Pausing Education to Protect Futures: Why Mental Health Must Come First

For many families, few decisions feel as daunting as deciding whether their child should step away from education. School represents structure, continuity, and future opportunity — and for boarding school families in particular, it is often closely tied to identity, ambition, and hope. When mental health concerns arise, parents can feel torn between recognising their child’s distress and fearing that any interruption to education could jeopardise long-term success.

At Yes We Can Youth Clinics, this tension is often encountered. Families are worried not only about their child’s wellbeing, but also about potentially missed lessons, delayed exams, and disrupted pathways. The instinct to push on is understandable. Yet experience consistently shows that continuing academically when a young person is struggling mentally often does more harm than good.

Why Pausing Can Feel Hard

Education is frequently seen as a safeguard – a way to protect a young person’s future. Pausing it can feel like losing control or admitting failure. Parents may worry their child will fall behind peers, lose motivation, or struggle to re-engage. Schools, too, can feel pressure to maintain academic momentum. However, mental health challenges do not pause for timetables or exam seasons. Anxiety, depression, trauma, eating disorders, or substance misuse can quietly undermine concentration, confidence, and self-belief long before grades reflect the struggle. In these moments, education risks becoming another source of pressure rather than a tool for growth.

Mental Health First, For Learning That Lasts

Yes We Can’s philosophy reframes the conversation. Pausing education is not about giving up on learning, but about restoring the conditions that make learning possible. The initial focus is on emotional stability, self-awareness, and coping skills – foundations without which academic engagement rarely succeeds. Experience shows that when young people receive timely mental health support, they are far more likely to return to education with renewed motivation, resilience, and clarity. Prioritising mental health today does not close doors. It protects a young person’s ability to walk through them tomorrow.

The View From Schools

David Walker, Executive Director of the Boarding School Association (BSA), reinforces this view from a school leadership perspective. Drawing on his experience as a former deputy head, he explains that when pupils are struggling mentally, “they are rarely able to perform to their potential in the classroom”. For him it was always the right thing to get people in the right space mentally to make sure that they were able to learn, because otherwise there’s no benefit.

Walker notes that most schools now recognise this, supporting pupils through counselling, signposting, or advising a temporary step away when it is no longer suitable. “Allowing people the space and the support in order to get better is essential,” he says. Successful reintegration after treatment, he adds, depends on flexibility, gradual transitions, and giving pupils ownership of the process. “Working with them rather than saying, ‘you’re going to do this’.”

A Long-Term View of Success

Academic achievements remain important, but this is not the starting point. Emotional health is. When boarding schools and families work together to honour this, students are given the best possible chance to return not just to education, but to learning with confidence, purpose, supporting sustainable long-term success.