The Self-Driven Child

From Damsel in Distress to Superhero: The Making of a Teen Mental Health Advocate For Students

• Ned Johnson • Season 1 • Episode 47

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If you've ever felt like the challenges of school, stress, and expectations are just too much, you’re not alone. In this episode, I sit down with the incredible Riana Alexander, a college freshman and mental health advocate, who turned her own struggles into a movement for change. Riana opens up about her journey—from a high-achieving student battling anxiety and depression to the founder of Arizona Students for Mental Health, a nonprofit dedicated to improving mental health resources in schools. We also dive into her fight for change within her school district, the resistance she faced, and the powerful impact she and her peers have made.

We also discuss the misconceptions around mental health, the role schools should play in student well-being, and how adults can better support struggling teens. If you’re a student, a parent, or an educator, this conversation will challenge and inspire you. A quick content note: We do discuss suicidal ideation and suicide in this episode. If you or someone you know needs support, call 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Episode Highlights:

[3:10] – Meet Riana: A college student, mental health advocate, and founder of Arizona Students for Mental Health.
[5:49] – Riana’s struggle with anxiety and depression during high school and how she found her way forward.
[7:55] – The disconnect between academic pressure and mental health—and how schools often miss the signs.
[12:45] – The tragic events that sparked Riana’s advocacy work.
[15:40] – Facing school board resistance: “This isn’t a school problem”.
[25:42] – How student-led advocacy finally pushed the district to take action.
[30:29] – The launch of the Hope Institute and its life-saving impact.
[32:34] – What adults can do to support struggling teens.
[42:16] – The importance of asking direct questions about mental health.
[49:27] – Why open conversations and community involvement are key to change.

Links & Resources:

If this episode has helped you, remember to rate, follow, and share the Self-Driven Child Podcast. Your support helps us reach more people and create more content that makes a difference. 

If you have a high school aged student and would like to talk about putting a tutoring or college plan together, reach out to Ned's company, PrepMatters at www.prepmatters.com

Ned Johnson:

Hey, folks, Ned here, like me, you want your kids, your students, honestly, all the young people you know, to thrive, and you know how much you can help. But like me, you probably also recognize that you fall short more than you'd like to, in part because we tender virtual old ways. We hear a great suggestion or learn a new approach, but to easily fall back into the same darn things that didn't work before, it isn't easy, which is why I'm really excited to share with you that Bill and I have a new book out this spring, the seven principles for raising a self driven child, a workbook. Our goal is to make it easier to put into practice more of the advice from our first two books, the self driven child and what do you say? Full of reflections and exercises to do yourself, with your partner and with your children, we want to help make the self driven child way your way, so that you can, more often than not, be as effective as you want to be with your kids in ways that we know you want to be if you get a chance order a copy bill, and I and your kids would be grateful. It

Riana Johnson:

is your responsibility, because for two reasons, one, school is one of the major stressors that teens are struggling with, all the academic pressure and the expectations and the Where should I go to college? I need to do a million things to be able to get into the school I want that's related to school. And second, we are there for, you know, 40 hours a week and doing homework for more than that. Then, of course, it's a school problem. And I, I remember saying to them, I'm not saying it's all on you I don't think educators and the school board and the school district is the only person responsible for this, but if you're saying you're not responsible at all, then we have a lot of greater issue at hand.

Ned Johnson:

Welcome to the self driven child podcast. I'm your host, Ned Johnson and co author with Dr William stick shoot of the books the self driven child the science and sense of giving their kids more control over their lives. And what do you say? How to talk with kids to build motivation, stress, tolerance and a happy home. We all know a lot of young people making their way. Many are struggling. There are also helpers, as Fred Rogers would say, what is really marvelous is when folks who are struggling not only turn things around, but then turn to helping others. Three years ago, I met Rihanna Alexander. She was doing the hard work of remaking herself from a damsel in distress to a superhero in an epic battle to do good in our world. A quick word of warning. In this episode, we discuss suicidal ideation and suicide if you or someone you know is struggling, please call 988 the suicide and crisis helpline. In the show notes, you'll also find links to resources for help. In the meantime, I hope this conversation with Rihanna helps. She's really amazing. I'm Ned Johnson, and this is the self driven child podcast. Hello, Rihanna.

Riana Johnson:

Hi.

Ned Johnson:

How are you doing?

Riana Johnson:

I'm doing pretty good. How about you?

Ned Johnson:

Well, I'm just I'm just fine for for folks who don't know Rihanna, in addition to the introduction I shared, she resides in the hottest place in the world. So how you manage to stay cool is absolutely beyond me. What is the current temperature right now? It's

Riana Johnson:

the high this week was 81 I think so. Yeah, it's getting up there.

Ned Johnson:

When I visited New recorded world the first time I was there, I was talking to a server waits that guy at the hotel where I was and he said he was from Detroit, and so he really loved being in Arizona, because Detroit, I gather cold. And he said, you know, he said, Phoenix is amazing. It's just that there are 100 straight days where the temperature never goes below 100 and I'm like, check, please, check, check. I'm out here, but I'm looking at the flag over your shoulder that says, No bad days. So apparently you can roll with it. You can roll with anything. So that is good, good on you, as they say. So for folks who don't know you, the way that I do tell tell us a little bit about your self, kind of where you are, and we're gonna, we're gonna go back and do a retrospective on high school, but you are a student to tell us a little about you.

Riana Johnson:

Yeah, I am 19. I'm a freshman in college, and I took a gap year after I graduated high school to figure yes, good decision, if anybody's thinking about it. I highly recommend I took one just to kind of figure things out work and yeah. And I also run a nonprofit, which is how I got to meet Ned, called Arizona students for mental health, which I started in high school. But we are a group of completely student led, so we're a group of high school students, and we work very closely with our school district to implement better resources for kids that are struggling, and do a whole bunch of. Advocating across the state level to, you know, break that stigma around team and off.

Ned Johnson:

I love it. And is there a website for you really quickly if you want to share that with folks?

Riana Johnson:

We do have a website. It's kind of a weird name, but

Ned Johnson:

it can tell it to me, and we'll we'll get it. We'll get it Okay, in the notes AZ

Riana Johnson:

students for menta, dot wick site.com/a, z, s, f, M, H,

Ned Johnson:

we will definitely put that in the show notes. Wait, say that again. Say that three more times. Now. Don't say two more times. So, um, well, tell us a little bit about the what kind of what's the Marvel origin story about the Arizona student, students for mental health. How did you how did you find yourself becoming a mental health leader, advocate? Yeah,

Riana Johnson:

it was almost by accident, if I'm being honest, but

Unknown:

I'm very glad any good things are by accident. Oh yes, yes.

Riana Johnson:

So I junior year of high school, I took, I switched all my classes online because I was struggling so badly, and I just could not get out of bed to go to school, and I didn't want it to Impend on me graduating. So in COVID, right? Just to this was after it was in 2022 the beginning of 2022

Ned Johnson:

so, so wait you see you could power through COVID, but, but high school, and did you somehow just checking? Okay,

Riana Johnson:

but yeah. So the second semester of my junior year, I went online so I was able to receive mental health treatment, and after that, I got kind of involved in like, wow, this shouldn't have happened to me. I don't know why there wasn't any resources at the school. Like, why did none of my teachers notice that I went from a straight A student to not showing up for two weeks and failing all my classes. Now, should I

Ned Johnson:

pause on that for a moment? Because when you and I had coffee last, you're again, lovely place to visit out there. I will never live in Arizona. But you said something like you shared that I want to frame this up. You were a really good student, right? It wasn't like, I mean, I think a lot of times, people have this notion that kids who struggle, or adults who struggle are struggling because they're, you know, nothing burgers as always, going to pits, and that's why they're aside. You were straight a top of your class student, right? Yeah, and and you shared that. Tell me about the the notes home from your teachers and your parents, and then, when you returned to school, do you remember

Riana Johnson:

what you told me? I do not remember exactly

Ned Johnson:

what I remember. And correct me if I've got this wrong, you said something like, my teachers would send all these notes home about Rihanna is doing amazing. She's doing such great work, and blah, blah, blah. And then my parents would get this, and I was like, golly, you know, Irina, you're doing so great in all your classes. And then, as you said, you couldn't, you kind of couldn't get yourself out of bed, and missed not just day after day, but week after week at school. And when you came back to school, the reception from your teachers wasn't as kind of warm and fuzz as you

Riana Johnson:

wanted. Yes, that's definitely true.

Ned Johnson:

Did things like what

Riana Johnson:

I'm not exactly sure what I said to you, but

Ned Johnson:

I can be making this up if I'm completely out. I'm sure you did. But

Riana Johnson:

I think a lot of teachers were just kind of like, hey, you know, I think I don't even know if some teachers said anything to me. I think they were just kind of like, Oh, whatever. She's back. She's dumb. Ditching class.

Ned Johnson:

Yeah, and you said, you said something like, my they're all like, well, you know, where's all this work? How are you going to get this done? Not Hey, how are you Golly? I've missed you, kiddo. What's are you okay? What's going on? Which would seem to me, if I had the reception of, I've missed three days, three weeks of school, I finally dragged my my keister, out of bed, schlep my way to school, and the first thing someone says is, where's all your homework? I would have just turned around and right, go back home and put my pajamas back, yeah? Except to watch cartoons, that's

Riana Johnson:

for sure, what I did, yeah, when I returned to school a lot, I would, you're right. I would get, you know, you're six weeks late on this essay, your test is next week. Like, what are you gonna do? You're gonna fail my class. Not, hey, you've been gone for three weeks. That's significant. What's going on? And I remember, I would, I mean, it was a big deal for me to go to school. Like I A lot of times I would drive to school and then not even go in the building, just because it was so, so hard to get myself into class. So if I did get to class, it was a big win for me. And I was probably, you know, it missed a panic attack while I was talking to my teachers, and just all this work piling up was in my head was, oh my gosh, I'm not going to graduate. I can't do this. I need to go home. I don't want to be here all this, just impending doom. Was the thoughts that I had when I would be in class, and that's the issue, because, you know, I had one teacher throughout high school that did say that and said, Don't worry about the homework. What's going on with you? Why haven't you been up to school? Well, I know you as a student, and this isn't you. And you know, I was very open with him, and I said, you know, this is what's going on. I just can't I can't get, I can't get to school. I don't know how to fix it. What

Ned Johnson:

was the teacher up? Out of curiosity, was

Riana Johnson:

my agriculture education teacher. I was in FFA in high school. Oh, I love it. Well,

Ned Johnson:

shout out to the to the ag teacher, you know, what's the there's a there's a book about the gardener versus the carpenter, right? Intending people who get attending to the soil, we get a better we get a better produce and product than just where, where's the where's the homework? Kid,

Riana Johnson:

yes, yes, yeah, exactly. But I think that class was the only one that I actually did good in, not to my standards of usual, but I passed it, and I still have a relationship with him to this day. And I excelled in his class after. I mean, in FFA, I gave a lot I had competed nationals the year after I graduated. And, you know, I think that's that's very correlated to how he responded when I was struggling remind

Ned Johnson:

people what FFA is for those who, who don't, who don't know about, uh, farming. Yes,

Riana Johnson:

it's Future Farmers of America. So we do a lot of work with, like plants and animals. There's a really big leadership component, which was what I was more involved in. But there's lots of competitions you know about, like, how to run a meeting effectively, which I was in. It's called parliamentary procedure, or a gold ranked team.

Ned Johnson:

And for all, for all the parents listening to this, you know, it strikes me that that farming jobs and everything in around and maybe some of the last jobs that are taken by AI. So take, so take that. Elon, yes, so you were doing really well in school until you weren't, and you tried to make your way back, and struggled, and so moved and finished up high school online. Yeah.

Riana Johnson:

Junior year, yeah, it was very messy. I finished my junior year online. Senior year, I went back, and I had most of my classes online, but I did have a couple on campus, and I did walk with, like my high school in person. Yay, yes, yes, barely, but yes.

Ned Johnson:

Well, what's the joke about? You know, the person who graduates? What do you call the person who graduates last in his medical school class? What doctor? So, yeah, so you, my friend, are a high school graduate. More importantly, you are a college student, because you graduated high school. So check that box. Moving on. Now I'd love to go into how you how. So keep going. How did you then get into becoming a mental health advocate and leader? Because I understand that how I should How should I say this, the things that you were struggling with, you weren't alone.

Riana Johnson:

No, I was not. Which, if you've ever struggled with your mental health, I'm sure you're aware, but it very much feels so isolating, and it just feels like you're the only person on this planet that has ever felt this way. And if you're listening, you're like, Yeah, I feel that. It's not true. There's a lot of people out there that feel just the same way you do. And I after, I began to heal, and I was doing a lot better. In my school district, there were three suicides within 10 days, all high school students, and I personally didn't know any of them, but there were three kids who were no longer with us in the span of 10 days. And I remember thinking after I was seeing this all on social media, you know, that kid was almost me, like a couple months ago, that number was about to be me, and there was nothing there to help me, and thank God I was able to get the resources to help me. But it's not fair that they didn't. It's not fair that these kids don't get to graduate high school and don't get to get married and don't get to go to senior prom and fro

Ned Johnson:

down that order for what it was. Yeah, some

Unknown:

people do get married in high school.

Riana Johnson:

But anyway, yeah, yeah. But I remember thinking, Okay, wow, the school district is gonna step up like they're gonna see this and say, Wow, we need to do something. Why are all these kids struggling? And I said, when I go back senior year, thank God these resources are gonna be in place. But that is not how that went. Nothing happened. I remember our school district didn't say anything. I don't I remember asking, like, some of my friends that were still in the system, like, Hey, have you gotten an email about about these student student deaths? And they're like, nope. And I was like, wow, that is, you know, for lack of a better word, that's shitty, yeah, these kids lost their lives. And I think there's a really big disconnect between school and mental health, and there shouldn't be. There's not I mean, in reality, there's no disconnect.

Ned Johnson:

Now I want to, I want to ask you, because I understand that you then started going to the school board meetings to advocate. So tell me what that looked like. Why did you go? And when did you go? What did you say? How were you received? First, yeah,

Riana Johnson:

this was summer of 2022 so after that kind of experience that I saw nobody's doing something, I said, Wow, come on, somebody's got to do something. So the only thing we could think of at the time was to go talk to the school board. And we would go and basically just, I would tell my story. I'd say, hey, look, all these kids are struggling. We give them data. We give them you know, putting resources in schools does not negatively affect test grades, and we hit very hard on the academics.

Ned Johnson:

Mental health does not lead to good SAT scores. For what it's worth. In case anyone out there is wondering, the answer is no,

Riana Johnson:

yes. And you know, what the school board cared about at that time was academics, unfortunately. And so that's what we hit very hard. We said, look at all these failing test scores. If you would put resources, maybe some of these kids would show up to take the test. Maybe some of these kids would have the energy to study because they weren't so depressed and it was not well received. We would go, I think we went like every, every time there was a meeting for two or three months, and we'd just get no response. We'd email them after, hey, do you want to meet with us? Maybe we could find figure something out, no answer. We'd call their office week after week, nothing, no answer. And that was very discouraging, just because, you know, we're trying to do something good, we're I'm telling you exactly what happened to me in high school, and I'm a student at your school, and so are the rest of us, and you're just showing that you don't care. Yeah, and there was one person, she was the the Suicide Prevention Coordinator. She's moved up now she's the Director of Social Work, and she was the one who kind of got us, you know, involved. And she was like, You're right. This is I've been, I've been working towards this. And, you know, I'm glad students are finally coming out and saying what is true. And that was kind of the start of how we were able to make some changes.

Ned Johnson:

And I'll interject for something about the school performance that, first of all, Ray and I were talking before we hit record. And she is a double major in psychology and Political Science, which is very savvy. And so I hope when you were leading with school performance, that was very that was very tactical, so very strategic. So that was quite, quite well done. What's interesting, and you may know, you know from your psychology classes, some of the brain science of this that, because anxiety so completely, foo bars are executive functions, right? And you know, if organization planning, problem solving, you know, self control, you know, messes with motivation, blah, blah, blah, you know, you just, you just don't think very well when you are struggling with your mental health. It's just, it's either because the thinking part of your brain is almost by definition, sidelined. There's a wonderful researcher named Adele diamond Who is his Guru on executive functions, and in her TED talk, she has this line that I think I have word for word, where she says, if you're sad, lonely, tired, stressed or in poor physical health, your executive functions will be impacted most. And so I think about that, you know to your point that when you were struggling with anxiety and depression, you feel like you're like, I'm the only person in the world and kind of like and you can't see you. You can't you can't use disordered thinking to talk your way out of disordered thinking, right? And as a person who, you know, spend three months in a pediatric psychiatric hospital, I have, I know what that headspace feels like. I think we probably have that as a a shared gift. But, you know, for people who, for any young people are listening, adults are listening, but, but oftentimes parents, when they're looking at their kid, particularly, I mean, you're such a great example of this, of this. You know, Katie was checking all the boxes and doing everything you you would you want a young person to be doing through your education until you just couldn't. And I think a lot of times, people who either don't have the training or haven't had that experience of struggling it doesn't make any sense. Well, why? Why is this? I don't understand. Why? Why should? And that's right, they don't. They don't understand. But for folks to know that anxiety, depression, mental health disorders generally, are written in issues of neurochemistry and things are just out of balance, right? And there don't tend to be particularly SELF Well, self correcting without a little outside help. Now I want to ask about when you you when we laughed at coughing. Love the coffee shop out there again. Thank you for that. Yeah, you're saying so, so great to go with all uncle, who tells you all the cool stuff is, yeah, you shared that you had said something that I don't remember, whether it was the superintendent or a principal or someone on the board talking about the struggles and how you thought so many of the struggles that you were feeling and your friends were centered around school, and the reception to that was, these aren't school problems. Can you tell the story? Because it's a little more colorful the way that you.

Riana Johnson:

Yes, absolutely. So at the school board meetings the way that they're structured, just like by meeting law, they're not allowed to respond to us as we give comments so later, which, I don't really know why that's a rule, but so that was probably

Unknown:

fights. Yeah,

Riana Johnson:

it was convenient in the time, just as we would, yeah.

Unknown:

They just got noted, like, moving on, yeah, but

Riana Johnson:

I think I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but they did respond to us once, and they said, we know this is a big issue. We can see that these kids are struggling, but this isn't the school's responsibility. This is on the parents and the community. This isn't something that the school has to deal with. And I remember sitting there and I was like, wow, how is it not the school's responsibility? We're at school every single day for seven hours. That's the what we do with our life right now is school. It's it is your responsibility, because for two reasons. One, school is one of the major stressors that teens are struggling with, all the academic pressure and the expectations and the Where should I go to college? I need to do a million things to be able to get into the school I want that's related to school. And second, we are there for, you know, 40 hours a week and doing homework for more than that, then, of course, it's a school problem. And I, I remember saying to them, I'm not saying it's all on you. I don't think that school is the I don't think educators and the school board and the school district is the only person responsible for this. But if you're saying you're not responsible at all, then we have a lot of greater issue at hand. Yeah,

Ned Johnson:

yeah, there's a there's a researcher. I remember the line that I've written down in my notebook was, I'm in school six hours a day. I do extracurricular activities. I come home and do homework. School is the last thing I think about before I go to sleep, and it's the first thing I think about when I wake up, how can you tell me the school is not at least part of the problem? Yes, think I have that right. And there's a there's a guy named Tyler black who did research an article in Scientific American put this in the show notes too, looking at suicide attempts and completed suicides throughout the whole school year. And there are more there's more bad things happen on school days than happen on weekends. There are fewer attempts during the summer than there are, you know, there are fewer times when school is out than when school is in. And so you know, whether it's the cause of teachers or administrators, it certainly is tied to the work that that kids are doing in school or feel that they need to be doing school. They're They're big. There tend to be big feelings around what you do 40 hours a week. So yes, why do you think they

Riana Johnson:

said that? I think part of it was they did not want to take responsibility. Um, unfortunately, I think they were very aware of this struggle of in the school, and I think for many reasons, there was a lot of groups prior to ours that would go and attack the school board for various things, and I think they were kind of closed off. Our school district was very closed off. We're gonna do behind scenes. We don't wanna work with the community. We're not gonna get attacked. And I think that's kind of what it was. I think it was, we know there's an issue, we don't know how to deal with it, so we're going to do it behind closed doors. We're going to figure it out. You know, we're going to not talk about these suicides because we don't. And actually, this just kind of popped into my mind. I remember that a person that was in our school district that worked within the counseling department said the reason we're not talking about these suicides is because we don't want the idea to spread in other students. And, I mean, that's just not true. That's not what happens. It's actually proven that if you do talk about suicide and and you put out resources, it decreases it Yeah, so I think it's a very touchy subject. Yeah,

Ned Johnson:

they worry that it's a contagion. But so, like, you know what, last time I checked that that COVID, for instance, or flu, since right now, it kind of moves whether you talk about Yeah, and maybe talking about it would be like, maybe I'll cover my mouth when I anyway, get the idea, yes.

Riana Johnson:

And so yeah, I don't think the district at the time wanted to take responsibility, and I also don't think they knew how to handle it, and they didn't want to do it wrong, so they just weren't

Ned Johnson:

doing it well. I think that you know that that's a really good point. There's Robert Sapolsky. I think you and I talked about before this, why zebras don't get also just brilliant, brilliant thinker and writer and Professor out of Stanford. And he says the killer combination of stress is feeling responsible when you have a low sense of control. And I think it certainly would apply to if I'm an administrator. I mean, I cared. I'm just going to say, you know, if I care desperately about the health and wellness and happiness of all these kids who come in and out my door. Every day, and I see so many kids who are struggling, you know, and taking the including taking their own lives if I feel responsible when I have no idea how to fix it, how do, how does that person get out of bed in the morning, right? And so, possibly, particularly if they were, you know, had previously really been under attack by by folks who are advocating. You can understand why they get defensive being attacked, but you can also understand why, if they've, we've tried, we don't know what to do about this. To say this isn't, this isn't on us, this isn't our responsibility. May just be a way of self protection.

Riana Johnson:

Yeah, I definitely think that's what happened. And thankfully, later, they were able to meet with us and kind of open their community partnerships, which has seemed to be effective. So

Ned Johnson:

yeah, I want to dig in that in a moment, because I forget you told me this, and I can't remember whether it was the principal or the superintendent, and you said there was a big unveiling. And initially, you and your colleague, your friends who are helping with this were pretty sidelined, but that changed. You remember this correctly? So tell this to this is, I mean, it's exciting. It's nice to know the even we, you know, crusty old people can, can shift our thinking. That's good stuff, right?

Riana Johnson:

Yes. So we partnered with a nonprofit called Valley interface project. I also interned for them last year during my gap year, so we were able to work with them, and we what we did was we brought a room full of people to the school board meeting. You know, the room was full. There were people standing in the back. All the chairs were full, and we shared our story. Once again, everybody stood up when we shared, when I shared my story, and once we were done, we left. And that kind of showed the school district like, Hey, these are people that voted you in. We are not leaving until something fixes it, and we are only here for this issue. And after that, we were able to get a meeting with the school board. We met with the assistant superintendent, who he was kind of our, our in. He was very he was the one who kind of got things moving. And what happened was we held Pacific Academy in March of 2023 which we had the school board actually speak on issues there. We would ask them questions, and they'd respond. We had a teaching about, you know, what was going on in terms of teen mental health. We had people share their stories, and then we had a call to action at the end of it. And what was important about that was we were able to get them to commit to us and to the crowd of like 130 people who work on implementing a Student Advisory Board, which they did implement a attendance procedure, so if a student were to miss four days a week of school, or eight days in a month. I believe that was the number they would be on the phone with a social worker. You know, those kids would not fall through the cracks anymore, and then they would work on getting more social workers on campus. And yeah, all three of those promises were made. And that was a really big win for us, because it was kind of a moment of Wow. These people would not listen to us for three months, and now they're in front of reporters and 130 people and very important people in the community, and they're saying they're going to do this, so you know, if they don't, there's going to be some backlash. And they did Wow.

Ned Johnson:

And I think we told me before they they actually, in front of all these folks, called you out for your leadership in this,

Riana Johnson:

yes, yeah, that was so another big win we had was the school district was able to open the hope Institute, which is, it's a facility. It's on one of the high school campuses, actually, and it's a it's a behavioral health facility, but the important thing is, is it's focused on

Ned Johnson:

explain what that mean for people who don't paint a little more of a picture about that. What does that mean? Yeah, so

Riana Johnson:

it's a facility. It's focused on reducing suicidal ideation. So basically what happens is, if you are a student that's struggling, and your teacher's notice or your parents notice, you will get referred to the social to the counseling department, and you will be in treatment at the hope Institute within 48 hours, which is so crucial, because when you have suicide, suicidal ideation, you need treatment immediately.

Ned Johnson:

We have an opening in six weeks. Isn't going to cut it? Exactly, yes.

Riana Johnson:

And with the current climate of behavioral health, there's, you know, wait times that are months long and that just won't cut it. So the opening of this was a really big deal. And at that opening, they had, like, a big, you know, unveiling for the yeah facility. And the superintendent, actually, during his speech, shouted us out, and he had us stand up, which was just like a full circle moment, like we were bombarding your office a year and a half ago with calls and emails, and you were ignoring us point blank, and now at this big event, you're giving us credit for something that we had a big. Pardon but, you know, you're not, you're not taking all the credit. And that was just a huge moment. And, you know, it kind of proved to the community, like, hey, this isn't school board. This isn't a school versus community issue anymore. We're in this together.

Ned Johnson:

Wow, so they went from school. Is not part of the problem. This is a, this is a parent problem. It's a family problem too. Let's bring resources right into our school proper to help kids who need that help.

Riana Johnson:

Yes, which is just fabulous.

Ned Johnson:

Tell me you had shared with me in the first X number of months why number of students had been referred to. Hope.

Riana Johnson:

Yes, I believe, if I remember correctly, I think within the first couple months, there was like 60 referrals, which is a lot, and I also remember that a lot of those kiddos that were referred were elementary kids students. They were fifth and sixth graders. Holy

Ned Johnson:

smokes, yeah, yeah. When we spoke, you had said, when you talked about coming back to school, and you know, Miss Alexander, where's your tester, your paper, whatever. And you said something like as though the only way that I had to contribute was delivering A's to my teachers,

Riana Johnson:

yes, yes. And

Ned Johnson:

then you said, this meant this advocacy work that you did, I did this without a high school degree. I did this without a college degree.

Riana Johnson:

Yeah, yeah. And

Ned Johnson:

from my the way that I see this, and I would imagine that there was children and pretty and the parents of those children that through the work that you did, within the first two or three months, you can credibly make an argument that you save 60 lives.

Riana Johnson:

Yeah? I mean, I'm not gonna take that credit, but

Unknown:

you can take 10% of it, right?

Riana Johnson:

But yeah, I think a lot of kids lives were saved. And I mean, we're not we're not done. We're gonna keep working. So, I mean, obviously

Ned Johnson:

the helping, these are talented mental health providers who are doing, who are doing that really hard work of helping kids are going through really hard stuff. And those folks are those helpers are out there. They're everywhere. They just weren't in your school

Riana Johnson:

Exactly, yeah, and resources were out there. We just didn't have access to them.

Ned Johnson:

No, I love it. I love it. What do you wish when you had been going through this whole process, what do you wish adults had done? Or what do you wish they had done differently? Or what do you wish they had known that they didn't seem to understand

Riana Johnson:

a couple things. First, I wish that adults would realize that it's okay to talk about mental health. I think there was a lot of adults in my life, and, you know, teachers too, that were just kind of like, maybe she's going through something. I know she's going She's been acting weird, but I'm just not going to deal with it. And I think for a long, long time, all I needed was an adult to say, what's going on. Are you okay? Do you need to talk? And I didn't get that for I don't I mean, I didn't get that period. And I think that would have helped me a lot if I knew I had somebody to go out and talk to. And another thing I wish that adults knew were that, and this is still something I wish adults adults knew, is that just because I'm struggling with my mental health and my grades are falling, does not make me any less worthy. No, I think a lot of teachers didn't think, I mean, I I'm very aware in high school I was came off as like a bad student, because I wouldn't show up to class. I was failing. I'd turn in everything late, and that demeans me as a bad student. But I wasn't a bad student. I was a very intelligent, capable girl. I was just struggling, and I just needed help, and I didn't get that, and that's why I continued to struggle.

Ned Johnson:

So yeah, my students aren't bad students, yes,

Riana Johnson:

yes, more often than not, I would say they're incredibly capable and incredibly intelligent and have a very bright future ahead of them. They just need a little help, which there's no shame in that's really

Ned Johnson:

well said. I will include, by the way, in the notes, a link to resources about how to mental health resources about how to have these conversations, because there's a lot out there. And I think the same way that some of the school leadership felt a little bit stuck or frozen, I can imagine a lot of parents who are sitting there watching reality ran Alexander, or, you know, someone like you, struggling, and they don't know what to say because they're worried that they'll screw it up. Yes. And some people, they don't know what to say, so they say nothing, yes,

Riana Johnson:

which, you know, I'm not denying. These are hard conversations to have there. Sometimes, I bet it feels impossible, and I as a parent that would talk to their kid that's struggling. I mean, I can't even imagine how hard that would be, but it's, it's the only option. I mean, you have to talk to your kids about what's going on. You have to talk to your your students. You have to figure it out. You have to, you know, use these resources and talk to them and. Figure out what's happening, so you guys can both figure this out together, and so the student could continue to grow and have this bright future ahead of them. Yeah,

Ned Johnson:

and I would add to that, and as a person who's walked through some of these conversations more, you know, Hey, are you okay? No, no, I'm not. You know. Is there? You know? Is there something that I can do to help? I have no idea. Is it okay if we together, try to find people who can help, right? Because I think if, if I'm again, I'm thinking about being a being a parent in that situation, or an educator and like, I'm not a mental health provider, right? But I don't have to be the one who provides the mental health Yeah, I'm just simply the one who can, can help see that there's a need and then Shepherd a kid to someone who can provide that help, and that that kind of lowers the the demand on any, on any, on any person, because otherwise, I do think that there's an easy tendency I don't want to know about problems that I don't know how to solve, but you don't have to. It's just, I mean, in many ways, parents, for all sorts of reasons, end up being the kind of emotional first responders, right? I mean, they're the ones who see their their kids hold it, I mean, true as well. A lot of kids will hold things together during the school day and then come home and then just collapse or at home. So oftentimes schools don't even know the kids are struggling, and parents can see, like, what's going on, what's going on with this kid. You had also said that, uh, the adults, they were trying to adjust address youth mental health without ever talking to youths.

Riana Johnson:

Yes, yeah, that was curious. That was a big issue early on in our venture with the school board, they would, you know, and I think this is relevant too, in a lot of places all over the country. But you cannot solve the the epidemic of youth mental health if you do not talk to youth. You know, they have a first hand perspective. Nobody has ever experienced mental health in the world, we are experiencing it today as a teenager, except teenagers, and there's just no way you're gonna solve it unless you know what's going

Ned Johnson:

on. Yeah, no, it's um, you probably know about the book The anxious generation. This out Jonathan Haidt, and, you know, I'm a middle aged man. Obviously, I'm probably past, you know, and it's easy for people my age or even younger parents to say, Well, kids these days and the phone ended up but none of us, none of us parents grew up, to your point, grew up with these circumstances that you've grown up, and we certainly didn't grow up with learning how to perfectly manage the use of a cell phone, because we didn't have cell phones, right? You know, I just will make a quick nod on that, that one of the things that's always for me is cell phones have a mixed, you know, there's upsides and downsides to them, right? They're incredibly powerful tools for connection. They're also really powerful tools that I could use to torment you if I wanted to, right? And I was on a this is a little bit of Jason. I was presented at a conference and spoke with a couple three, I guess there were sophomores school in rural Vermont, and two of the three were having a really hard time mental health struggles. One of them had watched her, her found her father dead, and it was just, it was all of it was hard, and I need to sort of read in the situation. And, you know, I'm saying, Can I, can I offer you advice? And I got to talking about sleep and sleep deprivation, which does terrible things to anyone's everything, but certainly to mental health. And was trying to, gently, you know, talk about, if you wanted to, is the way that you could get more sleep. And then talked about cell phones in the bedroom. And I, you know, talked about the amount of evidence that suggests the ways that that disrupts our sleep, and blah, blah, blah. And the one then shared, and this had just hadn't even occurred to me, because I didn't, like you said, didn't grow up with this, that she had a boyfriend whom she was really attached to, who was really, really anxious and struggling with his own mental health, and she wanted to be available to him at night. And I said, Well, you know, in my house of my I myself on charges in the kitchen. So I tell my kids, if it's late at night, you know, and I go to I'm an old guy, go to bed early. They said, just call the home line is right next to our bedroom. Wake up. And they looked at me. Said, nobody has home nobody has a home phone, right? And so this girl, I know, I'm like, I get old people, I have such a dope. And she said, um, I can't turn my cell phone off, because if something happened to max and God help us, he took his own life, and it was because my phone was off. I could never live with myself. Yeah, I thought, you know. And so I thought, my man, what a punch to the gut for every parent who's like, Get off your phone. It's like, let's, let's at least start with trying to understand why you're on your phone. Because a lot of kids are, there are certainly kids who are just, you know, scrolling through whatever for 17 million hours a day, you know. And because, because you know, humans. But for every kid doing that, there has to be you. You know one or three or many you know young Rihanna Alexanders out there who are up on their friends. I remember you had shared something about, what did you say? I learned what I wanted to do, presumably helping when I hung out with my friends,

Riana Johnson:

yeah, yeah. I think I've learned a lot more about, like, life and how to deal with mental health struggles, and about like, like, what I take into advocacy, from talking to peers and from hanging out with my friends. Tell me about that.

Ned Johnson:

What are some? What are the, some of the things that you and your friends have have alighted on, of things that you perceive really, really help?

Riana Johnson:

Yeah. Well, one thing that really, really helps me, like as I advocate for mental health, is that one I am the age group that I'm advocating for. So I get these conversations that a lot of people don't get, because, unfortunately, mental health is a very common conversation when you hang out with your friends. I mean, it's not really kind of, is not taboo. It's kind of just we talk about it, you know, when I'm struggling, my friends know, and they when they're struggling, I know about it. And I think it's just because we have this connection where we're able to share. And I think that's very helpful, and it teaches me, you know, it teaches me coping skills. I can learn from what helps my friends feel better, and maybe it helps me feel better, and I can tell them what I've learned. And it's a big, powerful thing about, you know, having a friend group like that. So the

Ned Johnson:

power of the social connection and just having people check in on you and see if you're, you know, are you doing okay? How can I help?

Riana Johnson:

Yes, exactly.

Ned Johnson:

Yeah. Probably works. Probably works for all, for all folks, yeah. I'm back to thinking about your, um, your observation about if the adults had simply asked, you know, and my understanding on that is, you know, from the, from the probably more about this than I do from the training. You know, are you okay? No, I'm not. You know, are you having suicidal ideation? Yes, I am right. And then do you have a plan? And if you have a plan, I gather some when you really call 911, and get right on it, is that your understanding of that? Yeah, I

Riana Johnson:

think a very common misconception about helping people who are suicidal is that you don't ask, you don't ask if they're suicidal. You don't, you don't talk about it. It's a non topic, and that's far from the truth. The one of the best things you can do if you know somebody that's suicidal is ask them if they're suicidal. And I know that's scary, because, I mean, if I'm asking somebody, I don't want the answer to be yes, but because it is, yes, they're in danger, and you need to get them help, and they're not going to get it for themselves a lot of the time. So yeah, you're completely right. I mean asking if they're okay. If the answer is no, ask if you can help. And a big thing is that if you're worried that they might be considering suicide, ask them if they are, and if they have a plan, go to the emergency room.

Ned Johnson:

What are you hopeful about in your life, or what you see in the life of young people right now, there are a lot of things to be concerned about. I mean, apart from the other Alexanders in the world who are out there saying, I want to help what are some of the things that you see that give you or your friends cause cause for optimism. I

Riana Johnson:

think something that is very that helps me stay optimistic is that there's a lot of drive out there in kids. There's a lot of kids that want to help. You know, we're seeing this shift in our generation. I would say that kind of is more open about mental health. I think my generation is a lot more open than former generations, which is a very big shift, and that's going to help a lot as we grow up. And I think that's something to be very optimistic about, that we're able to talk about these things because we're not going to bottle it up, and we're not going to, you know, suffer with it until we're older

Ned Johnson:

and it's hard to solve problems we don't know about Exactly, yes.

Riana Johnson:

I mean, you can't solve issues you don't talk about. So the fact that we're even talking about it is is big. And I also think something that kind of ties back into what I said, or what you said that I said

Unknown:

earlier. It's getting very meta. Yeah, that

Riana Johnson:

all this work that me and the fellow students that I work with have done none of us have graduated college yet. Most of us haven't graduated high school yet. And I think something to be optimistic about is just wait until we have a college degree. Like just what we can do with a college degree.

Ned Johnson:

I love that. I love that, you know, it's, um, you and I think first met when I was given a talk out there, and our mutual friend Katie Alexander, so there's this firecracker kid who got to bring along, and couple things I just want to share from that. One was, you know, as a room full of adults, and you're the only teenager there, and so you made me really nervous, right? Because. I can talk to adults, right? But it's like, again, you live your life and like, and I remember, this is the highest compliment I think I've ever gotten. And I said, and I looked you said, Am I getting this about right? And you said, everything that you've said is true. I was so I was so relieved. I should put that on a card someplace. But you know two things. One is that, you know the central work. Well, start with your mom first. You know, a conversation was had about a lot of times. Parents, they see that their kids are struggling, right? And they ask, Hey, you okay? And, you know, How is school? Fine, right? You know, and you get nothing. You get you get nothing out of them, right? And that's as a parent. And I, you know, my kids are 20 and 23 now, but I certainly remember the things that they had a hard time with through high school. And it's really hard as a parent. As anyone you can see your in your in this case, your friends are from me, my kids struggling, and I know that something's not right, but they don't want to share right. And so then what often happens is, is we adults get a little bit more forceful, which doesn't tend to make you open up more, and makes you shut down. And you shared, my mom used to ask me about that, and she got a lot of nothing, and then she's just, she started telling me about her day by what was good and what was bad, and when asked my advice on things, and you said, it just made me feel so respected, because I had good advice for her, just like I had good advice for my friends, and that sort of loosened me up, so then I would feel comfortable sharing some my own stuff. So one, shout out to your mom, fantastic. And two, you know, the central thesis of our work, the animating, you know, thesis of work that Bill and I do is how important it is to foster young people a healthy sense of control. And so it's, it's, it's almost paradoxical that these school administrators, who I'm going to say really wanted to do right by young people, were in some ways, holding back or sitting on the hands a little bit or not engaging you because, to your point, they wanted to keep this private because they didn't know exactly what they could do. Right? We're all around them. Is this army, maybe at least a small army of people who also wanted to help, who just happened to be younger, and curiously, by those adults giving up some of the control, they gave you more control and your friends more control. We're actually doing something to solve this problem, which is better for your mental health, better for the outcomes of all the kids who are involved, you know, affected anyway, but it also, curiously, arguably lowered the stress for this adults, because when they didn't feel like they alone, were responsible for solving the problems that they felt maybe were unsolvable, but this now becomes more of a team effort. Yeah. I mean, talk about a win, win, right?

Riana Johnson:

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, anxiety and depression are very correlated with having no sense of control. And, you know, I mean, that's, that's the basis of it. I mean, the school district was out of control. We didn't have anything, you know, the students were struggling. They didn't know where to go. The school district knew they were struggling, but they didn't know where to do, what to do. And now we've worked with them, and you know, if a student is struggling, we have this, this and this to do for them. You know, we have this people for them to call, and that's, that's a, like you said, it's a win, win. Well, that's

Ned Johnson:

what I would say I am optimistic about, because, in addition to all the energy, you know, the awareness and openness that people of your generation have in talking about the ways that they struggle with mental health and struggle with mental health and then try to work on solutions. I'm equally optimistic about this group of education leaders in your community, who, I think for a long while, were very reluctant, rigid, afraid, stuck, whatever about making changes, and somehow they felt that it was safe. Maybe, maybe you get all the credit for making them feel that it's safe to actually change their ways. And so when, when a school systems are hard to change, oh yes, and when you you're like, No kidding, right? And when is when, when a large, you know, established school system can change their dance steps in ways that help everybody from the administration to the faculty or the parents to then, of course, the students themselves. That makes me awfully optimistic. Yeah,

Riana Johnson:

yeah. I think that brings up a good point. I've had so many teachers come up to me and just be like, I've been wanting to do something. I don't know how to handle these kids that are struggling. I want to say something, but I don't know what to say. And I think bringing this conversation into schools gives these teachers and these educators and these principals kind of a safe space to be able to say, like, Hey, it's okay that I'm going to ask these kids if they're doing okay. It's okay to hand out these resources, and you know, it's okay to talk about struggling with your mental health, and I think that's the first step into

Ned Johnson:

Are you going? Going to school systems and talking to groups of educators or students about these things.

Riana Johnson:

Sometimes we do. I most of the time it's like at events or like the school board meetings, like teachers just also there and they'll come up to us, but yeah,

Ned Johnson:

very cool. Well, I imagine that there are some young people like you across this country who are trying to figure out some of these things. If they wanted to reach out to you, to pick your brain on things. Is that

Riana Johnson:

cool? Yes, please do. Should

Ned Johnson:

they come to you from the easy Student Room? Sorry, technically our folks, we'll put in the show notes. Or is there, is it easy? Is that the best place to find

Riana Johnson:

you? Yeah, you guys can find us on Instagram too. Or you can look at my like personal Instagram and DMV there. Okay, well,

Ned Johnson:

I'll put those in the show notes. Sweet I am so I thank you so much for making time with me. I know when we when I was last there, we drank way too many cups of coffee and took a lot of notes. And I've been, I've been thinking about having this conversation with you for quite a while. It is really good to see both how well you are doing in this world and all the good that you are doing this world. Thank you. You. You are welcome. My guest has been the one, the only, the inimitable, but everyone should try to imitate her. Rhianna Alexander, I am Ned Johnson, and this is the self driven child podcast. Hey folks, Ned here, over the past 25 years, I've talked to countless parents of high school age students who care deeply about their kids' education and how they deal with stress and the pressure to succeed. It can help parents to work with a team they trust won't just pile on more pressure to achieve better scores and grades. That's why I founded prep matters in 1997 to create a different kind of experience for test preparation and academic tutoring. This podcast and my books with my friend Bill sticks root reflect our company philosophy and approach to helping students. If you have a high school age student and would like to talk about putting a plan together, please get in touch with us. Visit our website at prep matters.com, or while your kids may only text, you might want to actually talk with a person. If so, you can reach us at 301-951-0350