Mental health content for primary school students

The core of mental health content for primary school students is never to preach the truth, nor to treat children as "potential problem subjects" to screen and correct. Instead, it should conform to the cognitive development rules of children aged 6-12, integrate the three core modules of emotion recognition, interpersonal communication, and self-acceptance into their familiar classroom, family, and friendship scenes, and use words that children can understand and be willing to participate in soft penetration. This is the truly effective content design logic.

Last year, I worked as a volunteer lecturer for psychology classes in the third grade of a public primary school in Haidian. When I first prepared the class, I checked a lot of professional textbooks and clearly listed "anxiety emotion recognition" and "stress relief methods." As a result, when the word "anxiety" was mentioned in the first class, all the children opened their eyes in confusion. There was also a little boy who raised his hand and asked, "Teacher, can you eat anxiety?" ”. Later, I simply replaced all the professional words with what they often say: nervousness as "a little rabbit jumping around in my heart", sadness as "a wet little sponge on my chest", and irritability as "a little person in my heart throwing a tantrum and throwing things". As soon as the second class was finished, half of the children raised their hands, rushing to say that they had these little things living in their hearts when they had a quarrel with a good friend before the last final exam.

Regarding how to create mental health content for primary school students, there are actually two completely different voices in the industry. One group, mostly researchers from universities, advocates "screening first" and believes that standardized psychological assessments should be conducted on children regularly to identify individuals with depression and anxiety tendencies as early as possible and intervene in advance to avoid deterioration. In the past two years, many schools have implemented psychological censuses during the first semester of school, following this idea. However, many front-line primary school psychology teachers I have contacted have reservations about this method. I recently chatted with a full-time psychology teacher in Chaoyang District for 12 years, and she told me a real case: There was a little boy in fourth grade. His parents were getting divorced during the week of the assessment. He didn't sleep well for three days in a row, and his assessment score happened to be "high wind". The class teacher was afraid that something would go wrong, so he always "taken care of" him, not letting him participate in strenuous exercise, and privately told the class leaders to let him go more often. As a result, it didn't take long for the children in the entire class to spread the word that he was "mentally sick and should not be messed with." The originally cheerful child gradually became less talkative, and it took more than three months of individual consultation before he recovered.

However, despite the quarrel, both sides actually have a consensus: the mental health content of primary school students must not be made into a "cure" course, and it does not need to be very advanced. It is most effective when it is infiltrated into small daily details. I have seen many schools use clever methods. Some have set up a "mood wall" at the entrance of the classroom. The first thing the children do when they arrive at school every day is to put an emoticon on their mood. They can choose a happy or crying face. The teacher can tell at a glance which child may be in a bad mood today. When get out of class is over, he can quietly pull aside and ask a few questions. ； Some classes have set up an "emotional mini supermarket". If you are unhappy, you can get a virtual "hug coupon" and "right to use pinch music", or even apply for a 10-minute "window daze qualification". No one will think you are strange. On the contrary, most children regard the psychological classes that take place once a week and sit upright as a relaxation class, and they forget about it without taking it seriously.

Many parents have very polarized views on this topic. They either think "little brats can have something on their minds" and when their children are upset, they say "don't be pretentious" or "you're just free"; or they get so nervous when something is slightly wrong that they quickly search for "precursors of depression in children" and then take their children to the hospital to see a psychiatrist. In fact, the survey data released by the Institute of Child Development of Beijing Normal University last year illustrates the problem: less than 5% of primary school students actually meet the diagnostic criteria for clinical mental illness. The remaining so-called "emotional problems" are mostly trivial matters such as conflicts with classmates, being criticized by teachers for losing face, and being rejected by parents in interest classes they want to study. As long as there is an outlet for them to express their emotions, they can be up and running in less than half a day, and there is no need to go online. Some parents have asked me before if their children's inability to sit still in class is due to ADHD. In fact, clinically diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) accounts for only about 3% of primary school students. Most of the rest are just young, have short attention spans, or have no interest in the content of the class. If you label your children as "sick" casually, they will really turn small problems into big troubles.

When I was leaving the psychology class last time, a little girl with braids chased me out and gave me a crayon drawing. In the drawing, there were two little people, one with the word "angry" written in red, and the other with "happy" written in pink, sitting together and eating the same ice cream. You see, children actually think more clearly than we do. There are no good or bad emotions. Let them understand that "it is normal whether they are happy or sad. If you say it, someone will understand." This is the best mental health content.