Cougars Pause for Mental Health
October 2025
Welcome to Cougars Pause, a newsletter for families and our Lakewood community with valuable resources to support mental health. The following resources are designed for families to share with their children and start healthy conversations. Have ideas or feedback for this newsletter? Let us know!
May is Mental Health Awareness Month
While it was first recognized in 1949, it has never been more important than now to recognize the role mental health plays in our overall well-being and the value in raising awareness and helping those in need receive treatment.
Why Is Mental Health Awareness Important?
Recognition and education are important ways to remove the stigma associated with mental illness. Mental Health Awareness Month creates a time and space to start a conversation. Talking openly about mental health can reduce the misconceptions and stigma, and can encourage those who are suffering to seek help and find a support network. Mental Health Awareness Month also provides an opportunity for fundraising, outreach, and awareness events. This, in turn, can help support research, fund treatment options, and connect advocates to create a brighter, more promising future of mental health care.
What Can I Do To Help Raise Awareness?
There are many opportunities for community outreach and awareness events during Mental Health Awareness month. Check out national organizations, such as Mental Health America (MHA), National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), and the National Institute of Mental Health. MHA provides a campaign called Tools 2 Thrive, which provides education on mental health conditions with tools and tips for people to improve their mental health.
Encouraging Healthy Communication
Research highlights the importance of creating an environment that fosters open communication. Key steps to consider:
- Create a safe space for expression: Involves actively listening to their thoughts and feelings without judgement, which helps build trust and encourages them to reach out for help.
- Model healthy coping mechanisms: Show your child how you manage stressful situations. This can be as simple as taking deep breaths or changing your perspective on a tough situation.
When your child is talking, try to listen more than you speak so they feel heard, understood, and comfortable sharing openly with you.
Mental Health Awareness month is a great reminder that it’s not only okay-but really important-for parents to talk to their children about mental health.
Starting simple, open conversations about feelings help kids understand that all emotions are normal and they don’t have to handle things alone. When parents listen without judgement and create a safe space to share, children are more likely to speak up when something is bothering them. These everyday moments of connection can build trust, strengthen relationships, and support your child’s mental well-being long after the conversation ends.
Empathy is at the heart of what it means to be human. Empathy in elementary years is crucial for developing strong relationships, emotional regulation, and academic success, effectively acting as a “muscle” that can be strengthened through modeling and intentional conversation. The American Academy of Pediatrics emphasizes that children with higher empathy levels perform better academically and socially, as they tend to have better teacher-student relationships, higher engagement, and improved cooperation with peers.
Empathy boosts social-emotional competence, reducing conflict and bullying while increasing classroom resilience, which in turn leads to better grades and long-term success.
How Do We Grow Kind Hearts?
Harvard School of Education has created five guideposts based on Harvard research to help parents cultivate empathy.
- Empathize with your child and model empathy for others.
- Make caring for others a priority.
- Help your child understand the world doesn’t revolve around them.
- Provide opportunities for children to practice empathy.
- Expand your child’s circle of care: give them the opportunity to appreciate many types of people.
You Are Not Alone for Parents and Caregivers
A supportive and informative guide to navigating your child’s mental health.
Written by: Christine M. Crawford M.D. Sponsored By: NAMI
Know the 10 Common Warning Signs
- Feeling very sad or withdrawn for more than two weeks
- Seriously trying to harm or kill oneself or making plans to do so
- Severe out-of-control, risk-taking behaviors
- Sudden overwhelming fear for no reason
- Not eating, throwing up or using laxatives to lose weight; significant weight loss or weight gain
- Seeing hearing or believing things that are not real
- Repeatedly using drugs or alcohol
- Drastic changes in mood, behavior, personality or sleeping habits
- Extreme difficulty in concentrating or staying still
- Intense worries or fears that get in the way of daily activities
You are not alone. One in six U.S. youth aged 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year.
Tell someone
- Family member
- Close friend
- Teacher or professor
- Counselor or coach
- Faith leader
What to Say
- “I haven’t felt like myself lately, and I don’t know what to do. Can I talk to you about it?”
- “I’m worried about stuff that’s going on right now, do you have time to talk?”
- “I’m having a really hard time; will you go with me to see someone?”
The study of child development and positive youth mental health includes understanding the role and impact of trusted adults on healthy physical, mental and social outcomes for children. Research from the Search Institute, the Institute for Education Sciences and other organizations has demonstrated that trusted adults provide an important benefit to the well-being of children.
- A trusted adult is someone who is not a parent/caregiver but is part of the child’s safe natural network through family and other institutions.
- A trusted adult is chosen by the child. Among the child’s safe natural network of adults, a child chooses to seek out a deeper bond with those they identify as trusted adults.
- A trusted adult who shares some similar values as the child’s family and community network often has a special ability to inspire children to make positive choices in their lives.
- A trusted adult can spark positive outcomes for children who might not have other healthy adults in their lives.
- Most importantly, a trusted adult is someone who helps provide additional emotional support to youth, offering opportunities for prevention and intervention around issues that impact youth mental health.
It is that time of year where transitions abound and though sometimes the new seems exciting, the changes can also be scary, frustrating, and stressful. The end of the school year can feel like a “whirlwind” with finals, graduation milestones, and impending changes.
It’s important to end the school year with purpose and reflection. May/June can feel simultaneously like the fastest/slowest months of the school year. Here are some easy ways to navigate endings, middles, and beginnings:
- Acknowledge your feelings/create space for them.
- Live in the moment: if you are graduating or promoting this June make sure to enjoy the last days without constantly worrying about what comes next.
- Create meaningful goodbyes: acknowledge bonds you have made with friends and school staff. Capture the best of the school year.
- Re-frame “loss”: focus on the friendships and memories you will keep rather than just the end of a current routine.
- Paint a clear picture of the end: summer can feel a long way off in the last month of school. “Imagine the end” see what you're working towards.
A community event focused on youth mental health is coming to Stanwood High School on Saturday, May 16.
The “You Are Not Alone” event brings together students, families, and local organizations to build connection, share resources, and support one another. The event includes youth speakers, live performances, interactive activities, and access to mental health resources — all in a welcoming, community-centered space.
- 10 a.m. - 3 p.m., Saturday, May 16
- Stanwood High School
Bailey Richardson has been the counselor at Cougar Creek Elementary since 2020. She also split her time between Cougar Creek and Lakewood Middle School during the 2021-2022 school year. Previous to being a school counselor, Bailey spent time working in community mental health and the nonprofit world.
Bailey loves working as a school counselor, as it provides the unique opportunity to engage in preventative mental health care. Through teaching classroom lessons on things like communication skills, stress management and growth mindset, students learn how to care for their mental health before a crisis happens.
Outside of being a school counselor, Bailey enjoys practicing yoga, reading, traveling and taking care of her many plants.