Dr. Johnny Lops is a child psychiatrist who works at a hospital in Brooklyn and has a private practice. His website is at Drjohnnylops.com; and he tweets at @drjohnnylops
It’s Monday morning and I am sitting in my office in a
clinic in Brooklyn, NY that services primarily low income multi-cultural
families. My phone is blinking that I
have a message, most likely over five. I
can already predict the variety of calls I am about to hear. Many will be mothers informing me of complaints
from school that their children have been acting out again, or that they are not
focused, or that they continues to show insufficient effort or motivation.
Day in and day out, it seems the job of a NYC parents and teachers
is becoming more stressful. I make jokes
to the parents of the kids I see that I would not wish my worst enemy to become
a teacher in these times. Gone are the days where teachers were allowed
the time get to know their students or their parents and do what I hope schools
would provide: the opportunity to develop good social skills, executive
functioning , emotional intelligence and
enhance their moral development.
What schools do instead is put an overwhelming, overbearing pressure
on kids to achieve high scores on standardized
test s, on which their teachers are then evaluated.. Well, if I am a teacher, I don’t have time to
work on the development of a child. If
my job is simply based on academics, then getting through lesson plans are most
important. If I have a child who has
experienced trauma, copes with multiple stressors at home like a majority of my
kids, has an anxiety/depressive disorder, and/or a behavioral disorder, these
kids are negatively affecting my future.
I am very proud of
the teachers that do contact me and provide more information about my kids’
mental well-being. A majority of
teachers are quite -tuned in to their student’s emotions. I find the ability for teachers to make
referrals to mental health clinics has improved. My concern is that with all the stress on
schools to produce high test scores, the children who do not carry the full
range of academic, emotional, or social intelligence are falling behind, way
behind, and they end up in my office developing real psychiatric conditions
that are undermining their well –being.
Parents wish they could complete the homework with them but
a majority of my parents struggle academically as well. I have in my office a stressed out mother
AND a child, both developing low self-esteem because of their poor academic skills. Furthermore, because children are acting out, has not fully
developed healthy executive functioning skills or emotional intelligence, they
have less time to do homework, because they need to come see us at our clinic
for therapy and/or medications to target their symptoms, many of which are
caused by their academic struggles.
I am happy to work for a clinic where my staff and I are
committed to serving local families and can provide them the support they
need. I think all my colleagues would agree,
though, that having schools become a place focused so exclusively on academics
has put an incredible amount of burden on parents and staff, trying to find
alternatives for children facing these pressures. Watching children in my office exhibit so
many psychiatric problems is
upsetting. I just hope those running the NYC Department of Education and the State
Education Department re-evaluate their strategies to improve children’s
outcomes.
--Dr. Johnny Lops, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist
