>> Tonight, healthy minds and thriving kids.

With a new school year American children are facing a mental health crisis.

PBS shows critical resources for students of all ages, from managing intense emotions to relaxation skills.

Expert tips and advice everybody should know.

Metro focus starts right now.

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

MetroFocus is made possible by Sue and Edgar Wachenheim -- The Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund.

The Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation.

Bernard and Denise Schwartz.

And by Jody and John Arnhold.

Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn foundation.

The Ambrose Monell Foundation.

Estate of Roland Karlen.

Jack: Good evening and welcome to Metro focus.

And Jack Ford.

American children are experiencing a Metro -- mental health crisis.

Challenges brought on by the pandemic exacerbated the problem creating urgent need for support and solutions.

PBS is now providing free resources to families through a project called " healthy minds thriving kids ."

developed by the child mind Institute a leader in child psychology.

They are available to everyone through the PBS media learning website.

They include videos for parents, educators, and students to teach kids critical mental health and coping skills.

Let's look at a video for middle schoolers talking about how to manage and control intense emotions.

>> I felt like screaming at the top of my lungs.

>> I want to be happy but sometimes the thoughts overpower your happiness and it feels like you can never be happy.

Jack: The urges can feel all-consuming.

The good news is your body cannot often keep up with that level of intensity for too long.

No feeling lasts forever, even if you feel like it well.

If we can ride out the big emotions like a wave their intensity decreases over time.

>> Tomorrow go the more it gets more manageable.

You just have to take a break.

>> I just have to let time go.

Over time it will be better.

Jack: One strategy to ride the wave of the feelings is to focus on a sensory experience to help tie you to the world around you.

>> Music puts me in a mood change every day.

>> Writing candles or essential oils.

>> We traced around our fingers, a starfish.

>> I like dark chocolate, but not too dark.

Just having a mouthful.

It is relaxing.

>> When I am angry I decide to use it in a good way to do a workout.

After that I felt fine -- fine.

>> music you enjoy, tasting comfort food, smelling perfume or a candle.

Can help with overwhelming emotions.

>> It is like I am putting the energy into the soccer ball.

>> Joining us now to talk about mental health, the founding president of the child mind Institute.

It is always a pleasure to see you.

>> Jack, it is a pleasure.

>> thank you for our conversation here.

I want to talk about how big of a problem this has become in terms of children's mental health.

>> We should start with the fact that pre-COVID, it was already a problem.

The suicide risk for young people had gone from 6600 deaths in 26 -- 2014.

The number of kids coming to emergency rooms with suicidal thoughts.

It went from 600,000 a year to 1.2 million per year.

And that is before COVID.

COVID make kids feel unsure, unsettled, and more anxious.

It has become a more systematic.

Even if you had the most resilient and delightful child, after either two years of not going to school or online school.

Our idea is, how do you take mental health and in the fitness skills we have been doing for years, teaching about it in person?

How do you take that to scale?

Jack: These numbers are frightening.

Those of you who live in this world, have you been able to point out the causes for these dramatic increases?

>> a mentality rate it went up by 50%.

A morbidity rate then.

The only silver lining as far as I am concerned with COVID is people are talking about children's mental health.

The 2014/2018 change.

The difference to society's social media and the impact.

You realize that brains evolve.

In 2011 we got a device that connected us to every human on the planet when he 47.

That is affecting our kids, especially readings and teenagers.

We expose them to a jungle.

A jungle has dangerous things.

They have snakes, animals, and things which can kill you.

Unfortunately, we did not put any safeguards on this.

We just say, parents, it is your responsibility to make sure your kid does not get hurt.

By social media.

We figured out, I think most recently with Surgeon General Murthy, 20% of kids are affected by participating in a social media six to eight hours a day with problematic Internet usage.

The more hours you spend on that, the less hours you spend on real life interactions with the last hours you are exercising and the less hours you sleep area both that you sleep.

Both those things are essential to healthy development.

I cannot prove for social media that there is a correlation here.

If we did not change the telephone wires and we did not change the water, and somehow this whole event happened to our entire nation, you have to think that the only change was social media.

I think the fact the Surgeon General has put out this reminds me of Everett Koop when he started as being aware of cigarettes.

Even the Surgeon General does not have a budget.

By the time Everett Koop was done we had warning labels on cigarettes.

We do not smoke in hospitals, and his goals come on airplanes.

Smoking rates have gone down.

He got the CEO of all three big tobacco companies to raise their hand in Congress and say, I did not know.

Well, they now knew.

I certainly think that the tech industry can't regulate itself and state legislatures and maybe the feds are thinking about the difference that a social media intervention has with the child or teenager versus what it has with an adult.

So those algorithms are very dangerous.

This is a warning because the numbers are not going down and Covid just made things exponentially worse.

And by the way, it is a global crisis.

We just talk about it more in the United States, I think we are better at identifying kids and treating them but this has become a global crisis in child mental health.

>> I think your jungle metaphor is compelling and apt.

We said before social media is wonderful except when it's not.

Let me come back to something you touched on before, the genesis of your program, what is a concept behind it and what is the mission?

>> Everybody including the parents could use mental health fitness techniques.

When learn we are supposed to sleep at our -- sleep eight hours, and these videos are built for elementary school, middle school and high school and from the ground up.

In Spanish and in English.

A remarkable public figure named Mark Kelly who is a Secretary of Health and Human Services, and in 2021, the set of California put $4.7 billion into their budget or children's mental health, and one of the many projects started to find was healthy minds, thriving kids.

The idea that just sending kids back to school and pretending that everything is going to be OK is problematic.

And certainly the kids who were anxious before maybe didn't have such a tough time during Covid because they had access to their parents, they didn't have to separate, they didn't have to deal with the social interactions.

Those kids need new exercises, new tools.

And by the way, teachers need more tools on helping kids with this.

This is just mental health fitness skills that everyone should have.

We thought about how could we take this to scale, in a state like California, that has 6 million public school students, how could we do this the way to do it is we do compelling videos, and we didn't make it mandatory.

We basically market to teachers and said we have an interesting toolbox.

It might be helpful to you.

If you spend 30 minutes on it we will give you $100.

We know you are overworked.

60,000 teachers did that immediately.

Another 12,000 did it later and it later and did not get the $100.

Now we have close to 80,000 educators that reached 1.4 million students in California.

They have given us feedback that says the materials are engaging.

And, more portly, effective.

That you can see kids being able to use the skills.

Also, working with professional moviemakers, I think nothing is more deadly than having a scientist or a clannish and talking to you on a screen.

We are great.

We did not know we invented have gnosis.

When you go to creative people, and, that was a big expense.

We sat with them, with clinicians.

They said, if you want to get to little kids, the way you get to five-year-olds, and you managed to get, let say, five, or eight or nine, you need hedgehogs.

They showed me hedgehogs, humans dressed as hedgehogs.

I said it was absurd.

They focus grouped it on kids and kids got engaged with it.

Middle and high school students, we used real-life kids from California and comedians talking to them.

The engagement, the fact kids could watch some of the videos more than once meant it was a success.

That they were not falling asleep and they were remembering the fact they were being taught and some of the skills.

That were so essential to giving them the moment, the ability to calm down.

The ability to understand that feelings have an effect on your body.

Jack: You stressed different paths for different age groups.

The same thing does not work for everybody.

Another quick -- clip very quickly.

This is produced for high school students.

Helping them understand how to manage their thoughts.

Let's take a quick look.

>> I used to ask my brother for advice on text messages all the time but he got so annoyed.

Reagan, stop over thinking.

He was like, they stopped using emojis, are they mad at me.

I was tempted to ask.

I was like, I don't want to overthink.

Do you think they are mad because they are not using emojis in their sentences?

They just stopped using emojis.

I was completely over thinking yet.

That's over thinking it.

-- I was completely over thinking it.

>> We will get existential and talk about thinking.

Our thoughts are imaginary, but very real.

At any time in your life your thoughts can be negative.

Negative thoughts attend to set in during middle and high school.

We have all been there.

>> Sometimes I think everything is all bad.

I only have negative thoughts.

Isaac a lot about my relationship to other people.

>> Is no colleges except me.

>> Will I mess up?

>> You will mess it up.

>> Am I a certain way and I am privy the -- perceiving myself wrong?

>> What if I tore my LCL -- ACL and cannot dance again?

>> My parents are gone for 10 minutes.

I am like, what if they got into a grass, robbed, stolen?

What if I got over here and robbers took over my house.

What if they abandoned me and left the country.

I am like, nobody likes me.

That's hard to think about.

>> There are so many versions of overthinking.

At their best our thoughts are brilliant and lead to changing the world, making great art, or the invention of the ice cream sandwich.

Often, they pop up and make it hard for us to be present in the middle of doing something.

>> My parents tell me you overthink.

>> Do you have a moment after a conversation where you realize, of, --oh, I could have done it this way.

>> One voice is telling you to worry about every little things, things you should not worry about.

One voice is telling you to not care about anything.

Those two -- two voices are competing with each other and is it is like, I do not know what to do.

>> Coming out of this talk about from a clinical perspective, why are the idea of negative thoughts so common in that age group?

>> Let's start with a child's brain, a teenagers brain and an adult brain.

One of the reasons social media is so risky for teenagers is their brains are different.

They feel more intense.

They hate you.

They love you.

They are boiling.

They are freezing.

When they tell you you are really upset you have to believe them.

You cannot minimize it and say it's a big deal because it is a big deal.

They are moved by a peer group with more influences than ever before.

The thing every parent should remember, parents are the most influential factor.

But, teenagers are moved by their peer group.

I always think when I was a kid and I said to my mother as a teenager, if they were jumping off the George Washington Bridge, would you jump?

Jack: Our mothers went to the same school because we all got the same line.

>> You want to be like these people because you feel everything so intensely.

Their rejection.

To learn stuff, your brain is so much more fresh.

You can still learn a foreign language.

You can still learn advanced mathematics.

Therefore, the fact that you can turn so negatively, that I am awful, I am worthless.

That interaction is interpreted on me being terrible.

I am so embarrassed because everybody will remember that I said this.

These intense thoughts are really particular.

More for teenagers than for kids and adults.

Being able to understand your thoughts, the power they have, how you can get power over them, that is so important.

In fact we can do this with five-minute clips, everybody can pay attention to five minutes if it is engaging.

And if the teacher has a curriculum that can reinforce it.

And we have parents to guide them.

If your school is not adopting this, these are free videos thanks to the funding from California.

Most of the time you can actually watch it with your young kids together.

I watched the video understanding feelings with my four-year-old grandson designed for five euros.

I asked him the names of the characters and why were they upset?

I asked what you can learn.

I said, what are the two -- what did you learn?

He said, you can have two feelings at the same time.

He said I don't know what irritability is.

That is perfect because he is not supposed to know.

He told his parents, grandpa let me watch a video.

I feel, guilty as charged.

But the next video we watched was about belly breathing and the ability to take your feelings and not let them upset your body.

>> What are some of the signs that parents or caregivers should be alert to.

>> we should all know our kids.

Does your kid have an appetite?

Do they like sweets?

Hamburgers?

Are they passionate about sports.

Are they watching it?

Do they follow teams?

Are these kids loners with one or two friends.

Our youth -- is your kid the mayor of the town?

How does your kid sleep?

A bunch of kids have trouble sleeping but others put their head on the pillow when they are out.

How are they at school?

Is it an a student or a B student?

That is knowing your kid.

When there is a change that's what I want parents to be aware of.

If there appetite has changed if they are all of a sudden ravenous or they are starving themselves.

If the phone is not ringing anymore and they are not texting with friends all the time are not going out.

That is when you should say it is a red flag.

What is going on?

The need for endless open dialogue needs to happen.

What is going on?

We could go to the Knicks, the Mets, the Yankees, the Giants.

And they say, no, I am not interested.

What happened?

You don't like the team anymore?

It is so easy if you are not judgmental and if you are just asking questions.

I'm curious.

I am not trying to be intrusive.

I am curious and I want to understand what is going on.

If the change in behavior lasts more than two weeks, it is time to consider a quick call to the pediatrician to make sure anything is physically wrong.

If nothing is physically wrong, do not hesitate to go get some help.

That help should be, what is it?

That is what you want from a mental health professional.

A diagnosis.

Do you know the average parent in the United States weights eight years from the onset of symptoms until they go and get help?

That seems absurd to me.

If your kid had a rash, within 24 hours you would get them some cortisone and then go to the Peter D -- pediatrician five days later and within two weeks you would be in the dermatologists office.

Your kids brain is so much more important than their skin, not to take anything away from dermatology.

These are the most common illnesses in childhood and adolescence.

The Academy of pediatrics said it's more common than infectious disease.

The good news is they are all treatable.

The biggest advances in the last 20 years have been in evidence-based psychotherapy like cognitive behavioral therapy, behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy.

These things work in 10 to 16 sessions.

The investment is worth it because most of the time your kid is using new skills to diminish symptoms and have less stress in their life.

Jack: Three or four minutes left.

There are a couple things I want to get to you -- get to with you here.

A couple things.

One is reducing the stigma that surrounds mental health.

Are we making process with that?

>> I would tell you yes, but I don't have data.

Yes, because in 2017 we started a campaign call #myyoungeself and we got influential celebrities like a stone, Jesse Eisenberg, Gavin Newsom, who has dyslexia, Jay Leno.

We thought it was a big deal.

The number one diagnosis they wanted to talk about was learning disabilities.

Over the years we see anxiety has come out of the closet.

Celebrities are willing to talk about anxiety or depression.

I think that is a positive sign.

I am worried that nobody is evaluating this.

Even though more celebrities and athletes that are so important to us because they are healthy looking and strong.

When they say, like Kevin love, I have an anxiety disorder that needs treatment.

I need to do the following things to manage it.

That helps.

But I think we need to look carefully because what bothers us most is the insurance for mental health disorders is not equivalent to physical health or physical disorders.

It means there is a discrepancy.

I think it is the stigma that keeps parents and workers and companies from demanding insurance companies give equity.

I think we are going in the right direction.

I love the fact that governors are talking about it and spending money on it.

I think COVID helped us get out of the closet of the shame of mental health disorders.

I worry we will go back in because we are going back to normal.

But I do not know definitively if we are really making progress.

I know that kids talk about it much differently than adults.

When you watch where they are talking about on TikTok or on their channels, you are amazed how people talk about the fact that, I need to see a mental health professional, or I am taking medication, in a way that never occurred when I am a kid -- I was a kid.

I don't think anyone told anyone else they had a tutor let alone they were seeing a mental health professional.

Jack, I think it is good.

I am just not sure we have the proof that what we are doing is really making a change that insurance coverage will improve area -- improve.

The date your distance from onset of symptoms to treatment is shrinking.

But I know it is essential.

It is one of our missions at the childhood Institute.

We are constantly looking at it.

It's a big barrier if we do not decrease the stigma.

Jack: A little less than a minute left for if somebody is watching a saying, I know somebody that needs help do they go?

-- needs help.

Where did they go?

>>childline.org has a symptom checker.

You can put in the symptoms your child or teenager is experiencing and it will give you a differential diagnosis, one of five things.

Now you are better informed to call the pediatrician and say, according to the symptoms my child has, it seems to be a learning problem.

It seems like maybe some sort of emotional or mood disorder.

Can you help me get to a mental health professional with expertise in that area?

I think the important part is when a parent is better informed they get help that is more specific and will therefore be more effective.

Jack: Carl, the work you are doing at healthy minds thriving kids, these partnerships are so essential and important to us as you said, especially now.

Dr. Harold Koplin is always a pleasure to talk to you.

Take care.

We will talk again soon.

>> Yes, Jack, you take care.

♪ >> Take our award-winning program with you wherever you go with "MetroFocus" the podcast.

Listen and subscribe to wherever you get your podcast so you never miss an episode or ask your smart speaker to play "MetroFocus" the podcast.

Also available on the NPR one app.

"MetroFocus" starts now.

Is made possible by the Peter G Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund.

Barbara Hope Zuckerberg.

And by Jody and John Arnhold.

Bernard and Denise Schwartz.

Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn foundation.

The Ambrose Monell Foundation.

Estate of Roland Karlen.