Linda Hall on the Mental Health of Wisconsin High Schoolers

Frederica Freyberg:
Turning to education, the mental health struggles of Wisconsin’s young people continue as screen times go up and social supports go down. That’s according to the latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey conducted by the Department of Public Instruction. As students outline the pressures they face, one said, “People around my age that you consider Gen Z are struggling. The technology you have built has given us more self-hatred, unachievable expectations, new mental illnesses and has crushed our sense of communication. Please understand that we are trying our best to find ourselves, and it is difficult when the world that we look up to can be so cruel and we feel we need to go through it alone.” To better understand these challenges, we turn to Linda Hall, director of the Wisconsin Office of Children’s Mental Health. Thanks very much for being here.

Linda Hall:
It’s my pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what stands out as real trouble areas in children’s mental health in Wisconsin?

Linda Hall:
Well, we know from the most recent Youth Risk Behavior survey that anxiety is up. Half of our kids are feeling anxious all the time. About a third are depressed on a daily basis. They’re feeling sad and hopeless every day for two weeks. About 25% of kids are considering, seriously considering suicide. And if we start to look at subpopulations, marginalized groups, we see those numbers jump even higher. So unfortunately, these are trends that have been developing for more than a decade. We’d like to really see them turn around, but this is what we’re dealing with right now.

Frederica Freyberg:
So I read that girls in particular report anxiety and depression. For anxiety, well over half of them. And your office said, “Our girls are in trouble.” What is driving this?

Linda Hall:
There are so many messages for our girls about body image and even suicide. When girls turn to social media, they are just being flooded with messages about being thinner, about ways to commit suicide. There’s just a lot going on there. And we really, we really need to help them, as best as possible, curate their social media use and do less of it. Get away from it.

Frederica Freyberg:
Because your report also discusses the fact that there is increasing screen time outside of schoolwork, how does that increasing time contribute to these things?

Linda Hall:
Well, in a number of ways, we know that it decreases the amount of time that kids spend in physical activity, which is a protective factor. It decreases the amount of time they sleep at night, which is also very important for mental well-being. And it decreases the time that they’re interacting with other, students and other people in their life on a personal basis. And those things are very healthy.

Frederica Freyberg:
What other external factors are driving overall mental health problems? You know, that kids worry about?

Linda Hall:
Well, when we look at all the data that we can find about kids, we see that they do identify academic issues as number one. But after that, they look at things like they’re concerned about climate change. They’re concerned about school safety. I think this new data shows that a very large percentage of kids don’t feel safe at school. So there’s that there’s gun violence and political divisiveness are all things that are adding up to their anxiety. And a lot of that contributes to a lack of belonging. That’s the other factor that we are looking at most of all is belonging, because we see that as being critical to how kids feel about themselves. Whether they fit in at school, whether they show up at school, and then whether they succeed at academics, which we know all of those things are important for their adult lives and for their earning power and careers as adults.

Frederica Freyberg:
What can the state do to help with this?

Linda Hall:
I think the number one thing is to increase sustainable funding for mental health supports at school. We know that we are in a shortage of professional mental health providers. And — but there are many things that we can do at school, and we can create positive climates where kids feel like they belong. And we know that investments that have been made in the past have made a difference. But we need to make more.

Frederica Freyberg:
And what can families do?

Linda Hall:
You know, the number one thing probably for families around screen time is to create a family media plan. There are lots of tools for how to do that but create a plan so that everybody in the family is being conscious of how much time they’re spending on screens, and they’re limiting it. Reduce your time online and increase your time hanging out with friends.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Good advice. Linda Hall, thanks very much.

Linda Hall:
Thank you.