Since probably around eighth grade I've been constantly wishing myself back to elementary school, where the work seems so easy and nap time is still a thing. I went through a lot of my high school experience trying to figure out why I was so uptight and stressed all the time, and why I could not shake the overwhelming feeling. I wanted to do good in school, yes, but doing good in school and managing everything else going on in my life became an impossible task for me. After three years of being whatever kind of anxious mess that was, my senior year I started to try to teach myself healthy ways to deal with stress.

Being aware of my stress and coping with it properly felt really weird to me at first, and it shouldn't have. The more I think about it, the more I feel like I, along with other kids my age and older, should have been taught how to handle stress in a healthy way as children. For some reason, we had to all learn about quadratic functions and how to square dance in gym class, but we weren't ever taught how to not bottle up stress and treat it like a time bomb until it blows up in our faces.

I think primary schools, every year, should teach kids how to handle their emotions in a healthy way. Kids need to be taught that it is O.K. to not be happy all the time and that there are outlets for negative emotions. They could be taught time management, deep breathing techniques, how to express what they feel, how to explore artistic outlets to stress, or the importance of exercise or getting enough sleep to feel better overall. They should be told that their mental well-being is just as important as the education they come to school to get. I understand the argument that many kids this age are too young to comprehend these skills and actively use them at first. But if they are taught these things every year they're in school and are reminded of them whenever a teacher or parent actually does see a child getting stressed or upset, the child will begin to connect the dots. The stresses of life will only pile up as they get older, and it may even become a habit by the time kids start high school. If schools can make emotional support a priority, it may prevent young kids from feeling too overwhelmed when they get older to the point where they develop anxiety problems or feelings of depression.

I don't think it is right for kids' "well-being" in school to be based just on how well they perform in class and on tests. Kids aren't just grades and stress isn't just for adults with office jobs. Kids, even little ones, get stressed too, and they should have the right to learn how to manage their emotions just like they have the right to learn about math or history. One 30-minute PowerPoint presentation my freshman year of high school about "The Importance of Mental Health" was too little, too late. If kids are taught things like how to manage stress early on, they'll be experts by the time they reach high school, where things start to get a little tougher for them. No scrambling to try to calm themselves down before a big exam, trying to prioritize their grades over everything else, or panicking when they have way too many commitments going on at once. It would not have been such a struggle for me and other students like me to learn how to do this if we were provided with a means of learning it earlier in our lives. I don't think other kids should have to struggle and fight for emotional control over themselves. It is important for primary schools to provide a class or program fit for all children that can help them with their emotional development so that they can all have a bit of a break when dealing with stress as they get older. Trust me, they'll be grateful for it later.