As stated by NCCP, “Many mental health disorders first present during adolescence.” This means that some teenagers struggle with bad mental health, and it is important for people to care so teens can get help or so they can help themselves. Despite the fact that some parents may believe that their children are being dramatic, parents and people overall should care about teenagers mental health because bad mental health can affect your everyday life and tasks, it can lead to bad things if not treated correctly or treated at all, and disorders are very likely and common, especially for teenagers. Disorders do not equal bad mental health, you can be perfectly, mentally healthy and still have a disorder.

Mental health doesn’t just affect how you feel, but it also affects everyday tasks. They can affect your ability to focus and school. Bad mental health can lead to poor concentration, and school is definitely not easy if you can’t focus. Also, you start to overthink things. You start to give yourself thoughts like “what if I disappoint my entire family from failing this class?”, or “ what if I fail even though I have been studying so hard?” If you can’t focus or you are constantly overthinking, then just making it through one day of school is already tiring, and you are beginning to do worse in school. Another example is how you feel and act. There are a lot of different things you can feel when you either have bad mental health or a disorder. You can feel tired, sad, worthless, paranoid, stressed, and many other feelings. Some symptoms of mental disorders, according to WHO (World Health Organization), contain poor concentration, feeling guilty or low self-worth, hopelessness, suicidal thoughts, more sleep or less sleep than usual, changes in appetite and weight, and feeling tired and having low to no energy whatsoever. Initially, mental health can affect your social life. Being unhealthy mentally can often cause you to drift apart from your family and friends. Poor mental health can also make you isolated so you don’t interact socially.

Another reason why more people should care about teenagers' mental health is because it can lead to bad things if not treated correctly or not treated at all. There are many different ways you can treat your mental illnesses including finding ways to relax, connect with others, talk to someone such as a therapist or a trusted adult, improve your sleep, and many other things that have to do with you being healthy mentally and physically. These things may seem easy to do for you, but it is much harder to do when you are mentally not OK. One example of what poor mental health can lead to is disorders. There are many disorders you can develop such as PTSD, anxiety, social anxiety, depression, and OCD. These disorders will then cause even harder things to deal with on top of your poor mental health. This can also lead to suicidal thoughts and attempts and/or self harm. Self harm is obviously a very serious topic and bad, so we need to learn to prevent suicide and self harm. Untreated disorders such as anxiety can lead to severe panic attacks and thoughts of worthlessness. It is important to treat your disorders and to treat them correctly. Most people think that mental disorders are temporary and you can control them. Mental disorders can be temporary but it depends on how you handle them. If you’re not taking care of them and asking for help, they can last forever.

My last reason why people should care about teenagers’ mental health is that disorders are very likely. As stated by Polaris teen center, “1 in 5 teens have suffered from a mental disorder. Disorders are very likely and common and some teens have a disorder without even knowing it. Specifically, parents should care about their children's mental health because teenagers need someone they can trust and talk to and if your child is trying to talk about it, it is important to listen and give them a chance to talk. Parents should also keep a look out for symptoms of bad mental health. Parents should also know that they should get mad if their children don’t talk to them but try to be supportive and respect them. The last example is that poor mental health can ruin your ability to build healthy relationships. When you're mentally unhealthy, you begin to isolate yourself from others and stop socializing. People will then stop talking to you because they’re tired of trying to keep your relationship going. Your poor mental health can also influence other people's health. You can start to pass on stress to others making their health lower and lower. Although some parents may believe that their kids are being dramatic and that it isn’t that serious, furthermore, it is important to be happy and to take care of yourself. Teens should also be able to have someone they can talk to about what they are going through. Disorders are real and they can really affect you.

In conclusion, teenagers' mental health is important to care about because it affects their everyday tasks, can lead to bad things if not treated properly, and disorders are very likely especially for teens. It would be great if everyone would just stop and take a second to think about what teenagers go through and try to help them because teenagers' mental health is just as important as an adult's mental health.