EDITORIAL: For the sake of our children, it’s time for American adults to grow up – By Las Vegas Sun Editorial Board (Las Vegas Sun) / June 4 2021
An alarming number of America’s children are struggling with mental health issues, and the causes go well beyond the pandemic. Too many of our children struggle to believe in their future and have little faith that problems can be fixed. It’s as if the hopelessness long documented by beleaguered inner-city youths has started spreading to all kids.
This crisis is revealing itself in a number of ways. A few of the signs:
• A recent national poll conducted by the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Michigan showed that more than one-third of teenage girls and a fifth of teen boys have experienced the onset of anxiety or worsening of anxiety.
• The nonprofit advocacy group Mental Health America reports that the proportion of 11- to 17-year-olds who sought mental health screening in 2020 was up 9% over the average in 2019. In addition, kids in that age range were “more likely than any other age group to score for moderate to severe symptoms of anxiety and depression,” according to the report.
• Suicidal ideation and suicide attempts among children are at high levels. This week, the largest pediatric hospital in Colorado declared a state of emergency on youth suicides, with its CEO/CMO saying the staff had been “overrun with kids attempting suicide and suffering from other forms of major mental health illness.” At the Aurora-based hospital, emergency room visits for suicidal ideation or attempts were up 72% this year through April compared with the same period last year.
We saw the problem from a heartbreakingly close view in Las Vegas, with reports of a high number of suicides among students during the pandemic, as well as a flood of alerts to a mental health early-warning system maintained by the Clark County School District.
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