Txt Msg Action!
Text, Talk, Act to Improve Mental Health
Finding ways for our kids to talk about mental illness and mental health is really important. I live near Washington DC and had to read last week about a local high school with 6 suicides in the past two years. Two of the kids were 15 years old. Imagining the pain of the parents of these kids almost made me sick. It does make me ache. I'm a mother of a now grown child who was very, very sick with bipolar disorder and anxiety as a teenager so this strikes very close to home.
Our teenage and young adult children are very aware of not only their own struggles, but of stories like this one.....and of friends and acquaintances, and family members struggling with depression, eating disorders and other serious challenges. They read, they see things, and they feel. But talking? That's tough. There is so much misunderstanding, fear of stigma, stereotyping and shame. Mental health issues are very hard to discuss. It's the non-conversation.
I'm part of a team that's been working for a year to create a national dialogue on mental health. On April 24 there will be a nation-wide dialogue event aimed right at the text messaging generation. It's called Text, Talk and Act. It's very simple and low key. You can participate where you're comfortable. Four people get together and text into the same number. They get a welcome message and for the next hour they talk about questions texted to them, and text back their ideas. If they can get online they can see real time answers coming in from participants around the country.
Youth who participated in our December pilot really liked this. They came up with actions to take when the dialogue was through. So we're doing it again, and aiming bigger. Because on the issue of mental health we need to make it OK to talk about.
To learn more, see the Text Talk Act page on our website - http://www.creatingcommunitysolutions.org/texttalkact.
Naturally parents can participate, too. Take an hour to talk about something SO important - at church, at a PTA meeting, at the local coffee shop, in your living room. Maybe with your teenage kids.
Text, Talk and Act. Text "START" to 89800 anytime on April 24!
Related Posts
The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of MomsRising.org.
MomsRising.org strongly encourages our readers to post comments in response to blog posts. We value diversity of opinions and perspectives. Our goals for this space are to be educational, thought-provoking, and respectful. So we actively moderate comments and we reserve the right to edit or remove comments that undermine these goals. Thanks!