How Can Adults Perpetuate Mental Health?

One of the most pressing matters in the daily lives of the youth in Britain during the 21st century is mental health. Mental health, the state of an individual’s wellbeing, affects all aspects of our lives, and therefore positive mental health is essential to maintaining and creating a productive life for young people. Unfortunately, mental health is addressed very rarely for youth, due to a rising level of stigma perpetuated by older generations. This stigma posits that young people are exaggerating their struggles and that how youth feel is a regular part of development, therefore mental health and its treatment are not taken seriously. This stigma continues within the media, home life, schooling, and academia. Therefore, young people will
For the sake of this argument, stigma is seen as an idea that can have adverse effects on how young people view and cope with mental health. This includes the tendency of older generations to slander youth within the media, essentially viewing youth as scapegoats for their own demise. Views of mental health are controlled by adults, as “current negative media representations of young people and moral panics over them represent manipulations by older and more powerful age generations”, furthering the degree to which stigma is portrayed (Jones). Consequently, “the state of the nation is often linked closely in the public imagination with the state of the nation’s youth”, meaning that concerns should be raised about worsening mental health conditions. Despite this fact, the media mainly focuses on how adults are affected by the mental health conditions of the youth, instead of the suffering the youth are going through (Henderson et al). The repetition of “adolescence is conflict” by anyone other than those currently in the stages of youth exists to belittle the emotions being felt during this time of change (Jones). Focus is instead on the “’risk taking’ behaviors” of adolescents and not on the causes of these behaviors, namely mental disorders that have not been addressed. Also, “the emotional and psychological pains of the
As the experiences youth have are “’rooted in the parent soil’”, the introduction of mental health is vital to development of a positive view (Jones). This can be based on talks within the household and the school that children attend. For instance, as the “school socializing agenda [is] to produce conformists”, children who are experiencing mental distress are more likely to bottle up how they are feeling and avoid getting help (Jones). Adults are also in control of the social norms of the times, meaning that the youth have no power with which to challenge the terms adults choose to speak about mental health with, furthering the degree of stigma attributed distress with mental health. When children are expected to conform to the standards of adults, it can have a negative effect on their mental health, thereby worsening the cynical view that older generations have about this stage in development (Jones). This is especially visible as it translates to household conversations. Families often censor difficult topics such as mental health, aiming to “’protect’ each other by avoiding painful conversations”, which can only further push youth to bottle up their difficulties with mental health in an