Bell Let's Talk Day: 'I know the desperation parents have' –?Q and A with teen mental health advocate Chris Coulter

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Close to a decade ago, Chris Coulter lost his 14-year-old daughter, Maddie, to suicide. Since then, he has made it his mission to spread awareness about the importance of teen mental health and the lack of proper preventative and remediation measures put into place in schools that could help young people process and understand their emotions better while also encouraging them to reach out to someone they trust when they need help.

He has gone on to publish the book Wake Up You Could Lose Your Child to Suicide?to help other parents who have children experiencing the same things as Maddie see the signs and intervene before a tragedy occurs. He also co-ran an SEL program, HowAreYouFeeling.org, that can be implemented in schools to teach children and their loved ones about mental and emotional health, its importance, and how to process complex and challenging emotions to foster optimal mental health.

Today, Chris continues to fight for children like Maddie while assisting parents, teachers, and others in understanding the importance of the mental health conversation when it comes to teens and encouraging others to open up the discussion even further to squash the stigma and make others feel more comfortable sharing their own stories, creating a widespread safe space for teens struggling with their mental health.

With the focus of Bell Let’s Talk Day on youth mental health, Chris shared his experiences, insights and advice for parents in the following Q and A with Healthing.

Q: What can you tell me about teen mental health and why it’s such an important topic for people to be discussing?

Coulter: Well, there’s my perspective as a parent who lost, almost 10 years ago, my 14-year-old daughter to suicide. So, I’ve spent a considerable amount of the last decade kind of coaching, sharing, and talking about our experiences, and strangely enough, even though 2015 doesn’t seem like it was that long ago, where conversations with regard to mental health, youth, mental health, in particular, have the frequency in which you see people writing and talking about it now has just exponentially grown. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that so many parents right now are dealing with a troubled child who’s dealing with anxious and depressive episodes and having been on the receiving end of so many of those calls and inquiries, I know the desperation parents have in trying to find solutions. They just want their child to be happy, and as simple as that is, achieving that is virtually impossible some days.

Q: What are the most common mental health issues that you’ve seen being faced by teens today?

Coulter: A lot of anxiety and depression, I would say those primarily. I haven’t, although I know it is very prevalent, cyberbullying is still prevalent, although I haven’t seen it. But it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I know it certainly does. Just bullying in general, and bullying conjures up all sorts of emotions going back to the schoolyard back when we were in public school. But bullying now has taken on a completely different perspective. It’s now in high schools and universities. It’s in the workplace and in many capacities, so if we don’t deal with the teen mental health epidemic that is currently happening, the problem is just going to become exasperated as these teens go on into university and into the workplace and start bringing up their own kids.

Q: What drives the declining mental health in teens, and does bullying have a place there?

Coulter: Bullying, self-awareness, or self-confidence, is another big issue. But social media, without a doubt, is a primary contributor to that as well. The challenge with social media is kids see these aspirational, inspirational, influential people, and they try to mirror or attain the level of success or popularity, and the challenge is they’re measuring themselves against an impossible ideal. The challenge with social media is it just makes you feel empty and hollow afterward because—we’ve all heard the expressions of hate liking someone’s post—there is a resentment toward all these people who have these greater, these perfect lives. And unfortunately, what that does is make kids feel worse about themselves and their self-confidence. And I saw that, not so much in my boys, but definitely in my daughter for sure. I think social media, emotional awareness, and understanding that the kids aren’t taught about their emotions in school. Mental health programs for the kids are a joke, and so, if you want to make meaningful change, you actually have to have meaningful education. Not this little light, let’s meditate, Kumbaya, in the circle of life. It doesn’t work like that. Their kids are facing some really deep and dark and challenging subjects, and they’re trying to navigate a lot of this stuff on their own, and they don’t know how. And that’s where I think there’s not a sole responsibility on the part of schools, but in conjunction with parenting in schools, we’ve got to do a better job of teaching these kids that life isn’t a screen, life isn’t a social media post. It’s much bigger and more important than that.

Q: Why do you think these influential organizations, like schools, which play a significant role in how these young minds are being shaped, have such a faulty approach toward teen mental health?

Coulter: I think there are a few reasons for that. One, I think big entities like school boards are very resistant to change. It takes a long time. I think you’ve got a resentful teaching population who think it’s going to represent more workload on them and skills that they currently don’t have, which is actually not the case. A lot of the SEL programs out there are happy to take on that for the kids. And, I think the other big factor is the fear of litigation even though it’s been scientifically proven that by asking someone if they’re suicidal, they are less inclined to be suicidal if, after upon asking, I think that teachers, they’re just using this as an excuse that if someone dies and they just saw a program that taught them about their emotions and they’re going to rationalize that is caused them to die by suicide. As faulty as their reasoning is, I think litigation and, here’s the challenge, most of the senior level executives within all the school boards are lawyers, so I think that might speak to the fact that they’re fearful of lawsuits. But their facts are to be challenged.

Q: So, it’s almost like they’re protecting themselves before they’re protecting students?

Coulter: It’s my belief, and I could argue that today.

Q: What can you tell me about certain common misconceptions that people hold when it comes to teen mental health that make it harder to spread awareness and have these teens know how to process their emotions and how to go through these things and speak out?

Coulter: I think, today, there are a lot of advocates. There’s a lot more advocacy for youth mental health than there ever has been. I think kids are very self-aware relative to that, but they don’t know all the stuff, and I think that’s really important in being able to identify that because, as much as they may relate to grief, they’re not taught how to process grief, and you can’t escape grief at any point in your life. We all know that feeling. What it’s like if we’ve lost a family pet and how hollow that makes you feel. But imagine what happens when you lose a grandparent or a friend to suicide, or someone has a drug overdose, and kids are left to process this on their own without the guidance and expertise of those who can properly lead them.

Q: In your opinion, through the advocacy work that you’ve done, do you think that there’s a difference between addressing teen mental health and addressing teen mental illness?

Coulter: One basically comes down to prevention. The other is remediation, so prevention, and I’m a huge advocate for prevention, that’s where I feel a lot of these SEL programs, social emotional learning programs, should be taught in schools so kids can actually learn from them. And the challenge is, and I’ll use a statistic. When I ran a program called How Are You Feeling?, which is a social emotional learning program, we had 500 kids who went through the program. It was a volunteer program that taught kids about their emotions and processing and understanding, and how to move beyond them. We gave access to not only students, but we also gave access with an explanation to the parents that they could actually learn a lot from this as well, and we had teachers, and we had parents who had gone through it and said this is such important training and we shared all that. Of the 500 kids who went through it, less than 5 per cent of the parents actually went through the program when they had access to it. So, as much as yes, you get in front of people, get in front of the kids early enough, then there’s a very good chance we’ll get through to them. The challenge is people don’t respond unless there’s a sense of urgency, it seems. So, where is all the money? Healthcare problems could be addressed so much quicker if we had a massive program in place which would reduce the amount of mental illness down the road appreciably. But everyone touts prevention, but remediation gets all the attention, and that’s where all the attention, and all the dollars and all the resources (are going), unfortunately. It is preventable, and as much as I go, you know what, there’s a very high percentage chance that your child could be affected by mental health challenges in their teens, and if you followed this program, go through this program with your child, there is a better chance that they won’t experience it. How many of you do you think actually went through the program? And that’s the sad part, and then I get all saying we never saw it coming. We never saw it coming, and then it’s like you don’t always have the signs, but you have the opportunity to do something about it. You elected not to.

Q: So, to build on that, how can parents know if their teen is struggling in terms of some warning signs, whether subtle or obvious?

Coulter: The most important thing I could say from a parenting perspective: Shut your mouth and open your ears, and don’t try to fix your kid. Just lean in and listen, and it can be really awkward silence for a period of time, but if there’s something your child wants to share with you, and if there’s trust and foundation there, which often there is, sometimes it’s just a matter of going out for a coffee, it could be lying on the bed, just kind of chatting. Those are the types of conversations where a child will open up. Or seeing the hidden message and it’s probing beyond the obvious. All parents go, ‘Hey, how was your day?’ How do kids respond? Fine. Very few actually dig deeper. Typically, parents ask closed-ended questions. They need to engage in conversation and encourage it. Also, giving the understanding that when they say stuff, they’re not going to be punished for it. There’s no consequence to it. You embrace them, and you celebrate them for sharing and trusting you with that. So, we have to take our punitive hat off and start celebrating our kids’ wins and sharing an uncomfortable conversation with a parent. Parents may see that as a negative, but they have to see it also as a victory and as a win because those are the types of conversations that should open your world up to what your teen experiences.

Q: What if a teen isn’t willing to share, but parents still have suspicions based on some checklist they saw online? Should they push harder, or should they fall back? What do you think would be the most optimal route there to open up that conversation?

Coulter: There’s a couple of things if they’re not willing to open it up. Maybe the foundation of trust isn’t there, and I like to use a phrase a friend of mine said many years ago. There’s no such thing as a speedy relationship, and just because you’re related by blood doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s a relationship. Often, there’s such a dysfunctional relationship that needs to be addressed, so maybe perhaps it is parent counselling. Perhaps it’s some kids are so apprehensive and reluctant to go to therapy because of that stigma, but maybe it’s about getting them a coach or a mentor that can help them build their confidence, help give them some direction, help them to grow emotionally. So, those are other potential avenues that parents can take. The only thing I’ll suggest, if you’re going to go into the online rabbit hole, is to make sure that you actually are reading some credible people because there are a lot of opinions. I’m sure people have that opinion of me in that way, but mine are lived experiences. So, I will preface that I don’t have a professional designation or certification in parenting or in therapy. I will preface it by saying my experiences are lived experiences.

Q: Do you have any more examples of reputable places that parents can go to online so they don’t end up in that rabbit hole full of misinformation?

Coulter: If you go to some of the more reputable charitable mental health organizations, like CAMH or the Canadian Mental Health Association or some other ones like Jack.org or Kids Help Phone. There’s usually a whole list of resources that they have. If they’re looking for something specifically, they can e-mail me. I’ve got a bunch of resources that may be more specific to what they might be looking for, but that’s certainly something as well.

Q: For teens who don’t feel comfortable speaking to their parents because that foundation of trust isn’t there, or for teens who maybe don’t have parents, they are living with friends, or their situation is not your typical situation, how do they find resources when they notice themselves feeling unlike their peers, or they don’t understand their emotions, and they don’t know what to do about it?

Coulter: Think parents aside, and sometimes the fear of going to parents is an obstacle for them to getting help. So, talking to close friends, being vulnerable, talking to your GP, could be a hockey coach, a sports coach, or a mentor of some sort. It could be a family friend, a religious leader, anyone that you feel trusted in talking and the most important thing, going back to what I said earlier, it’s listening without trying to fix. If they are looking for resources, you can help them try to find resources, but there are so many free resources available that, right now, aren’t even considered often because when people go through this, there’s a strong feeling of shame and embarrassment, or someone’s going to judge me or I’m going to open myself up to be scrutinized. So, it’s a very complex problem. It’s funny how what might seem obvious to you, and I may not be that obvious to someone who’s really struggling.

Q: Mental health is very widespread in teens especially. Why do you think that sort of embarrassment, that shame, that stigma is still so strong now that conversation has gotten better and it is more well-known that many teens struggle with these same things?

Coulter: As a society, we’ve kind of come to accept mental health or mental illness or anything within the kind of mental health realm as understandable, and we understand that it exists, so that’s from a societal standpoint. But I think people are still very reticent to point the spotlight on themselves and share their story. So, I think it’s much better than it used to be. Individually, people are still challenged because of that vulnerability side of things that they’re afraid that they’re going to be judged. And unfortunately, that’s the biggest obstacle that a lot of teens probably face.

Q: What do you think needs to happen for that obstacle to be torn down completely?

Coulter: The most important thing is to start making mental health a normal part of your family conversations. If you start talking about mental health naturally when a mental health issue arises, there will be a comfort level to hopefully come and talk to the parents.

Q: Is there anything else about teen mental health that you think is important for readers to know?

Coulter: One of our biggest opportunities is to introduce better mental and emotional health programs within our schools, and if you feel that your school is not doing the job, they should reach out. What we’re trying to create is this army of advocacy for mental health. It’s on a lot of people’s minds. It’s scary, and if they would like to impact and affect change, I tell them, you know what, I’d love for them to reach out to me, send me an e-mail and say they’d like to get involved.

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For Bell Let’s Talk Day on January 22, Canadians can donate $5 by texting YOUTH to 45678, with 100 per cent of proceeds supporting six youth mental health organizations: Integrated Youth Services,?Jack.org,?Kids Help Phone,?National Association of Friendship Centres,?Strongest Families Institute, and?Youth In Mind Foundation. Bell will match all $5 donations up to $1 million. This year’s campaign highlights progress in mental health care while addressing the ongoing challenges faced by Canadian youth amid a growing mental health crisis. For more information, visit letstalk.bell.ca.