Out of options for their children’s mental health care, some desperate parents relinquish custody

Nina Richtman’s teenage son was in danger — and so was everyone around him. Having done everything in her power to get him the mental health care he needed, it wasn’t enough, and he’d started setting fires in the family home. Desperate, she made a final, heart wrenching decision to give custody of her son to the state. “It was incredibly hard to admit to myself that I was at the end of the road, that I could not do any more as one parent trying to help him,” Richtman told USA Today. “I was just at that point where I could not do any more. … We just tried everything.” 

Amid a dearth of youth mental health services across the nation — despite more severe need since COVID-19 hit — more parents have stories like Richtman’s. “I’ve seen this repeatedly,” said Kim Scorza, executive director of the Crittenton Center, an Iowa-based nonprofit whose child advocacy work aims to keep families together. After reaching “a certain breaking point, they just don’t know what else to do or where else to go,” she said.

It’s a trend that began even before the pandemic. From February 2017 to February 2018, some 25,000 American families relinquished custody of their children for behavioral or disability needs, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. The American Academy of Pediatrics also finds that mental and behavioral care is the largest unmet health need for foster youth. 

Though nearly half of children who leave foster care will be reunited with their families, many age out of the system, devoid of adequate mental, emotional, or financial support. Many foster children may have also been prescribed psychotropic medications – described by psychologist Lisa Cohen Bennett as “chemical handcuffs” that limit a child’s ability to act out rather than treat the root of their issue – that they need to wean themselves from after aging out of the system. 

(MindSite News partnered with The Imprint to publish a five-part series featuring original reporting on over-medication of youth in foster care. The latest was issued last month, around non-pharmaceutical pathways to mental wellness for foster youth.) 

Keeping families intact will take more tangible support, Richtman said, still doubtful that her son is getting the right treatment. “A parent shouldn’t have to lose custody for their kid to get care,” she said. “There needs to be another way for kids that have complex needs, and right now it’s this. This is the only option for families like mine, and it’s a really complicated, really expensive option for the state, and it’s not even meeting the kids’ needs.”

How to handle criticism from your children 

Face it: No one likes to be criticized. As Dr. Barbara Greenberg, a psychologist for teens and parents, explains, it’s natural to feel defensive. Hearing criticism can set off a whole host of unpleasant feelings, she writes in Psychology Today: “We feel judged. We feel attacked. We worry about losing love, relationships, jobs, and our good reputations. We associate criticism with loss and that makes us feel very vulnerable.”

Parents feeling beleaguered by what they view as their teens’ incessant carping may be relieved to hear that as they mature — or at least get older — things tend to calm down. In  “8 Secrets to Handling Criticism Well,” Greenberg gives some tips that are helpful not only in tempering criticism from your kids,  but that could also help in handling feedback from friends, colleagues, bosses and others. 

First of all, try to defuse the situation with a lighter touch, she advises. Stay calm, and keep breathing. Listen carefully, and let your kids finish before responding (this is the hardest part for some of us). “Take a moment to prepare your response,” Greenberg advises, “or if you’re not ready, tell the person who criticized you that you need some time to think about what they’ve said…and that you’ll get back within 24 hours.” Consider whether there are any positive lessons you could learn from the feedback, she says, and if you’re not sure, run it by someone you trust who cares about you deeply. If your child has used  sweeping judgements, insisting that you’re “so mean” or “out of it,” ask for examples. Read Dr. Greenberg’s article for more helpful advice here, and in the meantime, take care of yourself. (You might want to settle in with some of the great (and often hilarious) coming of age films we’ve reviewed, below.) – MindSite News editors

Related:

‘Turning Red’ Trailer

Turning Red: A Quirky Coming of Age Story about Breaking Through Intergenerational Pain by Melissa Hung, MindSite News

Intergenerational Trauma and Healing: Why Disney’s Encanto Resonates with Latinx First-Gens, by Marta Sammartino, MindSite News

Reclaiming tribal languages and healing intergenerational trauma in Oklahoma schools

Foreign language classes aren’t anything new, but the course Martie Woothtakewahbitty teaches at Life Ready Center, a public school in Lawton, Oklahoma, is a little different. “Soobesʉ Nʉmʉnʉʉ sʉmʉoyetʉ̠ Nʉmʉ niwʉnʉʔeetʉ. Ʉkitsi nʉnʉ tʉasʉ Nʉmʉ niwʉnʉ̠hutuʔi. Ubʉ̠nitu tʉasʉ Nʉmʉ niwʉnʉ̠hutuʔinʉ,” she says. Her students reply with an English translation: “We spoke Comanche. We speak Comanche now, and we will speak Comanche in the future.”

Last September, the students learned about the US’s attempts to eliminate Native American cultures, in part through Indian boarding schools. Indigenous teachers are reclaiming their languages and passing them on, reversing that legacy. Woothtakewahbitty told KOSU learning the language transformed her life. “I started learning why I am the way I am, why I do things the way I do, why I talk the way I do, even in English,” she said. “That would be the biggest surprise for me: how much I learned about my own identity.” Her testimony tracks with research showing that forcible assimilation efforts caused “an intergenerational pattern of cultural and familial disruption,” passing along trauma as epigenetic inheritance. It’s good, then, that epigenetic changes are reversible.

Indigenous children struggle disproportionately with their mental health – the CDC reports that 24.5% of American Indian and Alaskan Native high school students seriously considered suicide in 2023, and 45 percent felt sad or hopeless. The national averages were 20.4% and 39.7% Beyond intergenerational trauma, Indigenous youth face barriers to treatment, including a shortage of culturally competent providers, spotty access to an internet or computer for telehealth services in rural areas, long waitlists, and stigma. 

Learning tribal languages has been shown to improve mental health outcomes in Indigenous communities by creating a sense of belonging and improving cultural connections. Another study even found that youth suicide rates noticeably dropped as indigenous language use went up. Caden, a 16-year-old student of Woothtakewahbitty’s, says it’s one of her favorite classes. “I feel like it’s more of a spiritual connection learning about all this stuff and getting kids connected.”

The young people the course helps will go on to shape the future. Raylisha Stanley, Indian Education Director for Lawton Public Schools, has worked for years to reintegrate Native American culture into her students’ lives. “We’re trying to make every student feel the impact of their culture, be comfortable and be able to succeed,” Stanley said. “I think when you give that student that cultural awareness and self-confidence, they’re going to reach their goals. They’re going to set their goals higher.”

In other news…

Once incarcerated at age 15 while 6 months pregnant, Tabatha Trammell now works as a doula for other incarcerated mothers. “It’s a person that can listen to you, to help you find your voice. I didn’t have that when I was pregnant. So I decided, ‘Oh, I think I want to do that,’” she said, on the Criminal podcast. In addition to being a full-spectrum doula, Trammell is a criminal justice reform advocate and founder of Woman With a Plan, a Georgia-based nonprofit providing women returning home from incarceration with mentorship, basic necessities, and community support.

Nearly half of teens say social media is bad for youth mental health: That’s according to the results of a Pew Research Center survey of 1,391 US teens aged 13 to 17. 48% said social media has a “mostly negative effect” on their peers, which researchers note is a substantial increase from the 32% of teens who said the same in 2022. In addition, 45% say they spend too much time scrolling various platforms, and 44% said they’ve cut back on usage. 

“The overuse of social media in our society seems to be the main cause of depression among those in my age group,” one respondent wrote.Twenty-two percent of those concerned about teen mental health said social media was the main factor. “People seem to let themselves be affected by the opinions of people they don’t know, and it wreaks havoc upon people’s states of mind,” according to another. Interestingly, while teens were concerned about social media’s effect on those around them, only 14% said social media had a negative impact on them personally.