<p>"Researchers say severe mental illness is more common among college students than it was a decade ago, with most young people seeking treatment for depression and anxiety. A study presented at the American Psychological Association found that the number of students on psychiatric medicines increased more than 10 percentage points over the last 10 years."</p>
<p>My daughter withdrew from a prestigious art school two days before the end of the term. I had gotten a call from her therapist that I needed to go down and get her. She had spent days in her room in bed, her room mate had moved out, she wasn’t eating, wasn’t going go class, wasn’t going to her final reviews. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, noncompliance with medications is a major problem with college students. My daughter has ADD in addition to depression. While she has to take the ADD meds in order to function, the antidepressants get overlooked because she ‘wasn’t feeling depressed’. So once she stopped taking them the way she was supposed to she got into a downward spiral that ended up with her being home today instead of back in school. The school gave her very little in the way of support. She was registered for the learning resource center because of her ADD but they turned her away twice at the beginning of the term (maybe because she was a very good student and they felt she really didn’t need help). She also talked with her therapist here at home every other week, so we were really trying to get her as much support as we could. However she would not go to a counselor on campus – and there’s only so much you can do when you’re two hundred miles away. The schools have this notion that they want the kids to be ‘adults’ and self advocate for themselves, but when you have talented kids that clearly need some help in order to continue the process of becoming an adult (lets face it, it doesn’t happen when they turn 18 – at least not for all kids) you hit a wall. It’s the school that throws up barricades and accuses parents of being ‘helicopter parents’ when its the parents who know darn well that the kid nees some help getting through the transition to independent living as an adult.</p>
<p>We had our doubts that she was ready to handle the rigors of college on her own. She was not independent enough. She has bouts with anxiety. My husband and I tried our best to convince her to take a gap year or go to a community college for a couple of years and live at home. However she would have none of that. We were in a no-win situation. If we had insisted that she stay home, the semester would have gone by much like the previous summer with her holed up in her room not doing much of anything that was productive. Plus she would have held it against us for not letting her pursue her dreams right then and there. So we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best; that she would rise to the challenge.</p>
<p>The school will readmit her in September, she gets to retain her scholarships, but she has to start over as a freshman. I do hope she learned something from all of this.</p>
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<p>Students’ medical records are not only subject to federal HIPAA restrictions, but the assurance of confidentiality in a counseling relationship is at the ethical core of the counseling field. Without that confidentiality, many of the students who need therapeutic relationships would decline to enter into them. The assurance of confidentiality only goes away in the presence of an apparent danger to the client or to others.</p>
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<p>There is no justification for that. The school has an ethical responsibility for the well-being of its students, just as the counselors do for confidentiality.</p>
<p>I’m surprised that she was turned away from a resource center. The ones that I have seen are drop-in or make an appointment. Only reason that I could see for not being seen is if there was already too much demand and they didn’t have staff to serve the student. That said, preserving her scholarships was very nice of them. Most stories that I’ve seen here have the colleges being far less generous.</p>
<p>I wonder whether the upswing is regional at all. I am from the Midwest, but have lived on the East Coast much of my adult life. It seems as though the competition is much stronger out this way.</p>
<p>partially the consequence of the all the competition out there i guess. everyone needs to chill out and realize that getting into a good college is not the end-all of their lives</p>
<p>a lot of it might also be that depression is being diagnosed more frequently, which IMO (though probably not shared by others), is a good thing, as more people are getting treatment</p>
<p>just my two cents…</p>
<p>^^^ Perhaps, but the incidence of mental health issues on college campuses is greatly related to advances in the field of psychotropic medications. Students who ten years ago couldn’t have gone to college are often able to succeed on campus today as long as their meds are managed and they’re compliant in taking them. Incidentally, mental health and intelligence aren’t related - many of these students are brilliant. But unfortunately, a lot of meds carry unpopular side effects such as complexion breakouts or weight retention and there’s a tendency for a certain proportion of medicated freshmen to go off their prescriptions as soon as they arrive on campus. Those students typically become apparent by late-September / early-October.</p>
<p>The first two years of college can be like high school 2.0. Bright students who are ready to actually do/create something are thwarted by the continuation of the high school method: learn this and regurgitate. </p>
<p>There is an article in our newspaper this morning about the lack of critical thinking skills in college work. More and more, colleges are using computer-graded multiple choice tests, or worse, computer-graded computer programs (for computer science students). With computer grading, there is no room for innovative thought or discussion; critical thinking is penalized. </p>
<p>No wonder depression is on the rise and critical thinking skills are on the decline.</p>
<p>I think you are right SGP about depression due to the lack of meaningful learning. I get depressed sometimes knowing that I could be doing something creative with an assignment instead of just taking a multiple choice test to measure my knowledge of facts. Also, I think when students try very hard to get into colleges and then encounter problems with the college, it depresses them even more.</p>
<p>If she’s not ready in September, have her wait it out another year. Some schools will allow up to 3 years for medically related leaves of absence. </p>
<p>I do think that gap years make sense for a lot of students. Students mature at different rates. The brain doesn’t fully develop until age 26. And yet we thrust students into adult hood at age 18 and expect them to instantly become self-sufficient adults.</p>
<p>My alma mater stopped allowing Freshman to pledge fraternities because of an uptick in behavioral issues and several suicide attempts. Freshman are required to live in dorms because there is more access to resources. Colleges are starting to realize that the Freshman year is a rough one in terms of transition from HS to college.</p>
<p>I will say that if a college is high dependent on computer aided teaching - then spend your money elsewhere. It’s supposed to be a tool, not the main mode of education.</p>
<p>Critical thinking skills are on the decline because of the No Child Left Behind Act’s emphasis on standardized test scores. Instruction long before college stopped being about experimentation, exploration, synthesis and analysis and has become about regurgitation.</p>
<p>If children don’t have higher order thinking skills by college, they’re never going to have it. It’s about brain wiring early.</p>
<p>Son was allowed to crash and burn at a top 20 school. No help, no support, no caring.</p>
<p>The first indication we as parents had was when he called to be picked up two weeks before the end of the semester after withdrawing.</p>
<p>As parents you have to pay and pay but apparently have no rights to be imformed of problems.</p>
<p>IMO parents seem to be pushing their kids into reach schools for the most part. Why? If and when they enroll in a reach school, the curriculum will be tough! Why not try for match or even (gasp!) safety schools and not make the process of the next 4 years so difficult to keep up with?</p>
<p>In D1’s case, I think the issues would have been the same no matter what the curriculum was. She wasn’t ready to be that independent. Hopefully she’ll make some progress in that department over the next few months. I keep telling myself ‘baby steps’…as long as we’re moving forward.</p>
<p>Another contributor to depression can be lack of academic success, as measured by achievement tests.
NCLB does not allow for developmental differences in kids. Students who cannot meet academic benchmarks, due to learning style issues, social immaturity, home situations, whatever, are not allowed the “luxury” of time to catch up with their age peers.
This is not to say that schools don’t try to remediate academic difficulties, but some kids just take longer to be ready.<br>
I’ve seen some pretty young kids’ self-esteem suffer from unrealistic academic expectations. Later, these kids are at risk for depression. </p>
<p>If I were the Education Czar, I might recommend eliminating the grade level system currently in place. We hurry our kids to be productive adults. Not all can meet the time frame. Of course, it would be much more expensive if kids could take 15-16 years to complete their schooling. But it might alleviate some of the societal issues which are ultimately addressed through the judicial, the welfare, or the mental health systems. </p>
<p>*Sorry if I got a bit off topic, but to me it is all related. Those darned critical thinking skills that got the better of me.</p>
<p>Glutenmom, I wish your DD well!</p>
<p>I do agree that for some, chocchipcookie is correct. I am not a psychologist, but I believe what post #12 describes is known as a “situational” type of depression (in other words, one caused because of the environment, or where the environment contributed significantly). Frankly, this is why I did not encourage the reach school that my son did get admitted to when decision time came. The reason he applied in the first place was because kids do develop over 3/4 of year and I wanted him to keep all options open. BTW, he is very happy attending a safety school. I completely agree with post #12.</p>
<p>Sorry, but I don’t buy that kids are depressed because their classes aren’t hard enough or meaningful enough. That makes kids bored, not depressed.</p>
<p>Clinical depression is generally a chemical imbalance in the brain. It’s an illness that can pop up whether you are going through a “hard” time or not. When my D was depressed she said to me, “There’s no reason for me to feel this way. There’s nothing majorly wrong in my life. Why do I feel like crying? Why can’t I feel happy?” THAT is depression.</p>
<p>I do agree that more kids may be diagnosed on campus simply because more kids are going to college, and because the world in general is finally recognizing depression and anxiety as illnesses. (“There’s a drug to fix it, therefore it must be a disease” style thinking).</p>
<p>But please do NOT confuse the issue of mental illness, depression and anxiety with kids being bored or lacking meaning in their life. To do so only proves that you do not know much about any of these diseases.</p>
<p>From the article the OP cites:
May I humbly suggest actually reading the article a thread is about before posting a reply?</p>
<p>lafalum: thank you for saying what I didn’t get around to…</p>
<p>“Son was allowed to crash and burn at a top 20 school. No help, no support, no caring.”</p>
<p>I think we expect too much from a college if we think they can monitor our children’s moods and behavior. Colleges are large, impersonal institutions with increasingly shrinking budgets. Who is supposed to give the help, support, and caring at a college-the counseling staff? I can not imagine there is any counseling office at any college or university in this country that has a counseling staff large enough to handle that task. I’m sure if a student actually goes in to get help, the trained counselors will do their best to be supportive and caring. But if the student doesn’t go in, what is the college supposed to do?
As a community college professor, I see obviously depressed students all the time. But what can I do? I refer them to psychological counselors, but there are only a handful at our campus, and what can they really do in a short session or two? We saw what happened with the Tucson shooter (a depressed, psychotic community college student). The college isn’t responsible for him. The professors aren’t responsible for him. The parents are.
I think this is the family’s job. Parents have to keep a closer eye on their children and take action if they see signs of clinical depression.
Maybe people think “I’m paying lots of money, so the college should watch my kid and stop him (or her) from getting high, getting drunk, skipping class, spending all day in his room, etc.” How is the college supposed to monitor these adults? If there is any doubt in a parent’s mind that the kid isn’t ready for college, or there is something wrong with him or her, then for everyone’s sake don’t send him or her to college until he’s ready. For everyone’s sake.</p>
<p>Community Colleges may not have the resources but a full-pay school charging $55K compared to CC charging $8,000 (with state subsidies)? In a small LAC, classes are smaller so that faculty and other students should be better able to read students that are having problems.</p>
<p>Even in a LAC costing $55000 a year, parents can’t expect that fellow students have the clinical background or experience to recognize depression in one of their peers or even roommates. Most of them are still teenagers, and for all intents and purposes, their classmates are strangers. And faculty aren’t trained in this, either. Not once in my Master’s program did I ever see or take a course offered in how to recognize signs of mental illness in college students.</p>