A former middle school teacher in southern Indiana sparked debate by questioning whether growing use of student mental health days has swung too far, potentially teaching avoidance instead of resilience. Samantha Jo Payne, 26, described seeing eighth graders missing one or two days weekly and struggling academically as a result. She recalled students returning to school saying, “I’m fine. I just didn’t feel like coming, and my mom said I could stay home,” or staying home to avoid social drama with friends. Payne argues that framing everyday challenges as mental health crises teaches avoidance rather than coping skills: “I feel like people are avoiding hard things. Not every stressful moment should be treated as a mental health crisis.”
The debate reflects a pendulum shift in education over recent decades. For much of the past century, children were taught to suppress emotional discomfort with familiar refrains like “toughen up” or “move on.” Schools have since made a necessary correction by weaving social-emotional learning into classrooms, discussing mental health openly, and encouraging students to name feelings and ask for help. However, some question whether this shift has gone too far. Payne’s viral TikTok video sparked divided responses, with some viewers strongly supporting restrictions on mental health days, while others with anxiety disorders or children with serious mental illness pushed back, noting that legitimate mental health struggles are scary and require flexibility.
Dr. Deborah Gilboa, a family physician and resilience expert, frames the issue as one of parental judgment rather than a choice between compassion and toughness. “Sometimes kids genuinely need rest and recovery for mental distress, and sometimes what they need is to build perseverance and resilience by pushing through it,” Gilboa said. She emphasized that determining which response is appropriate is one of parenting’s harder calls. However, Gilboa expressed concern that drawing sharp distinctions between physical and mental illness could minimize mental health conditions. “I’d want to be careful about the idea that physical illness is always valid and mental illness is not,” she cautioned. “Mental distress and mental illness are very real and they deserve to be taken seriously.”
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/health/mental-health-days-school-teacher-questions-about-resilience/3966247/