'Nervous rants' and crying at school: Teachers say poor mental health is the biggest issue facing Australia's youth – ABC News
Teachers say poor mental health, excessive screen time, the biggest problems facing young people
Poor mental health and excessive screen time are the biggest problems facing young people, according to a new survey of more than 2,000 Australian teachers.
Braemar College year 11 student Alanah has noticed more stress and anxiety among her peers, as they cope with growing pressures from home and elsewhere.
"[There have been] more noticeable moments where people are upset at school," she told the ABC.
"People kind of go on nervous rants. I've seen some people cry in really bad circumstances."
Her observations have been backed by a national survey of teachers, which found the vast majority believe poor mental health is the biggest problem confronting young people today.
A 2023 Beyond Blue survey, released exclusively to the ABC, found only one in three teachers believed students at their school were mentally healthy.
And the percentage of teachers who thought their schools were mentally healthy also fell from 50 per cent in 2022, to just 40 per cent this year.
Of the 2,369 teachers surveyed, about nine in 10 said high staff turnover was affecting their wellbeing, and close to 80 per cent believed it was impacting their students.
Braemar College wellbeing specialist Emma Grant said the novelty of returning to the classroom following Victoria's lockdowns had worn off.
She said spending years in isolation had left many young people lacking a sense of purpose, as well as the social skills they would normally build in school.
"They're not learning social awareness. They're not learning how to read emotions. They're not learning body language," Ms Grant said.
"A 16-year-old is not where you would typically see a 16-year-old, for example. Same with a 14-year-old. They're missing some of those socio-emotional key skills."
While the rise of smartphones had brought with it some positives, like helping kids connect with their friends, it made it harder for some students to focus.
Teachers told Beyond Blue's survey that "excessive screen time" was also one of the biggest problems facing young people — second only to poor mental health.
Social media has also become another source of pressure for Alanah and her peers during their final years of school.
"There's this need to kind of show off, and show that you have friends and that you're doing all these things — and if you don't you kind of get outcast," she said.
"I think it's definitely hard to switch off, especially at lunch time you walk around, everyone's just scrolling."
Schools across the country will soon have access to new mental health resources to improve student wellbeing and help them access support.
The new resources from the Australian Curriculum and Assessment Reporting Authority (ACARA) weave mental wellbeing lessons into other subjects like English and the humanities.
"We don't want students to think the only time we're talking about the importance of mental health and wellbeing is when they walk into a class and timetable that has health and physical education on it," ACARA's curriculum director Sharon Foster said.
ACARA developed the new resources with the National Mental Health Commission, Beyond Blue, Headspace and teachers from across Australia.
Ms Foster said education ministers requested a review of the mental health curriculum after the double whammy of natural disasters and the pandemic.
At Braemar College, Ms Grant said those resources would be welcome in the classroom.
She believed wellbeing and learning were intrinsically linked and said anything to help teachers support students was a positive.
"If a student is well, they're going to learn well. If a student is overwhelmed, anxious, stressed, whatever term you want to use, their mind shuts down [and] they're not going to learn," she said.
"It's every teacher's job in the school to look after the wellbeing of our young people within every classroom."
We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.
This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.
AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)