DR Claudia Williams, a Jamaican teacher, social worker and clinician living in the USA suggests using literacy, through bibliotherapy, as a strategy to address mental health issues in children.

Bibliotherapy is the use of books as therapy in the treatment of mental disorders.

“If children are not available for life, you can teach until the cows come home, nothing will happen,” Dr Williams said. “Children bring issues to class.

“They can look like they are paying attention, but are consumed with the internal process,” she said.

Defined by the World Health Organisation as “a state of well-being in which every individual realises his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community,” mental health also helps determine how people handle stress, relate to others, and make choices.

With links between behavioural problems in children and various mental conditions, Dr Williams, who presented at the Jamaica Reading Association’s (JRA) annual conference last November, said she was raising the issues and possibilities of bibliotherapy with teachers.

“I’m not saying you need to be a clinician, but there are books that can address issues in the class.” Using the novel No Boy Like Amanda by Hope Barnett, Dr Williams explained how teachers could support literacy, while focusing on the social and emotional well-being.

Set in rural Jamaica, No Boy Like Amanda, tells the story of eight-year-old Amanda Simpson, the only girl in a family with four boys. Living in a family with meagre resources offers Amanda limited options to entertain herself; so she is determined to be “one of the boys”.

Buoyed by an indomitable spirit, a doting father, as well as her first “crush”, she manages to force herself into the group and join the boys on a few adventures, which almost always end with some mishap.

“Some of what Amanda is experiencing is developmentally important and what you would expect [for a child her age],” Dr Williams explained. “She has more skills about males than females.

“If you had an Amanda in your class, you could have a discussion about growing up. As you go through the book you would ask them to do parallels,” Dr Williams shared. “Ask them to illustrate, draw picture to reflect what they got from the story.”

“For my purpose this would be a good book for anyone who wants to acquire cultural competence. It’s real for the new immigrant who doesn’t have imagery. It gives parallel for same age group kids,” Dr Williams continued. “Good for children at the Latency Stage, just before teenage. It also shows responsibility. It deals with daddy issues, if a child is from a divorced home, she can look at how good her father was. It demonstrates how adults should take care of children.”

Dr Williams noted books can be used to help children deal with social and emotional issues, development issues, attachment, abandonment, grief, and loss.

ASK QUESTIONS

“What you do is teach each section of the book as you read through it. What do you think or feel? Engage them in identifying their feelings,” said Dr Williams. “Most children explode and they don’t know when they are getting angry.

“As adults we help them to manage emotions. You can then have them get a model for appropriate behaviour and acknowledgement of feelings without bubbling up and spilling over,” Dr Williams continued. “They can identify with characters in the book and get responses. ‘Can you think of anyone you can talk to? How do you deal with it?'”

Teachers can also have children write about their feelings. Dr Williams said it may be useful not to make too many corrections on grammar and spelling, as this may discourage children from fully expressing themselves.

Dr Williams also recommended When Sophie gets Angry – Really, Really Angry; Taking Diabetes to School; Let’s Talk About Feeling Sad; and Billy Bully: A School-yard Counting Tale as books that can be used to alleviate some of the problems in

the classroom.