How Parents and Professionals Can Support Gen Z Students Struggling with Stress, Anxiety, and Trauma

The mental health crisis facing Gen Z students, as noted in a recent Higher Ed Gamma article, is alarming yet not surprising given this generation's unprecedented exposure to stress, trauma, and uncertainty from an early age. While society must address systemic sources fueling this epidemic, parents and education professionals can also take constructive steps to bolster Gen Z's resilience day-to-day.

Destigmatize Mental Health

For Gen Z to access help readily, mental health needs destigmatizing through open dialogue and modeling self-care as routine - not just a crisis response. Parents can share their own experiences managing stress and seeking counseling when needed. Educators can normalize mental health days alongside sick days. Frame self-care as preventative health rather than weakness.

Teach Coping Skills

Equip Gen Z with practical coping skills to independently manage difficult emotions and stressors. Valuable skills include breathing exercises, grounding techniques, cognitive restructuring, conflict resolution, time management, goal setting, mindfulness practices, self-care routines, help-seeking, and healthy self-talk. Weave these lessons into health education. Have school counselors give coping tool workshops. Send tip sheets home to parents.

Gen Z faces unique challenges. How can we support them?

Adjust Academic Pressure

Workload, competitiveness, and high-stakes testing significantly affect student mental health. Audit academic environments and adjust pacing, rigor, and assessments to sustainable levels that still challenge students appropriately. Limit college admissions hype and unhelpful comparisons. Emphasize learning over ratings. Give students latitude in assignments to tap strengths and interests.

Increase Mental Health Supports

Students need adequate access to counseling, therapy, crisis assistance, and peer support. Audit school resources and shore up gaps. Hire diverse staff competent with Gen Z-relevant issues like social media, discrimination, and identity. Ensure services match student needs, not staff interests. Advertise services widely in formats students use. Have a counselor introduce themselves at orientations. Use advisory periods to check in on mental health.

Train Educators

Equip educators to recognize warning signs of common conditions like depression, trauma, eating disorders, and self-harm so they can connect students to help. Provide training on trauma-informed teaching practices to avoid retriggering. Give teachers verbiage to sensitively check in with struggling students and guidance on handling disclosures and emergencies per policy. Ensure substitute teachers are informed.

Foster Connections

Social isolation exacerbates mental health issues. Counteract this by integrating relationship-building and peer support into learning communities. Advisories, group projects, peer mentors, student organizations, and service opportunities all widen circles of care. Be alert to socially withdrawn students and gently help make connections: model healthy communication, conflict resolution, and vulnerability.

Discuss Tough Topics

Current events are emotionally impacting students daily, from school shootings to racism to climate change. Ignoring issues creates fear and isolation. Actively engage in age-appropriate ways, such as through news/media literacy, research projects, open dialogue, and student activism. Process feelings together. Contextualize events factually and historically to add perspective. Foster hope by brainstorming solutions students can pursue.

Promote Balanced Living

Gen Z often deprives themselves of sleep, nutrition, social connection, downtime, and outlets like sports and nature. Teach rhythm of work and rest. Discourage overscheduling. Limit homework. Remind families to balance activities and priorities. Build in time to move, play, create, relax. Share techniques to reduce social media and screen time. Help students cut guilt about saying no.

Partner with Parents

Parents have unique opportunities to monitor student wellbeing and partner on interventions. Maintain frequent communication. Notify parents if concerns arise and enlist help reinforcing care plans at home. Provide parent education on mental health, internet safety, and learning issues. Make counseling and referrals readily available to parents as well.

Empower Student Voice

Students often have savvy solutions if we engage them as partners in mental health initiatives. Include student leaders in planning, policies, programs, and messaging. Gather input through surveys and forums. Train peer counselors. Support student-led campaigns on topics like stigma, self-care, suicide prevention, and equality that will amplify their voices and ideas for change.

While daunting systemic factors underlie Gen Z's mental health crisis, caring adults can make an immediate difference in helping students build resilience. Through understanding, skills, and more robust support networks, we can empower Gen Z with hope, help, and the knowledge that they are not alone.