mental health and young children
Sally Hogg, Senior Policy Fellow at PEDAL (the Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning at the University of Cambridge, feels that pinning down precisely what we mean by “mental health” is important if we are to have an impact on improving experiences for young children. She explained, “We have many misconceptions in society about what “mental health” means, and these can make it harder to understand how to support babies and young children to be mentally healthy. Mental health is not just the absence of mental illness, but a positive state in which children can understand and manage emotions; make friends and feel comfortable in social situations, and function well in different environments and situations.”
The Early Years are such a crucial time of development for young children, often setting the scene for positive mental health in the future, and we cannot forget this. As Hogg said, “In early years settings and schools, we both support babies and young children to be mentally healthy now, and to develop capacities such as emotional regulation, which support good mental health in the future.”
The Early Years library, developed by PEDAL and the EIF, contains easy, evidence-based strategies that early years settings can use to support the development of social and emotional capacities in the early years. https://eif.org.uk/resource/early-years-library… An incredibly useful resource, the Early Years Library, “showcases discrete practices that can support specific developmental skills in young children.” As Hogg explained, “A baby or young child’s mental health is shaped by the complex interaction of internal and external factors. The quality of relationships and interactions that babies and young children have with their caregivers are critical for mental health. Other factors in a child’s home and wider environment also have an important influence. If a baby or young child is struggling with their emotions, relationships or behaviour it is important to be curious about what experiences they have had in their early life and their current environment.”
As with all aspects of teaching, at all stages and ages, great relationships often lie at the heart of success. And, it is worth repeating, relationships are critical to mental health. Hogg is keen to remind us that, “Young babies can’t regulate their own emotions, for example, they need a sensitive responsive adult to help them to manage stress and distress. The quality of these early relationships has a lasting impact on mental health. We often think about early childhood in terms of shaping later life outcomes. And what happens in this period does play a critical role in development and life chances. But babies and young children’s wellbeing and mental health also matters in its own right.”
The importance of wellbeing in Early Years
What we do in Early Years, how we do it and how we improve over time, can significantly affect a child throughout their childhood and beyond. As Hogg explained, “The stress and distress of babies and young children is no less important than that of older children and adults, yet for some in society it is easier to dismiss. As professionals working with young children we can be attuned to their experiences and help them to learn that they, and their experiences matter.”
Helping children through early distress and supporting the development of healthy relationships and interactions with the world just might help to guard against the deterioration in mental health that we are seeing in children and young people. While the creation of resilience is not necessarily a good thing if it is systems and society that are dysfunctional and in need of change, young children still need the supportive space in which to develop healthily, positively, and age appropriately. And that is what great mental health in the Early Years looks like.
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About the author
Elizabeth Holmes
After graduating with a degree in Politics and International Relations from the University of Reading, Elizabeth Holmes completed her PGCE at the Institute of Education, University of London. She then taught humanities and social sciences in schools in London, Oxfordshire and West Sussex, where she ran the history department in a challenging comprehensive. Elizabeth specialises in education but also writes on many other issues and themes. As well as her regular blogs for Eteach and FEjobs, her books have been published by a variety of publishers and translated around the world. Elizabeth has also taught on education courses in HE and presented at national and international conferences.
