I've been meaning to write about this issue for a long time, but I always feared that there was no way I could do it justice.
And guess what? I can't do it justice, but I should still speak up about it. We do what we can.
Simply put, of all the toxic things that schools do these days, perhaps none is as destructive as the school-based "health" initiatives, and especially the fairly new focus on "mental health."
I've always been fascinated by the fact that parents, who see the blue-haired furry trans maniacs who teach gay communism in school, don't recoil in horror when they are told that their schools will be addressing their children's mental health.
Mental health awareness efforts have been catastrophic for our cultural hygiene and are a key reason why our culture has become defined by its cluster B psychopathology, especially among young progressive females. https://t.co/wj0GW88vit pic.twitter.com/2Ko8xiiRhu
— J.D. Haltigan, PhD 🏒👨💻 (@JDHaltigan) April 29, 2026
Even if the people who are addressing your child's mental health were not themselves manifestly insane, spending time in school devoted to getting children to focus on every emotional discomfort they might experience as they go through adolescence is about as toxic as possible. It is, in fact, exactly the opposite of what the research in mental health shows should happen.
Imagine a 19-year-old scrolling TikTok. She watches a creator list five "signs you have undiagnosed anxiety." She recognizes three in herself. By the end of the week, she's describing herself as anxious to her friends. A month later, she's avoiding situations she used to handle… pic.twitter.com/SOoYaU5CGc
— Michael Inzlicht (@minzlicht) April 29, 2026
Imagine a 19-year-old scrolling TikTok. She watches a creator list five "signs you have undiagnosed anxiety." She recognizes three in herself. By the end of the week, she's describing herself as anxious to her friends. A month later, she's avoiding situations she used to handle fine.
What went wrong?
In a new paper by my PhD student Dasha Sandra, titled "Why mental health awareness can harm: Converging explanations for a societal problem", we argue that well-meaning mental health awareness can backfire, and we identify how. Four separate literatures (concept creep, nocebo effects, prevalence inflation, and illness self-labeling) have been circling the same problem from different angles. We show they converge on three mechanisms:
1.Awareness lowers the threshold for what counts as a disorder.
2. It trains people to scan their inner lives for symptoms and reinterpret normal distress as pathology.
3. Once someone adopts an illness identity, they behave in ways that confirm and deepen it.
The evidence is wide. Learning that loneliness is harmful makes solitude feel worse. Learning that stress is harmful worsens well-being and performance. Awareness videos about fake conditions like "wind turbine syndrome" produce real headaches. Trigger warnings raise anticipatory anxiety without reducing distress.
Schools are now steeped in what they call "Social and Emotional Learning" (SEL). The assumption is that the schools are the best place for kids to learn how to cope and behave in society, but the evidence shows exactly the opposite. As SEL has spread, children's mental health has sharply declined. While much of that is caused by the spread of insanity on social media, you can see the same trends reflected in the schools.
📛Your child is their piggybank.
— Beth Bourne (@bourne_beth2345) May 7, 2026
Excellent work by @buttonslives as she connects all the dots.
Here in Davis, California, students can meet confidentially with CommuniCare Health gender-affirming therapists at Davis Senior High School. Kids can just “drop-in, while at school… https://t.co/wr2WA08qXI pic.twitter.com/7erMUw08YH
📛Your child is their piggybank.
Excellent work by @buttonslives as she connects all the dots.
Here in Davis, California, students can meet confidentially with CommuniCare Health gender-affirming therapists at Davis Senior High School. Kids can just “drop-in, while at school for this “free” service.
@libsoftiktok wrote an article back in 2023 based on my public records request (PRA) responses from @DJUSD
. https://libsoftiktok.com/p/revealed-california-school-district
The trans-insanity, boosted on social media, got reinforced in the schools, making a fad into a full-fledged cause that has been a disaster for kids and distorted our entire society. It goes beyond political activism and enters the territory of full-on cult indoctrination.
There's also a LOT of money to be made in pushing this agenda. Schools have sucked up massive amounts of new dollars in the SEL push, and outside NGOs and consultants are making bank off the suffering of children.
Gavin Newsom used California’s youth mental-health crisis to build a $15+ billion therapeutic bureaucracy rooted in the idea that “white supremacy” was driving children’s distress, while taxpayers nationwide help fund it.
— Christina Buttons (@buttonslives) April 30, 2026
In 2021, Newsom launched the Children and Youth… pic.twitter.com/L5nD1xq38D
Gavin Newsom used California’s youth mental-health crisis to build a $15+ billion therapeutic bureaucracy rooted in the idea that “white supremacy” was driving children’s distress, while taxpayers nationwide help fund it.
In 2021, Newsom launched the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative (CYBHI), the $4.7 billion centerpiece of his Master Plan for Kids’ Mental Health. It was sold as a response to “severe outcomes”: rising hospitalizations for self-harm and suicidality among children.
But he handed the reins to progressive activists, who identified “racism” and “white supremacy” as root causes of mental illness and substance abuse. The result was a statewide equity agenda centered on “prevention”: screening, data collection, and the medicalization of children who were not driving the crisis.
California is now turning K–12 schools into mental-health service sites. Students can receive therapy or psychiatric diagnoses during school hours, billed to insurance.
Normal school anxiety is now “medically necessary” for services.
Parents may not even know. A new law allows “mature” minors 12 and older to consent to treatment, and state guidance says “parents are not to be contacted.”
CYBHI funds mental-health screening programs for toddlers and social-emotional learning during class time with an “explicit equity and social justice lens.”
It also funds “community-defined evidence practices (CDEPs),” which made programs that introduce students to progressive activism and “gender-affirming” services eligible for public money.
...
Progressives are attempting to make schools a one-stop shop for mental and physical health services, and they are able to do everything behind the backs of parents, who don't even get informed due to privacy laws. It is yet another step in the effort to separate parents from children, and make bank while doing so.
Advocates for school-based health centers are pushing to make puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones available through clinics located on K–12 school campuses.
— Christina Buttons (@buttonslives) May 8, 2026
In states with “mature minor” doctrines, that model could open the door for students to obtain these drugs without… pic.twitter.com/iAp89ZaJvd
Advocates for school-based health centers are pushing to make puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones available through clinics located on K–12 school campuses.
In states with “mature minor” doctrines, that model could open the door for students to obtain these drugs without parental knowledge.
In Seattle, SBHC providers already prescribe birth control to suppress menstruation for girls who identify as transgender. They currently refer youth to gender clinics, but seek to prescribe puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on campus.
Hormonal birth control is already a routine service at many SBHCs.
California partners with the California School-Based Health Alliance, which seeks to create “truly affirming and equitable spaces where LGBTQIA+ youth can thrive.” Gender-related drugs do not appear to be part of California’s SBHC model... yet.
Read my latest investigation for @CityJournal:
https://city-journal.org/article/california-youth-mental-health-crisis
Anybody who thinks that there are benign intentions behind this is naive to the point of retardation. Schools exist to indoctrinate and manipulate children. You can see that in the fact that resources keep pouring in, and results keep getting worse. Teaching academic subjects is now barely a secondary goal; churning out mentally ill revolutionaries is what they do.
INSANE: Major Woke Alert 🚨
— Melissa Tate (@TheRightMelissa) May 13, 2026
Scholastic, the largest book publisher for k-12 books just published anti-ICE books including a story about a Mexican girl who comes to reclaim America as stollen from the native
What’s worse is Pres. Trump is referred to as “a fascist” in the books pic.twitter.com/f6wHyr8ggW
We keep being told this is about helping kids navigate an ever-more-complicated world, but when you actually look at what they are doing, it is exactly the opposite.
Teachers unions are the worst enemy American children have ever had. pic.twitter.com/3W1A199DIh
— Dan Gainor (@dangainor) May 13, 2026
No doubt there are plenty of dedicated teachers, but they are in an uphill battle against a system designed to suck in as much money as possible and uses its failure to get results as an argument for even more money.
If you look around today, one of the consistent themes in progressive politics is the glorification of mental illness, especially Cluster B personality disorders.
The four types of Cluster B personality disorders include:
- Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD): People diagnosed with ASPD show a lack of respect toward others. They generally don’t follow socially accepted rules.
- Borderline personality disorder (BPD): People diagnosed with BPD have difficulty regulating their emotions. This results in low self-esteem, mood swings and impulsive behaviors.
- Histrionic personality disorder (HPD): People diagnosed with HPD have intense, unstable emotions and a distorted self-image. They have an overwhelming desire for others to notice them. They’re easily influenced by others.
- Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD): People diagnosed with NPD have a sense of being better than others. They have an intense need for praise. They lack empathy for others.
Sound familiar?
Schools should be banned from providing any health services beyond First Aid, and if kids are recognized as needing social and emotional support, their parents should be notified.
Can the public schools be saved? I don't think so.
