Long-Term Reasons to Support Children’s Books about Mental Health
Here’s the hopeful news: there are more children’s books about mental health being published these days, the topics are more varied and the content is more realistic to what kids are experiencing. This is vital so kids and teens feel understood and get ideas on how to cope, whether it’s about themselves, a family member or friend.
Here’s the harder news: Bias, discrimination and lack of understanding about mental health conditions persist in our country. Yes, more people are open about their struggles to help normalize their experiences. But many serious challenges remain. And we’re at risk of going backward, thanks in part to the uptick in negative (sometimes dangerous) attitudes and policies being championed by some public figures. The effects of this cannot be shrugged off. Meanwhile, according to this report, there’s an increase in people being diagnosed with mental disorders.
In other words, we can’t let up.
My Skin in the Game
I often write stories and children’s books about mental health topics. I’ve experienced the roller coaster of highs and lows, heartache and hope, within my family that these issues can bring. Serious mental illness, suicidal ideation, anger management, emotional regulation, impulse control, feeling left out, feeling left behind, separation anxiety and so on.
In addition, I’m a trained facilitator for the family-to-family class through the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI). I’ve written and presented about the need for police education on safely responding to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities experiencing mental health crises. And I’ve worked at a state psychiatric hospital.
This means I’ve developed lived experience and deeper knowledge on certain subjects. Not that I ever feel like an “expert” on any of this and I always remind myself that others can experience things very differently.
Please be in touch if you’re interested in a book talk with a group about any of my mental health-themed books: Walking on Eggshells, Firebreak, What Are Psychotic Disorders? and The Invitation. My latest book that releases in January also has a mental health theme. The Zone is middle grade fiction that takes readers along with Zane, who’s striving to manage his anger outbursts during a first summer job in a youth conservation corp. I’ll have a webpage for this new book up this summer!.
Let’s Take a Long-Term View
The first two reasons to keep it up with quality children’s books about mental health topics are the obvious ones:
- To have an immediate impact in helping a child or teen struggling in a particular way.
- To help other kids and grown-ups better understand what someone can be dealing with so they adjust their approach as needed (or double down on what they’re doing already).
I feel like the other reason doesn’t get discussed enough:
- To play the generational long game.
Today’s children are tomorrow’s policymakers, clinicians, police officers, judges, voters and so on.
These roles are crucial to build positive change in policies, services, funding, justice systems, employment, housing and other factors that profoundly impact people’s daily lives. Such systems, along with societal attitudes, continue to have a disproportionately negative impact on people who have chronic mental health conditions.
No, books aren’t the only strategy. But books are one of the strategies. We need to sustain positive impacts that children can experience when a book strikes home in some way. How do we create lasting momentum and progress along with the immediate moment in time where a child understands or feels understood. Children’s books can also affect grownups as they’re exposed to content through their children. How do we sustain momentum among the adults as well?
I don’t have all of the answers to my questions, at least yet. But I’d like to be an active part of this discussion and do my part to unpack it all.
A Few Resource Suggestions
Meanwhile, here are a few links I’d like to share:
- I recently came across this American Library Association publication: Using Literature to Support Children’s Mental Health. It’s a bit pricey for individual purchase but I found a copy through my local library system, hooray!
- Here are a couple of recent lists highlighting helpful children’s books about mental health:
- And I want to highlight an adult book I read recently that really hit home: Gone Before Gone: Coping with Ambiguous Loss to Psychosis. If you’re experiencing serious mental illness with someone close to you (a child or grown-up), ambiguous loss and grief are important concepts that can help you. How do we grieve someone who’s still alive but not the person they used to be, or able to live the life hoped? Here’s a podcast interview with the author discussing the book and concept. (This can help in coping with conditions such as dementia, too).
Keep On Keeping On
Thanks for anything and everything you’re doing to support mental health needs. And for supporting the creation, distribution and promotion of children’s books about mental health topics in whatever ways you can!
And please let me know if this triggers any particular points you want to discuss or you have other resources to suggest.