Not-So-Silent Crisis

think that I educate and teach in a different way. However, my time working in education and working in education policy had a really deep impact on my life, as did my own education, which is what has me so concerned on a regular basis about the mental health and well being of America's youth. I think that we are not really paying attention to the not so silent crisis that is happening with America's young people. I've written about this at the Daily Beast and in other venues that there

was a crisis before the pandemic took place. There was a rise in anxiety and depression among our youth. And why is that? Oh, I don't know. Could it be because we're sending them to school and they don't know whether or not they're going to end up dead or be able to make it home. This is not hyperbole. We know that schoolmass shootings are just the norm in the United States, right that we tell our kids that we can keep them safe, but we don't really. We

send them to school instead with bulletproof backpacks. Instead, we teach them active shooter drills. In today's episode, I'm joined by Michael Klinkner, who is a clinical social worker in Arizona, and we're going to get into and you're going to hear our conversation about the state of mental health in this country, particularly as it pertains to our youth, and

our LGBTQ youth specifically, who are not statistics. They are human beings whose experiences are being weaponized to put forward a political agenda on the far rapid right, where hate

reigns supreme. And Michael and I will talk about the ways in which even if you are not a parent, but are a caregiver or a teacher, or a guidance counselor a youth advisor working you know, a religious facility, that if you are present in a child's life, some of the ways that you can engage in conversation to get to the there there, how they are feeling, what they are thinking, how are they moving through their day to day. It's mass shootings. One day, it's climate change,

the next, after that, it's a global health pandemic. After that it's arise in political violence. It's literally one thing after the other. And on top of that, we're saying, oh, and then go ahead and go and learn. And then in the middle of your school day will disrupt you for an active shooter drill that we won't tell you is real or it's not. And then your court zone levels shoot up, and we expect you to after the drill, sit down and take up as if nothing happened. It's wild,

the expectations that we have for youth today. And so I get into a conversation with Michael Klickner, the clinical social worker, and you know, hopefully this conversation, this episode will provide you with some tools and tactics to be able to help the young people that are in your life. That conversation is coming up next. Hey there, I want to tell you about another podcast I think you'll love. The Brown Girl's Guide to Politics, hosted by a Shanty Goehler,

the president of Emerge. BGG is the one stop shop for women of color who want to hear and talk about the world of politics. Join a Shanty this season as she talks to incredible women of color who are changing the face of politics and tackling some of the most important issues facing the United States, from reproductive justice to voting rights, to climate change and more. Tune in

every Tuesday wherever you at your podcasts, folks. I am very happy to welcome to woka F Daily for the first time, licensed clinical social worker Michael Klinkner, who I'm excited to be in conversation with you, Michael, because for the last couple of years on this show, I have made it a point to talk about the mental health my concern about the mental health of young people in this country as we are learning to navigate a new normal,

or in many cases, a new abnormal. We have been impacted by multiple crises, impacted by multiple traumas that began but did not end with COVID nineteen, going into quarantine, and learning to exist in a remote setting both in school and in work, from dealing with the fear and anxiety around climate change and young that being a very big issue for young people, So I wanted to get

your thoughts. I mean, and on top of that, mass shootings and school shootings, you know, at the end of last school year, the headlines were about the loss of nineteen children's lives right in Texas after following the You've aldi shooting. So I want to get your thoughts on what you think about how young people are doing, what you were hearing from young people themselves, and what we should be paying attention to or what we're not paying

attention to. Danielle, thanks for having me on. I certainly appreciate it. Let me start with sort of like overall general state of affairs with kids here is the anxiety is high for a lot of different reasons, but the amount of kids where like we'll have an intake and on the form, the parents will fill out that the kid has had trouble since lockdown or since COVID or since the pandemic and and they haven't ever gotten back

on their feet since. I just I was doing an intake with a young man yesterday who was like honor student all the way through US eighth grade. COVID hit school went crazy and he hasn't He hasn't been able to get back into school since. And so there's confounding factors. But when someone is having some like anxiety or like a moderately dysfunctional at home, or like things are kind of like they're okay, but they're not, or like things are just starting to like we're just starting to teeter.

And then the pandemic where for us here in Arizona, it was especially tricky because there were some schools that went back very quickly, some schools that never left, some schools that immediately went virtual, some schools that went back and forth, and so there were all these experiences, and the kids have described they feel behind because lots of them lost a full year between hybrid we're just going straight to online, and so they feel like they're behind everybody.

They're not, of course, because everyone else also had the same exactperience in the country, like all the other kids their age had the same exact set of problems. But it doesn't seem that way to them. It just seems like they're comparing to where other kids would have been or should have been at, you know, their sophomore year of high school three years ago, and what that was like.

Also with state standards and teaching, with some stuff is systematized, so by the end of eighth grade, there are these things that you have to be able to know and get tested on, and by the end of freshman year, there are these things that you'll get tested on and if you don't know them, you don't get to move forward or you have to repeat classes or repeat grades.

I'll see it a lot of really high achieving kids too that are AP classes or honors classes, especially with the AP because there is that standardized test and they're taking it too in order to achieve college credit and

get a higher GPA. They feel like they're behind in those because those AP classes are standardized across the country, and they feel like there's stuff that they didn't pick up that they're they're a cohort or their contemporaries in different states or different part of this they'd picked up.

And so there's all this additionally anxiety that they've been now carrying for years and there it's just kind of like the it's it's coming home the roost, if you will, where there's a lot of kids that are just legitimately at their breaking point. We have a really good recent experience out here too with the gun stuff. Is that at so it's homecoming time for us out here and we're in Arizona. There was a recent homecoming where there

wasn't a gun. But at the dance, somebody yelled gun and those kids went just plane, went running and they didn't come back. They unfortunately knew what to do. But what happened is somebody just said that word. Nobody bothered to check, nobody like, nobody did anything. They just know that word means get the heck out of where you are, go hide, call parents. And so that's just what happened, and that that is so sad and so scary. It was.

So they didn't have homecoming in twenty twenty twenty. Maybe maybe not. They had homecoming in twenty twenty one. In twenty twenty two, they didn't because they thought somebody had a gun. What the heck. That is the state of affairs for kids and teens in my part of the country today, and I know another part of the country's too. I just have those you know, easily accessible those times

for those kids. I will get Also, lots of lots of kids will talk about lockdown drills, what that's like for them, how that feels to them as they're just sitting there and they're not supposed to know whether it's a jewel or not. And for them, if they don't know what's a drill, and they're just sitting there what that's like when they lose it, when they lose a period of time for class work or those sort of things.

So scary, that is just plain scary in the context of two scary years for right kids who are under resourced because they're supposed to be on how to deal with anxiety. My goodness, you know, just the image that you that you provided of just the word gun being yelled out sends kids running for cover, running for their lives. And also, I haven't thought about the drills, the lockdown drills in schools of active the active shooter drills, and the fact that they're not supposed to know that they

are drills. And so again the anxiety. So after this said drill, for however long it takes, then you're just supposed to go back to collass as normal. Meanwhile, your cortisone levels are at like are there through the roof? And so what do you think, Michael, that we in society are getting wrong about our assumption around how resilient kids truly are, because that's a thing that is thrown out a lot. Right, kids are resilient, kids adapt but what we're asking them to adapt to is living under

duress and in trauma. And so, what do you think that we are getting wrong? As we are identifying now potentially the long term effects of not only again living in a global health pandemic, but all the gun violence pandemic, all of these other pandemics that haven't had necessarily the same this same attention in that way. So it's hard for me to say that it's getting done wrong because we don't know what right is, and so we are

literally making this up as we go along. There's no one has a frame of reference at any time between them. There is stuff in the air that could kill you or kill the ones that are close to you. That it's just literally just in the air. Who knows, let alone. You add in the gun violence, you add in the extra pressures, you add in the political climate which is inherently interwoven with the with the COVID stuff and with

the gun things. And depending on where your parents are, they'll have a very strong opinion about those lockdown drills and what they're for and what they should be like. And they have very strong opinions about how the COVID stuff was and is currently handled. And so you add in for a year and a half, two years, we taught them to be afraid of the air. The whole

time they've continued to be exposed to. You never know what's going to happen at school, so we need to we need to prep for it because hey, you might die today, and then they go home to a politically charged climate. About what that means, no frame or reference for it, There isn't any way, We don't know what

to do. And then Danielle, you add in social media and what that means and what they're seeing on TikTok, what they're getting their friends are snapping them, and like what they're picking up through through Instagram or any of those things that we don't know. Nobody knows, And so what this means in five years, who on earth knows? You know, we didn't know what we knew back in twenty seventeen about what twenty twenty one and twenty two

we're going to be like. So that part's really hard, and we're just starting the research to try to figure out even like the micro effects in the MESO effects, let alone the big long term macro effects. We don't know.

But what I do know is because we don't know what we're doing and we're not sure parents just aren't doing anything in that part is always not the right answer, and so it is very easy as a parent to say like, hey, how's your day at school and the kid says, oh, yeah, we had a lockdown drill and to just blow it off instead of the oh, especially for like younger kids and like early to middle elementary school, Oh, what was that like for you? Or how is that? Or what do you guys do? Or like what does

your teacher say? Or how they handle bathroom like any of that kind of stuff, and then just drill into it. What's the emotional impact for them? Or because like not ever ready kid wants to talk or not every kid is great at that, Hey, how does this impact the other kids in the classroom? Does anybody have a hard time? Or does anybody kind of like does anybody cry? Does anybody freak out? Does anybody like try to be a clown?

Things like that, because then you get to talk to your kid about the Oh, why do you think they're having such a hard time? Or why do you think they got so scared? Or what do you think? What do you think it's like for everybody else in the classroom then two. So then you can talk about the impact of those drills, you can talk about the impact of the pandemic, or you can talk about that, but the kid doesn't have to talk about themselves. And then

whatever emotions are coming up. I'm always encouraging adults, parents, to just validate whatever is going on for that kid. You don't have to agree with it. It doesn't have to make sense. You can actually think the exact opposite.

And so if you know, if I'm a gen xer and so, but it was the generation before mine where they were still doing like nuclear drills where had to call unto your desk because you know, rush on my bone, and so that wasn't my generation was one before, but so like but for that generation, and like at at the older end of mine, we have a little bit of a frame of reference to what that's like. And

when ours was cut like for them, it wasn't. The red scare felt imminent, but not like this, And so it's easy for people to dismiss the well, it's not so hard, it's not that big a deal, or like I feel like I would be okay with it. It It wouldn't be that hard. I would just sit on my phone and probably play a game. And so it's easy to dismiss what your kid is going through. Always validate even if you don't have to agree. It doesn't have

to make sense. They might be overreacting, that might be true, that's okay. They are still honestly feeling what they're feeling and they need to communicate that to the people they love and love them, and so in those situations, it is always the right answer to validate what they have going on and to ask some open ended questions about why they're feeling the way they're feeling, or why do they think their peers or friends are feeling the way they're feeling, as a sort of like side doorway, and

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You know, one of the things that I did recently is I wrote a piece for The Daily Beasts about kids, but in particular LGBTQ youth and the fact that suicide has once again and begun to skyrocket, not just for um, for straight uh CIS kids, but for queer kids, which has always been on the higher end of the of the mainstream. And you know, you bring up the political climate, which obviously I talk about on a daily basis on

this show. But when we often you hear about these don't say gay bills or these anti trans bills, we don't think about the children that are behind those bills, the ones who are now going into a school climate that is not only riddled with anxiety about training for you know, a lockdown and a mass shooter. But is my teacher going to out me? Is my you know, administration going to discriminate me? And then if I if

they do, I have no recourse. So I wanted to get your thoughts on, in particular, how this current climate is impacting LGBTQ kids in particular, you know, either anecdotally or just you know, based on you know, based on your own work, because I also think that that's a carve out that we're not again providing enough attention to my experience is it's so different school by school and family by family, And so there are some amazing schools out here that do systematically do a great job where

teachers will email the kids and and will ask questions like what do you want me to call you? What do you want your pronounce to be? What name do you want to make sure that I'm saying in class? And then if I have a meeting with your teachers, I'm sorry, with your parents, what name do I call you there? Super aware thinking through all the possible angles like what if I have to email your mom? What name do I call you in that? Versus what do

I call you in class? Versus any of those sort of things, and so though they're trying really hard, and of course we all screw that up wildly. We always like we're gonna when there's a lot of kids, we're gonna forget it pronoun we just asked for grace and try to not mess it up next time. And so and then families who will sometimes be great about it and amazing about it, and so it's them out here. There's very there's a couple of like conservative religious bases

that have some strong opinions about about those things. And so for lots of kids, that's confusing because that's around them too, and they'll hear those things. And so there's some parents though that will be religiously conservative, but we'll have questions like, all right, so this is my kid, and so like, I know what my church is saying, but I I'm gonna love my kid like And they're clearly not making some choice because if they could, they wouldn't.

They wouldn't be choosing to get called the names or getting called right now, right, And so the parents will have work really hard under the idea of I have no idea what I'm doing. I've never thought I've had to deal this that they'll try to work through the associated grief and then just try to do it right, knowing that they don't know anything, and that's okay. That's that's as good as they're going to do, and they just get better at it, and they can can feel

that they're loved. When those things are in place, when people are trying, even if they're even if they're getting all kinds are wrong, the kid will feel heard and understood and respected in love, and that's okay. And so things can can go badly, and so if if they're respected and love and understood at home, school can get a little wonky. But then they can go home and they'll have supports there and they can be resilient. The

opposite can also be true. If the parents aren't doing a great job and the kid can go to a school where they feel heard and understood in love, they kid won't be resilient. We won't see big increases in that in the depression or in the anxiety, or in the suicidaley. Those are generally speaking, those are the protective

factors that will help kids move through that. All that said, it's tough and sometimes impossible in depending on Arizona's quirky because we have some major, major urban areas and then we've got all kinds of rural And so what rural means as far as access to clubs like one intent or just a mentor or somebody who you can talk about, Like, I'm thirteen, I'm just getting it figured out. Is there anybody that's on the other side of this to let me know what it looks like, or just somebody that

I can talk to. If you're in rural, No, that's not a thing. They're not necessarily available. You're just kind of on your own and good luck what you what your parents in school things. Also, there's a lot of the information that's going to come from social media about those things, and so in the absence of us teaching our kids what or how to think about certain things,

they're going to make it up on their own. Now teenagers different that you're going to help them sort of like where you getting information from or like what are those sources? What do you think about all of that and help them, like open ended, navigate them to their own set of understandings, even if it's different than yours.

Early junior high, elementary school, you're teaching them how to think about those things and kind of as a family what those values can and what they think they should be. You know, when I think about the way that you just broke that down in terms of you know, access versus no access, and and families being open versus a school being open and all of these things, I think about the fact that when young people have nowhere to go, right,

they I go to social media, they go to books. Well, we've banned a lot of books, right and particularly in red states, right, like this is this is the thing that we're doing, and it's going school by school district and you know, and and state by state, um, denying

access to information. And so can you talk can you speak a bit to creating that kind of bubble and how detrimental it can be, the deny file of accessive information to all young people as they're trying to figure out how to navigate this new world that they're in.

That that gets really, honestly very tricky. And so that is as much as possible, that should always come down to parents as far as what do you what makes sense for your kids and how to like, how to disseminate that, how to think about those things whether or not you think your kid is ready to read or hear about things like that. Because also the determination by

age is arbitrary. It doesn't matter. It's sort of like, you know, you're just spitting a wheel and come up with some age because it's going to be about maturity and it's going to be about life experience of that kid. And so the only people that can do that are parents. And so that idea that you're going to limit what they're going to be exposed to on a systematic level or on a state level or anything like that, it doesn't make any sense at all making informed decisions as

a parent about what makes sense. Absolutely, And so you know, if the school is going to decide like, hey, we're going to take on a controversy, heads up, I want you to know, and here's the way they're going to do it, do it. That's great because then those kids get to go home and they can greatly disagree with what the teacher said, or they can really disagree with the teacher said, or they can help process through those

things versus just not exposing the kid to it. Because here's the thing they're going to get exposed to it. That is what social media does they're going to be in front of that information potentially dysfunctionally from someone who shouldn't be talking about those things in taking strong positions. And then if the kid doesn't have information from their parents, are from their school because they're not exposed to it,

it's new information. They're going to look at it on their TikTok, which means that it's going to show up on their FORU page, which now they're in an echo chamber based on the social media algorithms about what they're seeing. And for you, that may not be what you like that makes the most sense, and it might be okay, But then you get to talk through about all right, how are you thinking about that? Or like going on that way? Or you know, what do your friends think

about those kind of things. That kind of stuff are great conversations to parents to have. But if you're not in there and you're not on top of it, and you don't know they're getting the information, they're doing something with it, good luck with what that is and who they're getting it from. Yeah, with you know, my last question for you, Michael, this has been so helpful and you have dropped so many gems for parents for caregivers

and for teachers. But I want to give you the opportunity and I want to ask this question, which is what, how how? What are the best ways are? What are some tactics that people who are in the lives of young people can do to show that they are a safe space to, you know, to to ask, you know, what kind of questions can they ask to try and develop a relationship and an open, you know, space for communication for a young person that may be in need, that they see is in need but they're trying to

reach them. First off, be genuine safe you can you can talk to the kid, whether it's like it's your child or someone else's and you're just like you're exposed to them or like you're a mentor to them. Be genuine about like the Hey, I can just tell you a little bit off and I don't know what's going on. I can't tell, but you're different than you used to be, and I just sort of see it, like you're not trying as hard at school, or like you're in bed

a whole lot more things like that. Feel free to use the appropriate words like depression and anxiety and suicide and things like that. Talking about suicide or talking about depression isn't going to make your kid more likely to be depressed or more likely to attempt suicide. It's actually quite the opposite. If they're thinking that way and you can talk to them about it, then you've got a chance. If you don't talk to them about it, you don't

have a chance. The other thing is like in the know that this is never just about like one single conversation. This is gonna be about twelve thousand conversations over the course of you know, definitely their childhood and throughout their lifetime, and so have you know, have the opening one that's going to be weird and awkward in case you haven't had it before, it's gonna be a little tough for those ones. I always advise parents or caregivers to do that.

In the car, that's my favorite spot for those just because you can have the radio on. There's no awkward silence, there's no expectation of eye contact. You're both just looking through the front windshield and in case you can look

over if you want to. If you're running errands together, you know, you park, you're run into target, you come back out, you can pick the conversation back up while you've sort of processed it while while you're in target, and then it just you know, And then also some other things might come up along the way, and so those are also you have a captured audience. They're not going to jump out of the car because you start talking about suicide. If they do, then you know, then

you've got problems anyway. So but it's then those are good easy times, especially in the beginning, to bring these tough, tough topics up into and to treat it in a serious way and also admit what you don't know and ask questions, and you can say so like out here there's been a peak in suicide attempts and then kids as young as eight dying by suicide, and so out here.

You can also use those news stories or use like like local news or even like not so local news as jumping off points to be I know this is happening, kiddo, Why do you think it's happening so much? What do you think is going on that way? Or explain to meet your point of view about like why, because I don't get it and I don't know why, and I don't know what you're going through. It's okay, to admit all those things and to admit that I don't how does TikTok affect all these things or how does like

Instagram affect all this stuff? From your point of view? And that's you can do that with lots of age kids. That doesn't have to be like, you know, junior high or high school. You know, you're ten year old. You can have a reasonable conversation with about you know, hey, there's kids that are like attempting suicide, like in the local area, But do you think that's about or what do you think might get someone to that point? You

can have that conversation with a ten year old. It will be a different conversation than you would have with a sixteen year old, But when you open the door repeatedly and talk about it, then they're going to feel invited to talk about that stuff, especially during the tough times when they need to the most. Oh, Michael, this

has been so helpful. I so appreciate that. So appreciate your conversation and your advice to the wok F audience, because I think that where we are right now is a really perilous for young people, and I think that the more that we can as adults try our best to bridge, you know, to create a bridge and an open communication and respectful, authentic communication with young people, the likelihood of them being able to navigate this this time

is better. So, Michael Klickner, thank you so much for making the time to join woke F. I really appreciate you. Thank you, Danielle, I really enjoyed it. That is it for me today. Dear friends on woke f as always, power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.