Is School Making Our Kids Unwell?

Karen Ferguson
Jul 24
5 min read

Unrealistic expectations, constant testing, emotional compliance,

and not enough space to grow.

Introduction

School is supposed to be a foundation, somewhere children develop core skills, form friendships, and gain confidence in who they are and how they learn. But something has shifted. Increasingly, school feels like a place where young people are tested more than they are taught, observed more than they are understood, and regulated more than they are emotionally supported.

Mental health struggles in children are rising, yet we continue to treat school as the unquestioned standard. If a child can’t cope, we look to the child. We ask about home life, diet, screentime, attitude. But rarely do we stop to ask: what if the school environment itself is doing harm?

Because when large numbers of young people are anxious, overwhelmed, or flat-out refusing to go, it is not just a behaviour problem. It’s a signal.

A third of a child’s weekday life is spent in school. If that environment is high-pressure, low-empathy, and built for uniformity, it will shape not just how they learn, but how they feel about themselves in the long term.

The Current Landscape

Today’s classrooms are saturated with assessments, behaviour management systems, and performance culture. From the early years, children are monitored and measured, not just on academic results, but on conduct, engagement, and even emotional expression.

They learn quickly that being “good” often means being quiet, compliant, and able to produce the right kind of output at the right time. Questioning is welcomed only if it’s on-topic. Creativity is encouraged only within the bounds of the curriculum. Feelings are acceptable if they don’t disrupt flow.

A child who challenges a policy, needs more time, or expresses distress may be labelled difficult, sensitive, or disruptive. The issue is rarely framed as a system failing to adapt. It’s the child who must be adjusted, through intervention, behavioural targets, or even threat of exclusion.

And it’s affecting attendance. Recent data shows that nearly one in three secondary pupils (28%) in the UK avoid school because of anxiety. These are not isolated cases of avoidance. They are reflections of a deeper discomfort with the environment being offered.

Emotional Compliance Before Emotional Safety

It’s not just academic pressure that wears children down, it’s the emotional messaging beneath it. School often teaches children that their worth is tied to their output and their ability to fit the mould.

Systems like behaviour charts, public reward points, and “traffic light” systems regulate not just actions, but identity. A child on the red card learns quickly that their feelings or reactions are problems to be managed, not signals to be understood.

Having opinions is fine, if they’re delivered calmly, respectfully, and within a very specific context. Questioning a rule, even kindly, may be reframed as rudeness. Expressing upset at a teacher’s decision may be dismissed as attitude. Children learn early: if your emotions make someone uncomfortable, suppress them.

This kind of emotional compliance doesn’t prepare children for adulthood. It trains them to mask, to self-edit, and to seek approval over authenticity. And over time, that doesn’t just affect confidence—it rewires how they relate to themselves and others.

Teaching Stress Before Skills

Before children learn how to name their emotions, they are exposed to stress. Targets. Tests. Time pressures. Behaviour metrics. Evaluations from peers and adults alike. And in the background, an ever-growing sense that success is not about learning, but about ticking the right boxes fast enough.

What’s being reinforced is performance, not development. Schools often lack the time and training to embed emotional literacy into the day. Support is available, but only if a child reaches a level of distress that justifies it. By then, it’s often too late.

According to NHS data, one in five children and young people aged 8 to 16 now meet the criteria for a probable mental disorder . Meanwhile, over 500 children per day were referred to mental health services for anxiety in 2023–24.

We talk about resilience. But children aren’t born with regulation skills, they’re meant to be taught them. If instead they’re taught that speed and silence are more important than self-awareness and support, they’ll internalise that stress is something to push through, not something to understand or manage.

The Rise of School Refusal and Home Education

When children stop attending school regularly, it’s often painted as a family issue or child defiance. But many parents are watching their children become physically unwell at the thought of going in. And increasingly, they’re choosing to walk away from the system altogether.

In England, the number of children being home educated rose from around 80,900 in 2022 to over 92,000 in autumn 2023, and as high as 126,000 across the 2022–23 year . Mental health is a growing reason cited by parents, rising from 9% to 13% in one year.

This isn’t about parents wanting to opt out of responsibility. It’s about systems that offer no viable support once a child begins to fall apart.

What Could Be Different

The aim here isn’t to dismantle education. It’s to rebuild it around what children actually need: predictability, psychological safety, curiosity, and meaningful connection.

That might look like:

Emotional regulation being embedded across the curriculum, not siloed into one-off lessons
Teachers trained and supported in trauma-informed practice
Less focus on grading emotional behaviour and more on understanding it
Flexibility for different learning styles and sensory needs
Less reliance on punitive systems and more investment in early intervention
Making rest, breaks, and downtime standard, not earned

Some schools already do this. But they are often exceptions in a system that still prizes performance over people.

We say children are our future. But if we burn them out before they turn 14, that future will be built on repair, not growth.

The Bigger Picture

For many families, school isn’t just stressful, it’s a battleground. Parents trying to advocate for their child’s mental health are often labelled as overprotective or unreasonable. Children who can’t cope are framed as having a disorder rather than a valid response to a rigid system.

And alternatives, like home education or flexi-schooling, are frequently stigmatised, with families scrutinised rather than supported. The message is clear: There is one right way to learn, and if your child doesn’t fit it, the fault lies with them.

We wouldn’t accept this kind of rigidity in therapy. We wouldn’t accept it in workplaces. So why is it still normal in school?

If we wait until children are teenagers to talk about mental health, we’re too late. By then, many have already absorbed the belief that their needs are inconvenient, their emotions are disruptive, and their value is tied to how well they perform under pressure.

What Needs to Change

We need to stop asking children to be more resilient inside systems that are doing damage. The issue isn’t their attitude. It’s what they’re being asked to carry, suppress, or adapt to.

School should help children grow, not grind them down. And if large numbers of children are struggling, it’s not the children who need to change. It’s the system.

About MindMotive

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