Mental health in the Black community presents its own unique set of problems due to socio-economic and systemic racial issues. While this affects adults, the plague that’s mental illness has not escaped Black children.
Black children in America are bred to be indomitable. Every day, they stare poverty, discrimination, police brutality, and widespread systematic racism in the face. To safeguard children, parents in Black communities are raised by parents who teach them to survive, with little focus on anything else.
With Blacks/African Americans being the ethnic groups that dominate the poverty demographic, it should not come as a shock that more Black children experience mental illnesses than their White counterparts.
The disparity is so great that the American Psychological Association studies show now that suicide is the second leading cause of death among Black children ages 10 to 19. That rate continues to skyrocket faster than any other ethnic or racial group. Additionally, the studies shine a light on data gathered from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing the rate of suicide attempts for Black adolescents jumped by a whopping 73 percent from 1991 to 2017.
To say racial injustices have played a part in the degrading mental health of Black children would be a gross understatement. Coupled with a pandemic and preexisting mental health problems, Black children are constantly traumatized.
While parents can’t do much to quell the exposure to racism, they can normalize better mental health practices in the home.
Good Mental Health Begins in The Home
Without a doubt, the home is the first point of socializing, learning, and exposure to the culture for youths. In the Black home, “the talk” is not a matter of just sex, but a matter of surviving a system built to eradicate certain groups. Black children are constantly being taught how to get ahead, show their hand when they get stopped by the police and work hard for less. But very rarely are they ever being prepared to deal with the feelings that those same doctrines inadvertently trigger.
Because of the harsh conditions, Black children must endure, emotions are often viewed as a sign of weakness and unhealthy vulnerability. This is simply unacceptable. If the community is to be propelled, if there is to be representation across industries, then the feelings of Black children need to be welcomed with open arms.
It is high time that the mental health of Black children is taken seriously. Parents need to learn that their children cannot rewrite the narrative or shatter glass ceilings if their mental health is not prioritized. Black children everywhere, from the babe on the breast to the moody adolescent, need to know their emotions are valid and there is a healthy way to dissect them.
It is time to say goodbye to the days of “pray about it,” and “you don’t need therapy; you have the church.” It is more than normal if your Black child requests to speak to a professional. while it can be challenging to locate Black psychiatric assistance, it is in no way impossible. Do the right thing as parents and help your child in every possible way. You can’t have physically sound, happy, empowered children without good mental health.
