Children’s mental health matters
When we try to talk about our feelings, we can feel lost and intimidated by opening ourselves up, right? But if we manage to acquire the know-how on communicating with and understanding others, as well as ourselves, it can help us to limit this fear.

What is mental health illiteracy?
When I was a child, my parents used to enlighten me about mental disorders and ill-being. They thought it was crucial for my development and growth. Also, they wanted to gift me with the ability to use mental health information for making health-promoting decisions. This is why I have been coping with the knowledge and beliefs about mental disorders from an early age. We will call this ability mental health literacy. Contrarily, mental health illiteracy means that people didn’t acquire any understanding or clarification of mental disorders. And this then further increases the disregard, neglect, and maltreatment of it. But if we want to take this matter seriously, we need to understand it first.
What should we know about children’s mental health illiteracy?
Mental health illiteracy can affect us all. Why would it then be urgent to specifically look at children’s mental health illiteracy? This is because early childhood is the most crucial phase in a person’s development. The basis for successful adulthood lies in a healthy state of mind from early years on. Since children are very influential human beings, it is urgent to make sure they develop their cognitive and emotional skills successfully. As such, children are an easy target group for research about mental health illiteracy. This is why it becomes very important to approach the issue where it all begins: in early childhood. Especially nowadays, children’s mental well-being has to become one of our main priorities!
Being mental health illiterate during a pandemic

As Covid-19 has impacted our everyday lives, children’s increase in mental health illiteracy is no exception to the pandemic’s catastrophic repercussions. How can a child learn about mental disorders and use this knowledge for making health-promoting decisions if it is being left behind? Let me explain the urgency of the issue here. In times of a pandemic, children suffer from isolation, loneliness, and family tensions, just to name a few. Can online classes really replace a classroom’s liveliness? No. Here, mental health illiteracy comes into the picture. Research has shown that following the pandemic, nine million adolescents between 10 and 19 in Europe suffer from mental health disorders. In this sense, children’s mental health illiteracy can be limited, if we start to pay more attention to enlightening them and de-stigmatize the topic. Because educating children about mental health disorders can empower them to use health information correctly and strive for a better future.
A complex and challenging issue
If you think about mental health illiterate children, do you think that this lack of literacy can be framed? I don’t think we will find a clear-cut answer for it. As I researched the topic of children’s mental health illiteracy, I mostly stumbled upon unclear definitions of this term. I realized that there is no real academic consensus on how we define children’s mental health illiteracy, nor how we can understand it. This makes the topic even more complex and urgent. When can we say that a child has sufficient skills to make health-promoting decisions? How can the future of a healthy youth be effectively treated if we don’t even have a clear foundation?

What can be done?
I believe that schools are a great solution to build a health literacy foundation. The educational environment should be turned towards raising more awareness about mental health illiteracy among children. Can you imagine how much safer and invested children would feel when going to school? Schools would represent a healthy working environment that normalizes enlightening children about mental disorders. I believe a de-stigmatization of the topic is just the right solution to make children grow into their best future possible. But in general, we can all contribute to it just by doing small things. Enforcing communication between us, openly talking about issues, and ensuring that youth does not consider mental health as a taboo topic. Because learning how to cope with emotions early in life already lays a foundation for a person’s future mental well-being.
What has been done?

Since mental health illiteracy is a branch-off of health illiteracy, it takes a back seat quite easily. Therefore, it is important to emphasize a more widespread implementation of policies in this domain on a European scale. For example, schools in Norway or Sweden create a safe space for youths by including mental health courses into the curriculum. This method seems to be very effective, as it would not only increase children’s beliefs but also their successful way of coping with health information. Also, some attempts have been made to raise awareness on the topic, such as the Mental Health Europe Week or the Health Literacy Europe campaign. We need to recognize the efficacity of these awareness-seeking events. But it is also safe to say that there still is a great lack of enlightenment of and focus on children’s mental health (il)literacy, which we need to further emphasize in the foreseeable future.
You said that Norway and Sweden have already added mental health to their curriculum, how fascinating!
What do you think it would take for other countries to take the same initiative of emphasizing the importance of mental health from a young age?
Thank you for your question! I think there is no simple way to answer it. As I stumbled upon some more literature about schools and mental health courses, I realized that some European countries offer voluntary mental health options for children at school. In general, numerous European countries believe these kinds of optional offers are sufficient. This is what I would consider the problem! Thus, it would take a change in perspective for other countries to take this initiative as well. Because if schools implemented this help in a more mandatory way, there would be more consensus about the urgency of the topic, as it affects us all. More than we realize! If you are more interested in the topic, I can suggest this article for further information: https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/camh.12160 . I hope this answers your question!
Hi Florine!
In your blog you talk about how we can all contribute to making mental health (literacy) less of a taboo. Do you maybe have tips on how to do that as effectively as possible?
Thank you! 😀
Hi Marie, thank you for showing interest in this matter! Indeed, I think there is a lot that every one of us can do to contribute to children’s mental health well-being. For example, we can start with little steps: talk openly about mental health issues or disorders. Try to embed those into your routine. Since children do not have sufficiently developed routines at such an early stage, they can be positively influenced into being enlightened about mental health disorders. Also, I read a very interesting blog about some strategies and the author suggested trying out different roleplays to make sure that children understand how to react towards others when they face this topic. (If you are interested in reading this blog as well, here is the link to it: https://www.twinkl.com.br/blog/how-to-encourage-mental-health-literacy-in-children ). All in all, I would suggest approaching children’s mental health illiteracy in a normal and objective way and not treating affected children as if they did something wrong. Because children are extremely vulnerable, we need to focus on de-stigmatizing the topic! I hope this helped to get a little insight into the topic! 🙂
While researching this topic, did you find any possible solutions outside of the educational setting to increase literacy on mental health for children?
I am asking since I know in my school in Finland there was such a “programme” set up, but I think the children were a bit too young to grasp it and it was almost “mocked” and in a sense created more taboo around it. Of course this isn’t always the case and it depends on what age the children are!
Hi Amanda, thank you for your question ad your insight on the topic! Actually, it was very difficult to find information outside of the educational environment for improving children’s mental health literacy. I found some interesting blogs about what every one of us can do, such as talk openly about mental health with children/about children or simply normalize it (I linked a very interesting blog about it just above, under Marie’s comment, if you’re interested) And then, I realized that a huge part of the literature I stumbled upon was addressed to parents or parental figures. And it was, thus, linked to how the setting at home has an incredibly important impact on increasing mental health literacy for children. One of the great articles I found is https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31152099/ . So, I believe that the educational setting and the setting at home seemed to be the best solution for children to develop fruitfully since schools and home are environments which are part of a children’s routine and would, thus represent the more convincing, powerful and influenceable tools for enlightening AND training children about mental health literacy. I hope this answers your question! If not, please feel free to ask further questions 🙂
Yes, I was mainly curious if there were some more possible solutions, but they do seem the most intuitive initiatives! Thank you for your answer, very interesting discussions in the threads!
Indeed, I think it is very interesting to look at the different solutions there could be! I hope I could help. If you’d like to discuss any further topics, I would gladly embark upon this discussion 🙂
In this blog you have emphasised the importance of mental health literacy among children and adolecents, but I am curious to see if you have come across mental health literacy in adults. While researching, have you come across anything that suggests that the ‘wrongdoing’ in not informing children enough about mental health, can be adjusted when these children have become adults? In other words, is mental health illiteracy in children final and something that cannot be readjusted, or can adults still become mental health literates?
Hi Isis, thank you for showing interest in my blog. Indeed, I believe enlightening people (not just children) can be a very subjective matter. I also strongly believe that, as for all other life-learning topics, you can always find room for improving your knowledge and applying the latter in your (daily) life, no matter how old you are. But as I mainly focused on children’s mental health illiteracy, I did not really stumble upon adults’ mental health illiteracy. However, your question intrigued me. This is why I have made some research about it. And I found that there are numerous programs for adults and help campaigns as well. For example, I enjoyed reading this article: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/health_glance_eur-2018-4-en.pdf?expires=1638917198&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=2B7AA1B2EB1C23F447562265E2652240 . Especially around page 30, I found that there is a wide-ranging help program for improving mental health literacy for adults by the OECD, named the “OECD Recommendation of the Council on Integrated Mental Health, Skills and Work Policy”. So, to answer your question, I believe that mental health illiteracy for children is far away from being final. This can always be readjusted/ improved/ renewed in life, no matter who you are. And I strongly support it! I hope this answers your question. 🙂
Thank you for your reply and for the further research that you’ve done to answer my question! I will definitely take a look at the source you’ve sent me!
Thank you! I am glad I could help. And if you have any further questions, I would gladly (help to) answer them 🙂
Hi Florine! What an interesting topic!
I did, however, had a question regarding mental health literacy of adults. Can it be stated that adults who did not have any mental health education in their youth or are “mental health” illiterate, are more likely to have mental health issues? Could that also be a basis for why it is essential to start with mental health education at such a young age?
Thank you!
Hi Rozemarijn, thank you for this insightful question! I think your question can be answered very subjectively. In my opinion, being mental health illiterate can be linked to having mental health issues. But it doesn’t have to. By that, I mean that having mental health issues can be caused by numerous factors. For example, being born with a mental disorder or developing one after experiencing a traumatizing experience in life. In this sense, I would state that having acquired knowledge about mental health disorders could not entirely help me to cope with my (hypothetical) trauma. It would perhaps help me to know how to behave in social situations or how to verbally approach the issue with someone else. Thus, being mental health illiterate would, in this situation, just influence my personal mental health issues to a certain degree. To answer your question, I would still say that the terms “mental health illiteracy” and “mental health issues” are too dissimilar. Thus, I would not say that mental health illiterate people are more likely to have mental health issues. But in regards to your second question, I believe that enlightening a person about a crucial topic such as this one can only benefit the person on every level possible. Therefore, I am a fierce advocate of starting with all types of education from an early age. I hope I could give you some insights into my opinion on this topic 🙂
Hi Florine! I really enjoyed reading your blog post. I was very insightful and interesting! However, I was still wondering about the choice of your pictures. I think they can be very interpretative and also fit to your explained topics in a very coherent way. Could you, however, maybe give me a little bit more insights into the specific choice of your pictures? Thank you!
Hi Lukas, thank you for this question. As it merely concerns my layout, I would like to answer in a rather brief and clear way. 🙂 Indeed, I decided to use pictures that my readers could interpret freely. I want my readers to follow the same path I encountered when summarizing my literary findings. As these were numerous and multifaceted, I want my readers to read the blog as a rather open and subjective story. I decided to play with the elements of light and nature in my posts, as these represent freedom, enlightenment, and peace for me personally. And since children are my main focus, I want the blog to be coherent with the topic. As for the picture next to my paragraph about the pandemic, it reflects also on the dreariness that children (can) encompass during such difficult times.
I hope this answered your question sufficiently. If not, please feel free to ask again!
Hello Florine, I found your blog very interesting because the mental health of young people is very important especially in these times of social networks and pandemic everything. Do you think that in order to tackle this taboo subject, it should be more normalised in schools where children and young people spend more time during the day, like in sweden and norway, to have classes like maths or science in order to eliminate this taboo and treat this problem with more normality?
Thank you very much.
Hi, thank you for your interesting question! If I understood your question correctly, I would say that I believe in the power and influence of schools for enlightening children about mental health disorders. I also strongly believe that more countries should follow Sweden’s or Norway’s lead in this matter. I think you can never educate or enlighten youth enough about such important topics! Thus, I believe a mandatory (mental) health course should be implemented as much as possible in the educational setting. As I read a lot of literature about this topic in correlation to schools, I found this great blog post about how important schools can be in this regard. If you’re interested as well: https://www.forbesindia.com/blog/health/it-all-starts-in-the-classroom-prioritise-mental-health-in-school-to-create-a-secure-future-for-children/ . So, to summarize, I think schools should be used in a more effective way to enlighten children, but also prevent them from getting wrong ‘mental health behaviors’. I think there should at least be more awareness about how important children’s well-being is. And how much schools CAN do to prioritize children’s mental health literacy! I hope this answers your question 🙂