The Word “Mental” in Project 2025. (iii)
Just to formally close out the series on Project 2025 and its intersections with mental health, let me comment on the third instance where “mental” shows up in the document. (The series starts here.) In short, the authors advocate that parents have unconditional and prompt access to all information their children share with schools, including:
surveys, about political affiliations or beliefs; mental or psychological issues (emphasis mine); sexual behaviors or attitudes; critical appraisals of family members; illegal or self-incriminating behavior; religious practices or beliefs; privileged relationships, as with doctors and clergy; and family income, unless for program eligibility.
The section cites two laws, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), both of which reportedly “require[s] schools to obtain parental consent before asking questions”. However, it sounds like some schools do not routinely obtain parental consent to ask questions of students. The authors suggest that concerned parents don’t have many options to enforce these laws.
Here’s the entire (and lengthy) paragraph on page 344:
At the same time, Congress should also consider equipping parents with a private right of action. Two federal laws provide certain privacy protections for students attending educational institutions or programs funded by the department. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protects the privacy of student education records and allows parents and students over the age of 18 to inspect and review the student’s education records maintained by the school and to request corrections to those records. FERPA also authorizes a number of exceptions to this records privacy protection that allow schools to disclose the student’s education records without the consent or knowledge of the parent or student. The Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) requires schools to obtain parental consent before asking questions, including surveys, about political affiliations or beliefs; mental or psychological issues; sexual behaviors or attitudes; critical appraisals of family members; illegal or self-incriminating behavior; religious practices or beliefs; privileged relationships, as with doctors and clergy; and family income, unless for program eligibility. The difficulty for parents is that FERPA and PPRA do not authorize a private right of action. If a school refuses to comply with either statute, the only remedy is for the parent or student (if over the age of 18) to file an administrative complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, which must then work with the school to obtain compliance before taking any action to suspend or terminate federal financial assistance. Investigations can take months if not years. The department has never suspended or terminated the funding for an educational institution or agency for violating FERPA or PPRA. In essence, Congress has granted parents and students important statutory rights without an effective remedy to assert those rights.
In an effort to prevent “perfect” from becoming the enemy of “good enough”, I’ve abandoned trying to learn more about FERPA and PPRA. Rules and regulations related to education are not my expertise. All of us who work in health care, though, can comment on why privacy related to a person’s health is valuable, even if they are not yet 18 years old.
Yes, in an ideal world, all people under the age of 18 have trusting, caring, and safe relationships with their parents or caregivers. Civil conversations about mental health, sexuality, politics, and religion would be norms within households.
However, we don’t live in an ideal world.
There are reasons why young people don’t share their thoughts and feelings with their adults or caregivers. Sometimes the reasons aren’t valid. Young people sometimes underestimate their parents or have unjustified fears about their caregivers’ reactions.
However, there are other instances where a youth’s best option is to withhold information from their parents. Sometimes children feel that they must protect their caregivers. Sometimes kids realize that their parents cannot tolerate another worry. Sometimes children understand that their own health and safety are at risk because of the behavior of their caregivers.
Sometimes kids feel safer and more secure at school.
The authors of Project 2025 start from the assumption that parents know best, that their authority is the ultimate authority. Maybe parents do know best, but they don’t always behave the best. Some adults can and do misuse their authority. (To be clear, this can happen at school, too.)
This push to keep parents as the center of a young person’s life makes me think of Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development. Erikson was a psychologist who came up with a model of psychological developmental milestones. You can review the stages here, which are presented in pairs to highlight the tension of the stage. For young people in school, the relevant stages are:
Initiative vs. Guilt
Industry vs. Inferiority
Identity vs. Identity confusion
Erikson proposed that the stage before “initiative vs. guilt” is “autonomy vs. shame, doubt”. I can’t read the minds of the Project 2025 authors, though in reviewing where the word “mental” shows up in Project 2025, there seems to be an emphasis on limiting the autonomy of multiple groups of people (women, transgender people, youth). External forces can induce feelings of shame and doubt, which people can then internalize. The world gets smaller: You feel constrained in who you can be and what you can do. Shame and doubt are strong inhibitors. Your autonomy disappears.
If we believe that all people have the “unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness“, that means that we must allow and help people develop their own thoughtful autonomy so they can exercise those rights. Instead of insisting that schools abstain from having conversations about real issues with students, parents and caregivers can help young people develop thoughtful autonomy. Shame and doubt are not inherently bad; these feelings foster social bonds and a cooperative society. We don’t need to fear either autonomy or shame. For our individual and community mental wellness we need both.