Time Out

As we approach another school year we need to be resigned to the fact that our kids are at risk for going to school. It was supposed to be a place for nurturing, learning and comradeship but instead it has become a place for drug use, hate speech and shootings to kill them all. Thanks to the ever so present  tweets from our President that promotes name calling and bullying our young impressionable minds see this as a green light for their own bad behaviour. Mental health issues are at a all time high among our teens. Our kids are at risk from the voice from our President to chat lines to internet sites that are free to promote domestic terrorism to gun use for mentally unstable youth. Then need mental health days just to regroup.

Oregon is one of the first states to take steps to realize that our youth needs help with excused absence from school without influencing their grades because of absences. This school season when the students return to school there will be a Bill to allow their students to call out sick not just when they are physically ill but when they also need a mental health day. The idea was student led with high schoolers testifying in front of lawmakers in Oregon pleading with the idea of time off to decompress when things go badly in their personal lives, in the news of mass shootings and effects of bullying that they all have experienced in one way or another either directly or indirectly.  Yes! They need time to think!

America's children are suffering from anxiety that now even kindergarteners are required to practice shut down hiding days instead of fun days at school. When teens take a day off it will be bad for their grades when they take unexcused days off and will affect their grades lower. Now they can have an excused absence and will be able to make up missed assignments. Oregon has one of the highest rates of teen suicide in the United States according to the Oregon Health Authority. Teen suicide is the second leading cause of death for folks  between the ages of 10-34. Yes our youth is willingly killing themselves. They need mental help. A reason to live. Hope for their futures!

Nationally suicide is at a 50-year high. Anxiety is everywhere among everyone. People don't want to even see the nightly news for fear of just more depression since there is so many killing and hate going on daily everywhere. Why try to live then? Where is the gun? Right here because the 2nd Amendment written in the 1700's said we can have one, a few, many high powered weapons of war found on the Internet with just 2 day shipping no questions asked. So easy to kill now. 

With the new Oregon law mental health days will be considered excused absences. They should follow it up with a requirement to produce a note from your psychiatrist or therapist to ensure you didn't use the time off to act on your bad instincts but got therapy to help you with your unruly thoughts just like schools want a doctors note for your physical illnesses while gone from classes. Students won't be penalized and they can make up exams. Yes let's promote less anxiety instead of more suggesting that teachers carry weapons in classrooms. 

Behavioral Health is at the top of problems in America now and should be at the top of the heap in programs. Even adults at work should be able to be honest about being able to take a day off to deal with depression, the pain of broken families, the possibility of jail time if you have a miscarriage and to not have to be anxious about not being able to make up work. There are so many reasons to be stressed and just plain crazy about. We all need more help with our thoughts and then maybe our actions would be less dangerous to others and to ourselves. 

Kids are already taking off days from school for mental reasons but the difference is that they are lying about it, hiding it till they act dangerously from their anxieties to themselves and to others. The new Oregon law says that any student can take up to 5 days off over a 3 month period for an excused absence. Each school will be able to revise it as they see fit. Schools who have experienced a mass shooting will probably need more time to heal. How can a law NOT help? We need  to spread laws like this to all states across America and then maybe this could possibly be a happier more ethical country towards us all. THIS would make America great not Trump's constant hate speech.