Aibu to give my dc two MH days a year

[Codywolf]

Hi
I was talking to my friend about how I give my secondary aged children two mental health days to use when they need a break
and she looked horrified

My dc cannot take the day off if there is a test or activity but otherwise can use them when they need to

So Aibu to allow them these days

We all have mental health, so how is it offensive to call it a mental health day?
To help me maintain better mental health I schedule in a few days off work a year where I dedicate my time to my well-being. So I can see how the op might think that could help her children too.

Because calling it a Mental Health Day implies that this is something OP's DC need for reasons related to their Mental Health, which they don't. It implies that if they don't spent the day doing as they please and instead go about their usual daily routine (i.e school) this will somehow be detrimental to their Mental Health, which it won't. By your logic, there's no such thing as skiving or bunking off because we can just call it a Mental Health Day. Scheduling a few days off work a year as you describe is one thing, but unplanned random days off on the spur of the moment because you just don't fancy going into work would be another thing altogether. The two situations aren't comparable. There is no reason why OP's DC can't dedicate time to their well-being on weekends, evenings or the 13 weeks off a year they get for school holidays.

School kids get plenty of “factored in” downtime. Like a week off every six weeks or so, and six whole weeks in the summer.
They’re not actually being sent up chimneys for 12 hour shifts. Deciding you are going to add a random two days extra to that is not protecting your child’s mental health, it’s allowing them an extra two days off
What happens to all those poor souls expected to show up every day? Are their parents neglectful and mean? Does their mental health suffer exponentially? What utter rot.

A brilliant idea! Coming from a teacher & a mum of a stressed teenage boy. I’m going to do the same.

That's an effect of resilience (if by 'toughing it up' you mean not visibly going to pieces over small stuff).
You know exactly what I mean, but just to clarify:
Part of being resilient is having and deploying a range of strategies in order not to fall apart on the tiniest lumps and bumps of life.
Aka toughing it up.

Giving a get out of jail free card to any tiny thing, or just wanting a day in bed doesn't teach resilience. It teaches children and teens that they are fragile and couldn't possibly cope with life without having an opt out every step of the way. Then we wonder how we get graduates from universities surprised that workplaces and graduate programmes don't seem to be able to cope with the tiniest bits of adulting.

This does seem to be a millennial construction manual!

You aren't being unreasonable to take care of their mental health.

You are to allocate them 2 and let them decide when to use them.

I think as a parent you decide at the time.

104 weekend days off a year. 65 holiday days off.

Extra time off without illness is just unauthorised absence.

Teachers will be being marked down by management and OFSTED for the work lost and the standards fallen because of those days.

If there were any mechanism for parents taking responsibility for the consequences of lost school time I would say go ahead but the burden falls on others.

SciFiRules
It does.
My youngest sibling has friends in their early 20s and hearing some of them talk is like a therapy manual for dummies. It's hilarious. Thankfully dearest sibling is more of a listening ear to this crap than a participant.
Conversations I'm aware of in the last year:
*Nobody feels nervous, their anxiety is flaring up.
*They don't get pissed off or upset about something, they've been triggered and need a safe space.
*They don't have a crap day at work, they're stressed.
*They don't have ups and downs after a break up, they're depressed.
*They don't have a disagreement with a colleague, they go home and stew over workplace bullying and discuss if they can possibly go into work the next day
*They don't do fun things because they're fun and it's jolly good to do fun things and have a balance in life, they are (hand to forehead in a dramatic fashion) having a wellbeing day, which must be Instagrammed with #mentalhealth #lookafteryourself #selfcare #wellbeingdays #loveyourself #endthestigma #makingmemories #lifeisforliving #worktolivenotlivetowork

I can't help but think it's an utterly exhausting and self-indulgent way to live being so obsessed with talking about endless pseudo inner struggles which are no more than appropriating mental health issues to whine about first world problems

Meanwhile most people look after themselves, aim to have a work-life balance and generally try to be a nice balanced person without drama.

Depends.

Putting mental health first is important.
So if time is needed to maintain it, of course they get time off.

However, if they start using the two 'free days off' to avoid potentially stressful situations that they actually might well have coped with, you might be encouraging avoidant behaviour.

I think you'd be better off actually letting them have time off on a case-by-case.

Lola,
I hear exactly that sort of talk from the grads at work! I fear the future it's going to be characterised by poor spelling, text speak and absenteeism!

I think it's a great idea.

It highlights to them that their MH is important while by limiting makes them consider do they really need it or are they better saving for another time. They are being made to think about and consider their own MH and take some responsibility for it.

I'm sure if there were more serious MH issues OP would not restrict the number of days.

My childhood doctor whose been dead more than 35 years swore blind that an occasional day when things were getting on top if children did a world of good, be said he himself used to do the same when he was a child and go off fishing for the day. Children these days are tested to death, often bullied, and it's so common for children to suffer from mental health problems. If an occasional day off helps, gives a breathing space to look after themselves then why not. It obviously didn't stop my old doc becoming a doctor, working hard at medical school and working bloody hard all his adult life. .saying children need to develop resilience yes, but sometimes to develop resilience you've got to have a bit of downtime, I always felt my children free up most ,er the summer holidays when they had time to chill, to do things that they couldn't do when they were at school, time to think, time to relax from the pressure of all the things they do at school, that do not progress them, time to follow outside interests, think a bout the future, and when small, just time to chill. So often problems that had been causing real problems towards the end of the school year just disappeared because they just grew up a bit. One of mine never needed a day off, the other needed an occasional day off and both have gone on to get good degrees and both have worked hard to support themselves after uni.
No one is saying regularly skive off and do nefarious things, that is obviously different

Off point, but I really want to read a book in the bath now!

I think it's a nice idea. I'm sure you would give them more days if you felt like they are really struggling, but these are days they can choose themselves and have control over. It's not a bad way to teach them to balance their commitments with their desires, and to get them to think about how they use their opportunities. I see nothing wring with it and I think it's similar to real world jobs that allow you two personal days a year. I do not this it's at all unreasonable to value their own sense of what they need and not decide for them how they feel.

How on earth does telling kids they can take off an extra two days of their choosing make them consider their own mental health and take responsibility for it??
Would you listen to yourself .

Because calling it a Mental Health Day implies that this is something OP's DC need for reasons related to their Mental Health, which they don't. It implies that if they don't spent the day doing as they please and instead go about their usual daily routine (i.e school) this will somehow be detrimental to their Mental Health, which it won't.

Maybe it's more about these days being beneficial to their mental health, rather than school being detrimental? In the same way my days off are - work per se isn't detrimental to my MH.

By your logic, there's no such thing as skiving or bunking off because we can just call it a Mental Health Day. Scheduling a few days off work a year as you describe is one thing, but unplanned random days off on the spur of the moment because you just don't fancy going into work would be another thing altogether.

Can you explain why you think I'm saying there's no such thing as skiving? Not sure where you got that from!

As many on here have said, lots of enlightened employers (including mine) offer duvet days for those days when you just can't face going in, on the spur of the moment. The OP has mentioned a two day limit which presumably gives her children the responsibility of choosing days when they feel they really need/ want them.

The only difference I can see is that some days are scheduled and some not. So not a wholly different thing after all?

I find it's actually trivialising mental health issues. It's not like a cold or something that will only occur twice a year.
Also, you're instilling something in them that will stick.

Taking care of your mental health is about managing stress effectively. This strikes me as not teaching your kids how to manage it effectively. Far better to teach them they have a support network and effective ways of dealing with stress rather than this.

I can't even contemplate doing this with ds. If he's run down and needing some down time he gets it at home and I cut him some slack with things like chores, he still goes to school. Needing down time is very different to a mental health illness, and if someone is going to have an illness, two mental health days a year isn't going to prevent that. It just encourages them to take time off when it isn't necessary, and that isn't real life.

Can you explain why you think I'm saying there's no such thing as skiving? Not sure where you got that from!

You claimed that it is legitimate for OP to call these two extra days off 'Mental Health Days' because "we all have Mental Health". So although these days walking in the woods are absolutely nothing to do with preventing/recovering from Mental ill health but it's apparently fine to call them that simply because Mental Health is a thing and we all have it, then there is absolutely no distinction between that and a day "bunking off". So I might not feel like going into work tomorrow and decide instead I'm going to sit at home all day and watch TV. I'm not ill, I have no legitimate reason to be off work but I'm going to call it a Mental Health Day because "we all have Mental health".

In our house it depends on the child. Ds 1 and 2 deffo not - the stress of "breaking a rule" would make ds1 too anxious. Ds 2 would just take the piss wanting a mh day every other week. But I did approach something similar with dd as she approached her gcses and was completely freaking out. I told her she didnt have to go into school once she had completed the teaching part of the course. I knew she would.cope with revising at home and would benefit from the calm home environment instead of the frenzied regimen of testing and re testing at school. I also made sure counselling was in place as well as support from me and her dad. As it turned out just knowing she didnt have to be there if it got too much was enough for her. By the time she got to her gcses she was calm and composed. OP, i haven't
RTFT but i think you know your dc and you are doing the right thing.

But mum, surely that was addressing a specific issue rather than announcing out of the blue at the start of the year that she had two days in the bank, as it were? Not the same thing at all.

If your child has actual problems with their mental health, that is one thing. You discuss this at the time, with your child and any health teams involved, and the school, as appropriate.

Days for general mental wellbeing are what weekends and holidays for. Of which, very appropriately, there are plenty in the year.

Giving out two extra days, at your child's sole discretion, in my opinion fosters avoidance, rather than developing skills to manage and normalise routine stressors.

@MinisterforCheekyFuckery

How do you know those days don't have anything to do with supporting their mental health? Maybe I've missed a post from the OP saying that?

I do concede that perhaps the OP should have called them chill out days or wellbeing days or de-stress days instead, which probably wouldn't have riled people so much...

And if you feel you really need a day off work, then yes, I think you should take it.

If you don't want to go to work because you're not invested in your job and just can't be arsed, and take the piss with the number of days of work you miss, then that's what I'd call skiving.

As a parent with a child with real MH issues this just makes me think WTAF

As if 2 extra days (on top of all the other weekends and holidays) would make any difference! If your child really does need 2 MH days then they need more help than a day off can give, otherwise they should just man the fuck up. ❄️❄️

Yes MH is extremely important but when people start jumping on the bandwagon like the examples Lolasmiles gives it just minimises the problems people with genuine MH issues have.