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The other night as I scrolled through my Twitter feed, I came across a familiar photo of Cheslie Kryst. It was an image I'd seen many times before; her captivating smile and gorgeous eyes shortly after being crowned Miss USA 2019. But this time, the caption I read didn't fit the photo: "Former Miss USA winner and 'Extra' correspondent Cheslie Kryst has died in a suspected suicide in Manhattan." How could that be? Clearly, she's been misidentified, I thought.
I stayed glued to my phone late into the night, hoping another news story would clear up the horrific mistake. But then, I saw the statement her family released. Then, I read the tributes that flooded social media. And then, I began to grasp the reason why I felt so invested in the life of this young woman; a woman I'd never met. It was because she represented everything that we tell our kids—particularly little Black girls—they should strive to be.
We tell them they can do anything and be anything if they work hard. We tell them to excel in the classroom. And they do. Last year, Black women were deemed the most educated group in the country. Cheslie herself earned a bachelor's degree, a master's degree in business administration and a law degree. And we remind our kids that Black is beautiful (which it is) because media images and historical representations have repeatedly and consistently told us otherwise.
Of course, these reminders are important and necessary but are we inadvertently forgetting other things too ... like explaining the need to protect our precious mental health and take adequate time to understand and process our thoughts and emotions? In a society that praises side hustles and sleepless nights on one hand, but boasts about self-care and work-life balance on the other, we are sending mixed messages to our kids about what constitutes success. And in the process, we're doing them a great disservice because the endless quest for perfection is simply unsustainable. Cheslie seemed to understand this principle more than most writing in a powerful essay for Allure last year: "Why work so hard to capture the dreams I've been taught by society to want when I continue to find only emptiness?"
What's more, over the past two years, we've seen that those bearing the mental brunt of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, our children, are suffering the most. The pandemic and the loss of Cheslie should urge us to do more.
The once-cherished learning experience has been derailed at every level of education—from kindergarten to middle school to college. And overworked and underappreciated mental health professionals have been asked, time and time again, to step up and fill the void.
Collectively, we—corporate leaders, school officials, parents and community members—must work together to lighten their load and help provide our kids with the holistic support they need to thrive, both now and in the future. That includes:
—Connecting students and their families with more accessible, high-quality mental health services—many of which can be accessed online;
—Investing in more student-centered and community activities and events that foster self-esteem, compassion, kindness and empathy;
—Integrating more social-emotional developmental goals in K-12 curriculum and coursework; and
—Supporting programs and initiatives that help students better understand and identify their emotions and improve their understanding of how their language and behavior impacts others.
By implementing these strategies in a comprehensive way, I truly believe we can change the trajectory of our kids' lives. Because the statistics don't lie. At the beginning of the pandemic, "the proportion of mental health-related emergency department visits among adolescents aged 12–17 years increased 31% compared with that during 2019," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And even in the decade leading up to the pandemic, suicide rates among young people between the ages of 10 and 24 in the U.S. increased by nearly 60 percent, according to a recent U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory.
This advisory compels us to create "a swift and coordinated response" that addresses the mounting mental health complexities among our nation's youth. Counselors, therapists and psychologists have always been a vital part of this work, but they can't and shouldn't be expected to do this work alone.
We must choose to take more concerted, deliberate efforts toward helping every child and young adult access the mental health support they need. They're literally begging us for it. When will we finally start listening?
Niyoka McCoy is senior vice president of Academic Services and chief academic officer at Stride, Inc.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
