Teenagers today are held to too high of a standard. Some may say that’s dramatic, that it’s not true, but it does have more truth to it than most people realize, especially when it comes to adults. 

Adults always dismiss thoughts and words that express how teenagers have it so easy. “You don’t have anything to be stressed or anxious about at your age,” is something that I’ve often heard from the adults in my life, which is just a blatant lie. 

An average day in the life of an average teenager consists of an eight-hour school day, work after school, homework, and then limited free time to do what they want, if they’re lucky. Most nights we’re up late studying for tests, doing homework, and catching up on missed work, and we do it all over again the next day. 

Some days, these late nights lead to exhaustion the next day, something that can highly impact our mentality. Occasionally, you may face days where you’re struggling to get out of bed, struggling to find that motivation for the new day. 

Those days are experienced by a multitude of students on a daily basis. You may have even had that experience this morning when the devastating sound of your alarm rang throughout your room. 

The attendance policy at Central Hardin is quite puzzling to many students. Many students have the thought of just staying home to avoid being given a tardy. These tardies accumulate over time and can end up in unnecessary repercussions for students. 

With this tardy policy in place, why not just stay home for the whole day if you know you’re going to be late? It’s easier to excuse this whole day’s absence than a tardy that you may deal with on occasion. 

Missing a singular block or even just a few only impacts your attendance slightly, though it still counts as a tardy. Yes, tardies can be excused which doesn’t affect your attendance much. However, missing a block or two isn’t the most logical thing to do. 

If you miss one block, you really don’t have much time for yourself to catch up on work. By the time you wake up, get ready, and get some work done, it’s already time to go to school. By taking a whole day off, you can get so much more done during a day’s time compared to only a block off. 

Kid’s lack time management skills, so they need an adequate amount of time for catching up or else they won’t have the ability to get much done.  

With the increasing pressure on students to be so involved with school and extracurriculars, our mental health is severely deteriorating. Some days this deterioration causes us to feel the need to stay home. We just can’t go to school and continue to put stress on ourselves when we’ve reached our limit. 

This is why mental health days should be implemented at our school. Schools around the country are using this program to look after their students. Just a few absent days a year that are approved by the school could make a world of difference. There are many benefits that mental health days can provide students with. 

“Besides giving young people a much-needed break, it’s believed allowing mental health days will help decrease the stigma associated with mental health and mental illness, allowing young people to ask for and receive help before a significant crisis,” said the New York Times regarding the purpose and benefits of mental health days. 

While parent days are useful for some mental health days, it’s still not exactly fair to students to have to use their parent notes for something that the school should acknowledge. Parent days’ intended uses are illnesses that maybe don’t merit a doctor’s visit, funerals, religious holidays, and orders of the court. 

Students get only six parent days per school year. Six days isn’t enough for most kids. Kids definitely have more days than six where they’re really struggling mentally, which is not something that they should have to deal with at school. 

The implementation of mental health days would benefit our students in so many ways. They would provide us with days to catch up on our work, days to relax, and days to study for upcoming exams. 

Though many adults have lived the life of a teenager in the past, many of them still don’t understand what it’s like for us teenagers today. 

With the implementation of modern technology and social media, teens’ lives can be extremely stressful. Technology has put unbelievable amounts of stress and pressure on students today, making mental health an increasing struggle nowadays. 

With all of this pressure to be the perfect and best versions of ourselves, mental health is significantly more important in our society now and should have more effort put towards it today. 

The implementation of mental health days could impact students’ lives so much. Just the downtime to allow for catch-up days and time off would make vast improvements in our school. By speaking out about this issue, the idea of these days could be recognized by adults and other students, finally making a change in students’ lives and benefiting them in many ways.