>> Tonight, student mental health and why it matters.

More than 1 in 3 has go students feel persistent hopelessness and suicide has become the second leading cause of death for kids ages 15 to 19.

And while today's students are facing unprecedented mental health challenges, there is some good news.

There are resources to help families, students, and educators confront this crisis.

We are committed to being part of the solution.

That is why we are pleased 20 ounce annual online toolkit specifically designed for new York educators -- for New York educators.

The website offers educators access to thousands of resources.

>> Teachers are called upon to address student mental health issues now more than ever.

So we created a stool kit to help teachers promote student will meeting.

>> This is an incredibly important skill.

>> Get to know your students and build community classrooms.

>> Student mental health matters including -- features rule -- solutions.

It is free PBS.org/me ntalhealthmatters.

>> Will hear from families, students, and doctors and explore emerging solutions, starting tonight with a documentary, "Anxious Nation," a mother and daughter's look at this growing crisis.

"MetroFocus" starts now.

>> This is "MetroFocus," with Rafael Pi Roman, Jack Ford, and Jenna Flanagan.

MetroFocus is made possible by Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund.

Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation.

Barbara Hope Zuckerberg.

And by Jody and John Arnhold.

Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn foundation.

The Ambrose Monell Foundation.

Estate of Roland Karlen.

>> Grieving.

-- good evening.

People struggle with anxiety.

That is probably no surprise, given both the pressures of modern life and the constant weight of a world that sometimes seems to be falling apart at the seams, but what perhaps is surprising is how hard anxiety is impacting American children, amounting to a mental health crisis.

It got considerably worse during the pandemic.

A new documentary called "Anxious Nation" explores this crisis and the often crippling impact anxiety can have on kids and families.

>> I just break down.

>>, I was like, I cannot breeze.

She was like, I think you are having a panic attack.

>> I was screaming, being upset.

You just start spiraling.

>> I think, what can I do?

How can I help?

.

>> I did nothing anybody else was having the same issues.

I did not want to be judged.

Rafael: I am joined by Vanessa Roth and Laura Morton.

Her daughter is one of the teens struggling with anxiety featured in the documentary.

Let me start with the filmmakers.

Laura, what motivated you to do this film?

What do you think it shows that most of us do not know?

Laura: In 2018, I was sitting at my desk, feeling defeated as a mom.

I thought I was feeling my daughter.

She was struggling with anxiety.

We had been dealing with it for years.

She was 10 or 11 at the time.

It seemed like everything we were trying was not working.

I felt really frustrated.

I thought I was doing everything to help her.

I put a post on Facebook.

I was surprised by the response.

On Facebook, I got, I am, We Are, my daughter is when my son is, but it was the messages that startled me.

I thought what was happening in our home was only in our home.

This was in 2018 when we were not talking about these things.

Rafael: Vanessa, what got you involved in the film?

Vanessa: When they asked me to be part of the film, I said no, because I was also doing with my own kids and their friends that were just feeling so anxious and overwhelmed.

This was long before Kevin, - Covid, but I had teenagers at home and felt it was too close to home.

I did not want to do my life and work about the same topic.

I was overwhelmed by the concept, but when I came back into it, it was because it was after we had been dealing with COVID and the challenges.

I had watched my kids and my kids peers.

Things had gotten so much worse for them.

So many things have gotten to be so overwhelming for them that I felt like it would be negligent not to be part of something that could give parents some answers or ideas.

I also love the idea that Laura had got into this wanting to go into the interior lives of kids and their parents.

That was something that was unique.

It was not just experts talking.

We have experts in the film, but it is from a perspective of kids and family.

Rafael: So Laura said she noticed anxiety when you were 10 or 11, is that when it started for you?

What exactly was it that you are feeling?

How did you know you were not supposed to be feeling that?

>> I think I personalize my anxiety when it was younger, seven.

I was at summer camp.

It was supposed to be fun.

Kids enjoy it.

I was with 12 other crows.

We were doing somebody fun -- 12 other girls.

We would and so the fun things.

I cried every day, wanted to come home, did not want to be there.

That is when I noticed this was not normal.

Everyone around me was having a good time.

For some reason, I could not have a time.

-- a good time.

I think that is when it became most public for me that what I was feeling is not supposed to happen -- prevalent for me that what I was feeling was not supposed to happen.

.

Laura: I had noticed the anxiety in different ways when she was younger.

I had been trying to get her help for many years.

It started in my mind right around the tag she was 3 or 4.

I cannot figure out what is going on.

The pediatrician said maybe it is her diet.

Then we took her to a specialist, a gastroenterologist.

They said she needs more fiber.

I took her to a therapist.

The therapist said she seemed fine.

It took because I would say solidly set in years to get an answer.

I just wanted somebody to tell me what was going on, give me something.

That is what is so frustrating for so many people.

First, as one of the experts says, it takes most families 2 to 8 years to seek help.

That is staggering for me.

It took us seven years to get an answer.

Imagine if you are a family struggling.

You do not know what you are struggling with, how frustrating that is.

Rafael: It is awful.

You can see the heartbreak on the kids but also the parents.

A question raised early on in your film by the therapist is whether this situation, this crisis, is it nature or nurture?

Is it a genetic predisposition or what families in societies are doing to the kids?

What is the answer?

Vanessa?

Vanessa: One of the therapists in the film said that it was both.

It is nature and then it is what you do with nature.

That to me is profound.

I think it happens both on the family level -- how do we nurture nature?

-- but also on a societal and global level of how are we as a society nurturing our kids?

None of us are doing a great job at that.

I not blame parents for that, but we do not have the skills needed right now especially to deal with the things coming at kids, the amount of information at all times.

There is that quote "The world is too much with us."

Partly for kids it is that external part but also the internal, what they come into the world as naturally and how those two things combined.

Rafael: Let's talk about the nurture part.

Families and societies have always been imperfect to different degrees, always had mixed results in the way they nurture their young.

What is it about Americans or Westerners today that makes us so imperfect that we are creating a situation that is worse than ever/ -- worse than ever?

Laura: One of the premises for the film was we have a generation of anxious parents who never dealt with their own anxiety.

They are now reasoning -- raising their kids to not feel the way they feel, not suffer the way they suffer.

So they are coming from what we think is a loving place but we are doing more damage than good.

We are contributing to the problem out of this notion that we do not want them to hurt.

We do not want them to be in pain.

To me, that is one of the biggest issues around that.

There is a nature part here where there are some kids, just as they are natural athletes or musicians, they are born with a propensity to be more anxious.

If they are born into that, the likelihood is that their parents are already anxious and they're are getting it every which way.

You have situational anxiety.

For my daughter, school shootings are a big thing that triggers anxiety.

These kids are growing up with things that we did not grow up with.

Eco-anxiety, they worry about climate change, if somebody is going to shoot up their school.

That is a lot.

Anxiety is a natural reaction.

Rafael: I recently heard a podcast say that it does take a village to raise a child but that unfortunately people in charge of the village nowadays are the village Indians.

-- village idiots.

They have brought us to the brink of ecological disaster and want to scare us about it.

The people who brought us wars, a great recession and perhaps another recession and other such delights.

Is that fair?

Are we contributing to this not only because we are parents and long but because -- flawed blog because we have a uniquely flased system of government?

Laura: Don't we ever.

In 2018, I was asking are we more anxious or just more aware of it?

In 2023, that is a mute question.

Post-COVID, we are significantly more interest.

We were already in a crisis in 2018.

The government has been aware of it for decades.

It has been a proverbial kicking of the camp that has brought us to this place.

Even federal, state, local level , we do not have the resources to meet the demands.

We have had all this amazing talk in the's 2 -- in the 2010's.

A bunch of kids went to their college mental health center is seeking help.

No one was prepared for the onslaught.

Before COVID, there was an on average of 3 to 12 week wait time on college campuses to get an intake appointment.

For a suit -- for a student suffering, that is an impossible number to digest.

To work through this with no tools and resources.

Vanessa: I was going to add that kids are right to be anxious.

It would be a bit of a disconnect if they were not anxious with all the things they are having to live with.

That is where you me the film and why I wanted to do it is that we acknowledge that and understand and know that but what are we going to do?

All the things that are pressing down on our kids are not going to change.

We are not necessarily going to solve those things and life will feel simple.

We have a complex world.

People are complex individuals.

Like Laura said, it is looking at what resources we have for kids and parents.

How do we cope ourselves and learn the ways to live through these generations and helping each other in becoming a better village?

Rafael: Aside from the particular stimuli hitting us in the way leaders are dealing with it and the resources availablek what about the argument that the fundamental problem is that at some point, the West in general has a mistaken philosophy of life?

Again and again, the therapists in the film basically echo ancient philosophies and religions that tell us life is difficult, that life is often painful, and that the way to get serenity and happiness is to develop a resiliency, and ability to seek happiness despite the realities.

But instead, as a Buddhist teacher and writer said amusingly, we are teaching our children that if we do not want to hurt our feet, we should cover the road with lover -- lea ther instead of putting on our shoes.

Is that accurate?

>> Looking my own children and their friends, I have found so much truth in the idea of searching for your own meaning and purpose and feeling needed and wanted and becoming part of some kind of community, using that anxiety and energy and putting it into something that mean something to you.

One of my daughters is now a teacher.

The other is a songwriter.

I have a few son who is trying to figure out what he is interested in, but their moods and feelings about themselves improve so much when they are contributing something to something that matters to them.

Rafael: Laura?

Laura: I think that statistically, we are a lonely, disconnected community right now.

Or not a community.

Loneliness, isolation, disconnection is such a big piece of this.

Even in a world where kids feel connected through devices, they are not connecting in person.

I think that that is a really big piece of the equation.

I think what we have is this fall in the way of community.

We know that our kids have a spiritual hunger but they have turned away from their parents' religion.

Historically, where you worship was where you would go to connect with people.

As they sat in the film, we were always meant to be plural.

It is about community.

One of the reasons we are excited about the film is it is about creating a community around something we share in common and to take the stigma out of it.

It is OK not to be OK. Rafael: Let's talk about shame and stigma.

A lot of the therapists in your film -- and I have interviewed at least one in the past -- the problem with stigma, how it exacerbates the initial anxiety.

To what degree were you -- did you feel that your anxiety was a problem?

That your fear that your peers would know about your struggles with anxiety would make that anxiety worse?

Was that a reality?

>> At some point.

Lately, no.

Me and my peers, we are so lately at school, everyone is so open about mental health struggles, which is good.

We have mental health week and all of these things at my school that talk openly about mental health.

But when I was younger, I would say for sure.

I did not know how to communicate what I was feeling.

I did not want people to judge me.

Rafael: I wonder as the stigma dissipates, and people are more willing to talk about it, I wonder if this kids that you mentioned when you were younger, they seem so happy, I wonder if when the stigma disappeared, you found out that maybe they were not as happy as they appeared.

>> Yeah.

For sure.

I notice that now because I am still friends with some people from when I was younger.

I kept going to that same summer camp for multiple years.

I could see how everybody's feelings progressed.

Vanessa: I want to bring something into that.

Some communities the shame and stigma still exists.

It is important where mental health is considered weakness, it is important that we work hard to help those communities move through.

Communities that have a letter shame and stigma around mental health but also distrust of the medical system in general.

Is it getting better?

I think it is getting better.

We have a diverse cast of that talks about it, but lots of communities simply do not.

Thankfully, people are out there advocating.

For me, there was so much eye-opening discovery as we made the film.

We talked about my daughter's school.

It has programs but there are schools that do not.

They do not have counselors or nurses what is happening to those kids?

That keeps me up at night.

Rafael: Before Isaiah your film, give -- I saw your film, if somebody had asked me about the role of social media, I would have said it is probably the most storied.

I am learning through your film that anxiety happens at so young amongst kids that it makes me think that, no, maybe not.

What is the answer?

Vanessa: I am laughing because my son who is 11 and knows when I am talking about the film, do not be one of those adults who says it is just a social media.

I am connecting with my friends do certain things, not just looking at strangers' feeds.

This is how we talk to each other.

That is not contributing to my anxiety.

I have my own opinion about that, but to me, like I said earlier, part of that is the constant, these little bits of things going at your head from all over the world and how to integrate that into your life.

There is that part.

But I think that, Laura had said, too, there is a history of systemic racism.

There is the history of how we judge people who are different from ourselves, all these things that, when the social media stuff starts exacerbating whatever messages, it is hard to really filter through all of that.

But I do not think that is the whole story.

One other thing -- you were talking about camp.

And shame.

When my daughters when she was in Haskell, she -- when she was in high school, she a lot of the time would not go to a party that friends were having.

She felt that her friends did not understand, that they were thinking she did not want to be with them.

They felt rejected.

They did not understand what a big deal it was for her to get out of the house and go to the party.

It was huge.

When you get a little older and start talking to your friends and realizing that they are actually going through it, too.

suddenly It is actually normal.

Rafael: We have three or four minutes.

I want to get Laura's daughter in.

In the film, you talk about social media and worrying do I have enough followers?

I imagine cyber bullying is an issue.

When I was a kid, we hated to be bullied, but now it is open to everyone.

To what degree does social media exacerbate your anxiety if it does not cause it?

>> Many factors go into it.

It is not the core of my anxiety, but I would say indefinitely does contribute.

I know that when I do not have social media, as much as I hate to say it, I am happier.

But I have never been affected by several million, but I know people who have an what kind of a toll that takes on you, whether it is somebody who comments on your looks, your smarts, whatever.

You take that with you.

You hold onto it.

You think about that.

You think about it for a long time, even if it is a random stranger.

The effect that a random person can have on someone is insane.

♪ Rafael: Thanks for tuning into MetroFocus.

You can take our program anywhere with our podcast.

Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcast so you never miss an episode.

Forcibly ask your smart speaker to play MetroFocus: The podcast.

It is also available online and on the NPR one app.

>> MetroFocus is made possible by the Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund.

Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation.

Barbara Hope Zuckerberg.

And by Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn foundation.

The Ambrose Monell Foundation.

Estate of Roland Karlen.