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Rachel Wiese

Mrs. Hughes

English 1201

1 Ma 2022

Mental Health in Schools needs to be Addressed

Why is mental health not addressed or always pushed to the curb? Adults, teenagers, and

children are all struggling because of being seen as less if they have a diagnosed problem. While

if the illness stays undiagnosed, it only causes more problems for oneself the longer it is

undiagnosed. As in the early years of someone's life, school is a huge factor, which academics

could become a struggle. Mental health in the 21st century is a big topic that surrounds teenagers

throughout the world. The term “mental health” is commonly associated with depression, but it

reaches much further than that. Anxiety, OCD, depression, ADD, ADHD, bipolar disorder,

eating disorders, etc. are all parts of mental health. All of these things can affect one's learning,

relationships, and overall mentality. Teenagers around the world in the 21st century struggle with

their mental health in various ways. The struggles affect them by dropping out, failing classes,

and becoming distant in relationships.

Worldwide, mental health is a struggle throughout adolescents and adults. “The lifetime

prevalence rate for any mental disorder in adults is 46.4%, and 46.3% in adolescents” (Salerno).

With the rates this high we need to attack the problem and get people the help they need before

the rates continue to increase. The ideal time to intervene is in the adolescent years because the

problems are normally just starting to become prevalent. “Adolescence is an opportune time to

intervene on mental illness because many mental health conditions have their onset before the
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age of 20” (Salerno). Schools are trying to see if they can conduct out of school services to help

the students get a diagnosis and how to receive help from there. If the students don’t get help

when the signs of a mental disorder start to appear, it increases their chance of dropping out of

school.

Fig. 1. This graph show the rates of teenagers experiencing depression and how many are

receiving treatment (Buchholz, Richter).

Students who are languishing, emotionally challenged or fairly mentally healthy have a

higher risk of dropping out of high school compared with flourishing students (Anderson).

Studies show that the school highest rates for dropouts were among the first year students. With

students' access to services inside or outside of the schools, the schools hope that it is a positive
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correlation to the rate of students dropping out. The students may think that dropping out is the

best solution or that once they leave school all of their problems will go away, but sometimes

that is not the case. “Leaving school early became a major stressor and contributed to their

negative psychological well being”(Ntuli). Schools helping students receive help is a start to the

decline in rates of dropouts and mental illness in adolescents, but the schools also need to be

doing routine screenings for mental health for students who don’t speak up.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is another common mental disorder that

causes students to struggle in school. In a newspaper article it states “Students with

attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) experience significant academic difficulties that

can lead to numerous negative academic consequences” (NewsRX LLC). In another article it

discusses how “students with ADHD may experience problems with working memory, problems

controlling emotions and arousal, and difficulty analyzing problems and communicating

solutions to others” (Mock, Hallahan). This disorder not only causes problems with focusing on

schoolwork or general focusing, but also in an emotional or relationship stance. Since it is hard

for some of these people to control their emotions, and commuting with others it causes them to

struggle to find friends. Along with the emotional standpoint this is another common thing found

in all ages but can cause students to do poorly in school which in the future could lead to them

dropping out.

Academic failure, grade repetition, school refusal, changing classes, and school, school

exclusion, and schoolwork non completion are all side effects of non-treated ADHD. Like

ADHD, depression and anxiety are also leading causes to dropping out of school. Most of the

time these three mental illnesses can intertwine or overlap each other. Depression is a
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persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in daily activities, which causes significant

impairment in daily life. Anxiety is the feeling of fear, dread, and uneasiness. Then, ADHD is a

condition that includes attention difficulty, hyperactiveness, and impulsiveness. Most of the time

when someone has one of those illnesses they are likely to have another. Although sometimes

when someone tries to self diagnose themselves, they could diagnose themselves with all of

them, even though they could have one since the symptoms are similar. Every mental illness that

goes undiagnosed and untreated all lead to bigger problems. “.. suicide is the third leading cause

of death among individuals between the ages of 10 and 19” (Salerno). Although it could take a

lot for an individual to decide to take their own life, these disorders need to be treated a long time

before suicide becomes an option.

Depression is a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of

interest. First signs of depression can consist of spending more time alone and loss of interest in

things one normally loves. As that can be why some students who succeed academically could

start to have a downward spiral. In the studies conducted it shows that students who have mental

illnesses such as depression, lead towards dropping out of school. Failing classes and the overall

year of school are also signs that a student could be struggling with depression. With the loss of

interest, it could be shown through school, work, relationships, sports, etc. Someone with

depression in a relationship, whether it is as friends or intimate, the other partner will start to see

withdrawal from that relationship. In an interview with a licensed therapist she states, “when I

have couples as my clients the first thing I look at is each of them individually, as some of their

problems could be from one of their own mental states” (Hartenstein). As anger can also become
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an emotion that causes a role in the depression that one may not have had before, as this illness is

not a part of someone naturally.

Fig. 2. This picture shows the types of mental illnesses and how they are all affecting someone’s

mental state.

Anxiety in school can be seen through a few ways, but one of them is socially. Social

anxiety can affect students' relationships at school, but also their schoolwork. In an article,

Cordier states, “shyness is associated with psychological difficulties and has negative impacts on

children’s academic performance and wellbeing.” Children normally make friends within their

early years of school and may stay with some of them through high school. When children have
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problems with making friends at a young age that is a core factor that sticks with them for a

while. Some of the time children may be too young to remember why they didn’t have many

friends when they were younger, but it does stick with their self esteem and may interfere with

relationships in the future. Being shy is one of the factors that makes it hard for a child to make

friends because they are too nervous to introduce themselves to someone new. Shyness is a

frequently used term that could be a misconception of other underlying factors; “There is a

diversity of constructs that underpin ‘shyness’, including behavioral inhibition, social reticence,

social withdrawal, anxious solitude and social anxiety” (Cordier). Anxiety can be shown socially,

academically, and more.

Test anxiety is a great factor that affects students' grades. This is when students become

anxious and nervous before a test, even when they know the material well. Sometimes, some

students can blank or even make themselves feel sick because they are so worried about the test.

In an article medical students were evaluated because of their test anxiety, and some of them

thought it correlated with their depression. The results of the study showed that the

depressissness was not correlated with their test anxiety. Most of the results showed that the

students didn’t have test anxiety, but psychological distress emanating due to them attending

medical school. Medical school produces tons of stress on these students due to the workload and

knowing what was at stake if they didn’t succeed in the classes. With those main stressors it

leads the students to having test anxiety or believing they could have it due to the amount of

stress they undertook.

Each mental illness can affect each person differently, one person can have anxiety and

succeed in school, and another could also have anxiety and struggle in school. With every person
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being different it is hard for research to be done on if mental illnesses truly do affect one's

academic performance. It makes the research even more complicated when someone has an

undiagnosed mental illness because that will affect the data. “Most people that I treat with

depression, anxiety, ADHD, etc. all go through struggles academically at first. Many of my

patients could go from performing exceedingly well in school to failing because they do not

know how to adjust to this new lifestyle they are in.” (Hartenstein) When the illnesses continue

to go undiagnosed it will start to take over someone's whole life because they didn’t get help

sooner. Sometimes people don’t even know they could have anything wrong with them, for

example students with undiagnosed ADHD could think that they just are lazy or it could appear

to others that way. Reasons like that are why some studies are adamant on routine screenings in

school so that students can receive the help they need.

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Fig. 3. This image and/ or chart shows the symptoms of ADHD in children, which could help

show parental guardians the children may have a form of ADHD (Christiansen).

As each undiagnosed condition goes on longer the students continue to struggle and their

symptoms can worsen. In an interview with a teenage girl, Kate Rice, who has diagnosed

ADHD, she discusses how things have changed for her now compared to before she was

diagnosed. She got her formal diagnosis in the summer of 2020 and started getting her

accommodations at school that fall. Kate stated how “her scores improved tremendously”, an

example that was provided was how she took her first ACT test in February of 2020 and got a 25

on it, then once she had the diagnoses and accommodations her final score was a 34. With those

accommodations her superscore increased by nine points, which she claims she could not have

done if she undiagnosed and without those accommodations. During the interview as she

discusses her symptoms before she had a formal diagnosis, they were similar to a newspaper

article that discussed ADHD. The similar symptoms that were discussed were problems in

working memory, mindless actions, and not completing schoolwork. Also, she opened up about

how it was hard for her to keep friends up until that point in her life because she was all over the

place and too much to handle. Once the ADHD was diagnosed it became easier for her to keep

up socially and academically.

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Fig. 4. This graph shows the increased rate of children the ages of 4-17 with ADHD in the

past 20 years (Brancho-Sanchez).

Depression is not the only mental illness, which in the 21st century when someone

discusses mental health that is always the most common mistake people make. Many other

mental illnesses can lead to depression but depression is not the only one. Eating disorders,

anxiety, OCD, ADD/ADHD, bipolar disorder, and depression are all what can be defined as

mental health. Mental health is a person’s condition with regard to their psychological

well-being. Each condition can have different symptoms or side effects but a lot of them do

overlap. With some of the leading side effects being failure in school, dropout, and suicde.
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46.3% of adolescents struggle with mental illnesses. Out of that percent most students

tend to struggle academically as most of them tend to fail their classes or drop out of school. As

many students tend to struggle academically while they are struggling with mental health others

may not have as hard of a time. In an interview conducted, Lauren who is an 18 year old high

school senior with anxiety and depression talks about how she manages school with these

illnesses. “School is one of my getaways, I pride myself with how successful I am in school and

how I balance that along with work and lacrosse” (Riedel). With school being her drive to keep

her going, she talks about how she is ranked 13th in her class out of 650 students. Also on top of

that she is taking all honors and AP classes, along with two college courses. Lauren is a prime

example of how her severe anxiety does not affect how she does academically. On the other hand

though, she sometimes struggles socially. “I have a very strong group of friends, I also have a lot

of friends outside of that friend group. Sometimes I do struggle with being in a large crowd of

people though. Being in those types of events tend to give me a panic attack and I shut down.”

(Riedel)

Mental health affects school work by failure. With the lack of focus, self confidence,

mental support, etc. it causes the students to fail classes or eventually drop out of school. Many

mental illnesses can be diagnosed and treated easily if they are caught early enough. Although

some may take longer to treat, with the schools help to annually screen children, or give them

sources to outside help, the treatment processes can start right away. More research can be done

where OCD, bipolar disorder, or eating disorders can affect someone in school.

Dropping out, failing classes, and becoming distant in relationships are all effects of

mental illnesses. Some of the cases may be more severe than others, but overall the student does
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have some affect academically or socially. With depression, anxiety, ADHD, etc. being at high

prevalence in teenagers' lives today, these conditions need to be diagnosed and treated. With the

proper diagnoses and treatment students can receive the help they need before they start to

struggle severely in school. These conditions may be short term, or life long illnesses that can

impact one's life. Each person is different and the severity of their illnesses can be too. Two

people can have the same illness and one can keep up socially and academically perfectly fine

and the other can be struggling. Mental health needs to be knowledgeable to people everywhere,

so anyone can help someone who is struggling receive the help they need.
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Works Cited

Brancho-Sanchez, Edith. “ADHD Rates in Kids Have Increased over the Past 20 Years, New

News Study.” ABC News, ABC News Network, 31 Aug. 2018,

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Buchholz, Katharina, and Felix Richter. “Infographic: More U.S. Teenagers Are Experiencing

Depression.” Statista Infographics, 21 Nov. 2019,

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Sept. 2019,
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