For much of the past century, children were taught to push through emotional discomfort. Feeling sad, anxious, or overwhelmed was often dismissed with a familiar refrain: smile, toughen up, move on. In recent years, however, schools have made a long-overdue correction. Social-emotional learning has been woven into classrooms, and mental health is discussed openly. Students are encouraged to name their feelings and ask for help.
Few educators or parents would argue that this shift has been anything but necessary.
But some are beginning to ask whether the pendulum has swung too far. Samantha Jo Payne, a former teacher in southern Indiana, believes the answer may be yes. In a viral TikTok video, she argues that the growing use of mental health days is quietly changing how kids understand responsibility, attendance and resilience.
In an interview with TODAY.com, Payne, 26, said her concerns grew out of what she saw daily. She described eighth graders missing one or two days a week and struggling academically as a result.
“There were times a student would be out sick, and when they returned, I’d say, ‘I hope you feel better,’ only to hear, ‘Oh, I’m fine. I just didn’t feel like coming, and my mom said I could stay home,’” Payne recalls.
She said she also saw students stay home to avoid drama with friends or other social stressors. Framing everyday challenges as a reason to skip school, she argues, teaches avoidance instead of coping. “I feel like people are avoiding hard things,” Payne says, adding that not every stressful moment should be treated as a mental health crisis.
“School is their job,” Payne tells TODAY, “so you don’t have days where you just don’t get to come because you’re a little tired.’”
Payne’s comments struck a nerve, quicky igniting a divided response online.
“As an adult with an anxiety disorder, allowing students to successfully avoid whenever their anxiety is bad enough is SO HARMFUL for their mental health!” one viewer wrote.
Another pushed back on Payne, writing, “I’m sorry but I don’t take advice on this from anyone who hasn’t also had to hospitalize their kid before. legitimate mental health struggles are scary, and we do what we can to balance priorities.”
Dr. Deborah Gilboa, a family physician and resilience expert, says the debate isn’t a choice between compassion and toughness — but parental judgment.
“Sometimes kids genuinely need rest and recovery for mental distress,” Gilboa tells TODAY. “And sometimes what they need is to build perseverance and resilience by pushing through it.”
Determining which response is appropriate, she says, is one of parenting’s harder calls, and one parents won’t always get right.
Gilboa also frames the issue as one of preparation. School, she points out, is one of the first places children learn how to manage obligations, discomfort, and expectations. Helping young people learn when to rest and when to show up, is part of preparing them to function independently in the future.
While Gilboa agrees with Payne’s broader warning about avoidance, she says one aspect of the video gave her pause. She worries that drawing a sharp distinction between physical illness and mental distress could be interpreted as minimizing mental health conditions. (Payne says in her TikTok that kids who are running a fever or throwing up, should stay home, but that minor complaints aren’t a valid reason to skip school).
“I’d want to be careful about the idea that physical illness is always valid and mental illness is not,” Gilboa says. “Mental distress and mental illness are very real and they deserve to be taken seriously.”
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
