Addressing Our Childrens Health Needs

Addressing Our Childrens Health Needs

By Gwilym Evans Friday 8th June

If you have gained a normal sense of empathy throughout your childhood, as most do, by the time you have developed a broad sense of what is fair and just on a systematical basis, interpret societies affairs; the act of doing this will require you to develop some important psychological mechanism's for enduring and coping with the extraordinary events we bare witness to. These mechanisms could develop however you let them, or choose for them to. The easiest path is often the first for many people: ignore them, or disassociate. The latter could mean many different things. It could mean ideologically removing the relevance of an issue from your life, and therefore freeing yourself from responsibility to addressing it. While often the painstaking crimes or atrocities we here about are irrelevant in this sense, there are many more cases of violence and poverty we either benefit from or reproduce in our daily lives, and it doesn't take much to be aware of them.

On the other hand disassociation could mean acknowledging an issue and thinking about it or responding to it but emotionally disassociating from it, in order to make rational judgments about it, and respond to it calmly and so forth. If we are to analyse and respond to things we're concerned with, for example; how the New Zealand government is driving families into dire poverty to the point of partially starving thousands of children whilst subsidising billions in tax cuts to the ultrarich, balancing emotive coping methods and rational processes might become harder in this case, especially if you are witnessing it first hand. But it is none the less necessary if we are to engage in problem solving on such issues.

While schools have guidance councilors, developing good mental health is unfortunately not in the curriculum, despite physical education being a mandatory class. The result of this is that generation after generation is growing up without the means and support to develop important psychological mental health practices, no doubt contributing to this countries high depression and suicide rate, which for youth remains at the top. Not everyone lacks this of course, there are those who were born into strong families and communities that are open in being mutually supportive and caring, which is great, but insignificant to the wider scheme of things.

Our society's lack of value and investment in childrens support and education around psychological development, whether through coincidence or historical legislative and ideological influences; just so happens to suite corporate and government interests in a multitude of ways. Although mental health is far to diverse and complex an issue to talk about definitively, we can acknowledge some general aspects and features of it in our present situation. I am going to remove the word 'mentally' in the following summary, as we don't constantly refer to someone as being 'physically' unwell if they have are paralysed or have a brain tumour, and I believe we should treat mental health issues of of equal rigour. After all the two are connected, and inseparable.

A healthy person is more capable of being an empowered person. Citizens empowerment is not good for corporate led governments, because empowered citizens are less likely to allow themselves to be subject to the sort of exploitation, stripping of human rights, and toleration of environmental destruction which are three important methods used to accelerate concentration of wealth and power.

An unhealthy person is easier overpower because they are less capable of self-empowerment, they have had less of the necessary support and years of positive psychological development at the age where the brain is still growing, and therefore strength to deal with the extraordinary issues, and the challenges we are faced with in todays' polarising world between rich and poor. If someone is more mentally fragile, and easier to overpower, that makes life easier for bosses, administrative hierarchies such as bureaucracies or police and courts and other domineering people or institutions.

It's often recognised that mental health issues, such as depression, can lead to a feeling of emptiness, which given the intensive indoctrination pretty much everyone is subject to from birth onwards by advertisers to consume, this emptiness is often treated by doing just that. This is highly beneficial to corporations, who spend billions on manipulating children and playing on their insecurities and in a sense, financing a sub-industry of propaganda designed to increase anxiety, bullying, low self-esteem and social pressures, and it works.

Bullying often shares its in competitiveness, as with the ideology of capitalism we've been ingrained with, and it also shares its roots in issues listed above. Its a behaviour which then reproduces itself due to people's inability to address it reasonably, or get support. The result is further division and isolation in our society, making it harder for people in to unite or work together, and the relevance this can have in the adult world for the working class is that people are less inclined to get together to fiend off the onslaught of corporate led government attacks. Such attacks as through dismantling social security, including mental health support as the government has done, and through stripping spending from just about every important health, education and welfare institution we have. This culture of interpersonal resentment of one another is manifest throughout society and is profuse in the workplace, in communities and neighbourhoods, its apparent in the left, including in unions, political organisations and so on and it interferes with relations based on solidarity, mutual support and care.

If we lived in a society where not only the development of mental health and psychological wellbeing was built into our institutional framework, through programmes involving health professional, school curriculum, and educational campaigns to address these issues, but also that communities took the initiative to foster supportive and open forums to enable children to grow up get the help they need, and to think about these issues, learn and develop together, it could mean a generation which who are not only happy and healthy in themselves, but are sufficiently psychological prepared and emotionally caring and competent to be capable of addressing the issues which are becoming ever more serious with time. It could mean reducing bullying, depression and our enormous youth suicide rate. If our society valued and invested in the first twenty or so years of a human life it could mean saving those people from suffering from issues for the rest of there life which they don't know how to deal with, because it was simply never on the agenda, and they were never encouraged to openly talk about it, explore ways of dealing with things in a mutually supportive environment and so on. Again when compared to the importance we place in physical education, its psychological counterpart is far from being realised, and for good reasons, it suites corporate led governments to keep people from being mentally well.

ENDS

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