Mental Health days off from school are now allowed in several states.

 Teens have spearheaded a new movement, one for having mental health days off from school. That’s because children and teens do have their own pressures, which we adults often don’t recognize. Several states now allow mental health days off from schools in some form or with similar names, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Virginia have all passed bills  allowing students to be absent for mental or behavioral  health reasons. And in Utah a valid excuse  now includes mental or behavioral health. The legislator who sponsored the bill said it was his daughter’s idea after experiencing the pressures of college. Utah used the term behavioral health to stretch the meaning of mental health and to avoid  the idea of mental illness. Mental health is broadly defined in general and in the context of mental health days for students it is too. But also there is an attempt not to stigmatize its use and somehow adding behavioral health is deemed helpful.

Psychologists suggest that  parents be alert to signs of problems requiring more serious  attention than just a day off, signs of insomnia, anxiety, depression, lack of interest in normal activity or too much sleeping. These mental health days are meant to be a break so that a student can have an opportunity to recoup. They even suggest to use mental health days as a celebration after a big project is finished.

New York, California and Florida, the 3 largest school systems in the nation have no mental health days off . Given that we are increasingly aware of the stresses high schoolers and even those in college are under, one hopes that students, teachers, parents or whomever can spearhead expanding this movement.