The child mental health crisis: ‘I felt like a failure, but it was school who failed me’

During the Easter holidays last year, five-year-old Harry had a panic attack and said he didn’t want to live any more.

‘He was saying he didn’t have any friends and that he was ugly,’ remembers his mum, Sophie*, who adds that of course neither was true. Her son then told her: “I want to die mummy.”’

Hearing these words from anyone is hard enough, but from someone so young is harrowing, especially in the knowledge that suicide is the main cause of death in people under the age of 35 in the UK.

Harry had experienced a period of ill health and gone through a number of traumatic procedures and an operation, followed by lockdown and all the disruption to his schooling that that entailed. He lost all his confidence and was overcome with fear.

 His mum recalls how her little boy didn’t even want to go outside because he was scared of his own garden. Then last spring the anxiety attacks started.

‘He starts feeling sick, and he gets a tummy ache,’ explains Sophie. ‘Then his breath becomes shorter. And he starts thinking that he can’t do anything. He will say things like “my brain is telling me that I’m not good enough”. You can see him, his head is shaking – it’s like he’s trying to knock the thoughts out of his head.’

It was a horrific time for the whole family and Sophie worked with his school every day to find a solution.

‘His teachers were phenomenal and we were all trying to learn together to understand how we could help him,’ she tells Metro.co.uk. ‘The learning support assistant would take him outside when he started having a panic attack and they’d look at the trees and do some sort of mindfulness stuff and together we developed strategies.’

Harry had private therapy, and though he still experiences excessive worry and anxiety, he is on the road to recovery. But Sophie has been frustrated – and at times furious – about the lack of support she has been given from the school’s senior management.

She feels insufficient steps were taken to support Harry as he moved up a year, and when she tried to intervene, she was told she was ‘pandering’ to her son. His panic attacks increased during the transition.

‘Schools need to know anxiety has to be recognised as a condition. It’s an illness that needs to be taken seriously,’ says Sophie.

‘They need to listen to the parents and understand what is going on with children. Mental health is sometimes seen as a tick box exercise.’

More than 200 school children take their own lives every year in the UK, according to the charity PAPYRUS Prevention of Young Suicide, and suicides among teens have been on the increase for more than a decade. 

Research done by the charity earlier this year revealed that children want their schools to teach them about mental health and wellbeing to help them survive life.

‘Having returned to school after almost two years of unimaginable uncertainly and disruption to their lives, children are telling us they need to know how to better protect themselves when they are struggling,’ explains Ged Flynn, Chief Executive of PAPYRUS.

“The pandemic impacted on their mental health and they are now reaching out for information which would mean they were better informed, able to identify when they are at risk, how to stay safe and where to get help.

‘In our research, schools and education were mentioned spontaneously as the biggest cause of stress and anxiety across all age groups and yet schools can also help to lead a generation of bewildered children out of the darkness and into safety.’     

Benjamin* is 11. He started his secondary education in September, and has been let down appallingly by his school which has consistently failed to provide the empathy and understanding he so desperately needs, his grandmother Samantha* says.

Benjamin has a history of trauma, bereavement, social, mental, education and health (SMEH) needs and has been experiencing depression and suicidal ideation. He has recently made two worrying attempts to hurt himself while at school.

Despite the involvement of social workers, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and his doctor, Benjamin has been continually punished for his behavioural issues with detentions and sanctions.

Samantha, who is also his guardian, says: ‘Since September, he’s had over 80 detentions and two exclusions.

‘The school seem to have it in for him. It is hellbent on the behaviour policy. You look the wrong way, you get a detention, you talk out of line, you get a detention, you pick a pen up off the floor, you get a detention. These are ridiculous things that no child should be sanctioned at that level for. The school have made his life a misery.

‘The whole system is a problem and it’s disproportionately affecting Black children. Other parents are experiencing the same thing. It is a big racial issue.’

Samantha believes that by rigidly sticking to behavioural standards, the school is failing her grandson.

 ‘He’s down. He’s low. He feels voiceless and powerless,’ she says. ‘He said to me recently, he doesn’t feel normal. He feels like he’s being victimised and bullied.’

Unsure what to do, Samantha went to the GP who signed Benjamin off school immediately, concerned that he is unsafe.

‘The children that have any form of disability or SMHE needs, they are the ones that are suffering the most, because they can’t help their behaviour,’ she says. ‘They are the ones on the scrapheap. My grandson has extensive trauma, we’ve had Covid on top of that. How are we expecting an 11-year to navigate through that?

‘What is it going to take to make a change? Will it take a suicide? That’s what so sad. It’s not until something goes drastically wrong that things will improve.’

Steve Phillip lost his son Jordan to suicide in December 2019. He feels that Jordan, who was 34, would have benefitted from more mental health support at school.

‘Most suicides are preventable,’ he adds. ‘If you have early detection of the signs, interventions in place and the right prevention measures, then the evidence out there is that suicide is preventable right up to the last minute.

‘We educate young people to be academically successful, but what we don’t do, is prepare them for for life. If you can get in early and start to have conversations with children from very young ages, around emotions, experiences, and resilience, then you can equip children much more effectively.’

Jordan suffered from depression for much of his life. He was popular, kind and helpful, but he didn’t like to talk about his feelings. After his death, Steve found journals that indicated Jordan had been researching suicide for years. His diary entries presented a young man in pain and torment. Crucially, Steve said, Jordan didn’t want to die; he just wanted the agony to stop.

‘There may be many reasons why he took the typical male route and chose not to talk about his mental health in any depth,’ he says. ‘But had he been able to find ways to express how he was feeling, then we might have had a very different different outcome.’

Steve, 62, has since set up the Jordan Legacy to make sure the lessons from Jordan’s death can inform other families and prevent suicides. It is a job for parents to make sure that they are really connecting with their kids at home, Steve says. And in education, he advocates a whole-school approach that puts mental health at the front of every interaction.

‘It can have a pretty major impact on children if they feel they are not being cared, loved or listened to,’ he explains. ‘It sometimes tragically just takes almost a rash moment where that child could be walking past a bridge and goes, “I’ve just had enough for this”. And at a young age, that can just just happen all too easily.’

Jonny Benjamin, a mental health campaigner who speaks publicly about living with mental illness, made such a journey to a bridge in 2008. Fortunately, he was rescued by a passer-by. He believes that the pandemic has led many young people into a ‘desperate situation.’

‘There is an increase in eating disorders, in self harm and suicidal ideation and attempts. It’s terrifying,’ says Johnny. ‘If we started early strategies on the prevention side, we can make such a difference, instead of waiting until crisis point. With young people, they are taught about their teeth and gums from an early age. It’s not the same for their mental health. Why not? If we did, we could make such a difference.’

 Steve agrees: ‘We put so much store on physical appearance these days through Instagram and TikTok and so on, but where is the same debate about the importance about looking after your mental health? It’s just not there. Fundamentally, I would argue that mental health is much more important than your teeth.’

Educational and child psychologist Hannah Abrahams says that it is imperative that if a child is talking or writing about suicidal ideation, or shows any sign of self harm, that caregivers seek professional support immediately and in a sensitive manner.

‘Tragically, those children who die by suicide are often those that do not reach out for support, or feel that this is the only answer for them,’ she explains. ‘It thus remains our job to reach out to all who may be suffering and work with children from a young age to navigate mental health needs.

‘Encouraging children to “name feelings to tame them,” is key. Just as we support babies and toddlers in learning to speak, we need to support children and young people in learning to use the emotional literacy skills too.’

20-year-old Ayla Jones, from Port Talbot in South Wales, tells Metro.co.uk that she spent most of her childhood and teen years existing, rather than living. She felt alone, lacking purpose and as if there were ‘no point’.

An ambitious and intelligent girl, she suffered from anxiety, depression and had her first psychotic episode at the age of 15.

For two years Ayla would experience hypomanic and manic episodes, where she would stay up all night, listening to music whilst doing her hair and makeup because she was too excited to sleep. She ended up with no sense of day or time, and going from the top of her class in primary school – she was predicted to be an A* student – to leaving secondary school without a single GCSE.

‘The teachers in my comprehensive school were wonderful people – but I still feel let down,’ Ayla admits. ‘There aren’t the resources, facilities and funding to suit the needs for individuals like myself, who may find it difficult to cope.

 ‘I felt as though I had been left behind. I felt like a failure. I felt not good enough and not worthy. When in actual fact, I think it was the school that failed me.’

 Ayla says mental health education should be given the same priority on the national curriculum as maths and English, and that all teachers and staff should be given mandatory mental health first aid training.

It was through support from Jonny Benjamin and his charity Beyond – which raises money to help other organisations and schools that are underfunded, while sharing knowledge and best practice – that got Ayla back on track.

She did exceptionally well getting the qualifications to attend Swansea University, where she is now training to be a mental health nurse. She has listed a number of ideas that she thinks could help children in primary and secondary school, including a daily mindfulness morning, ‘time out’ cards for students under stress, and lessons on meditation and relaxation techniques, along with life skills and coping techniques.

While there is more work to be done, schools are getting better at supporting young people, according to Ed Lowther, Head of Education at mental health and wellness clinic the Soke.

 ‘We’re certainly seeing more schools take responsibility for the wellbeing of their student population,’ he explains. ‘There’s a great deal more access to in-school mental health resources than existed two years ago. Whilst a lot of it has been in response to the pandemic, the by-product appears to be that more understanding and empathic attitudes are here to stay.’

And there are stories from around the country where individual teachers succeed in supporting students, against the everyday pressures of schooling, Ofsted inspections and Covid-related absence.

Janey* says that when her seven-year-old son started refusing to go to school, the entire staff stepped up to help.

‘We told the teachers that he had anxiety and they were all so supportive,’ she remembers. ‘They listened to our concerns as parents and they made sure my son was nurtured and cared for. His wellbeing was discussed at staff meetings, and everyone understood what they needed to do to help him.

‘Day-by-day we came up with strategies that made him feel more comfortable at school, and he was given extra support from a specialist. He was allowed to sit out of the situations that made him anxious until he felt stronger.

‘Now he’s happy, calm and confident again. He’s thriving and this is all down to the whole-school approach of kindness and acceptance. I feel very grateful to them.’

*Names have been changed to protect children’s identities 

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