COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Between practices and preparing for a game Saturday against No. 1 Texas, Ohio State football coach Ryan Day and his wife, Nina, are helping adults uplift children’s mental health.
The Days are partnering with The Kids Mental Health Foundation through Nationwide Children’s Hospital to encourage adults to help kids develop mental wellness skills. To do this, they are expanding their free Day Time Break program to help middle and high schoolers boost their mental health. See previous coverage of the Days discussing mental health in schools.
Ryan and Nina get an up-close view of the stress college athletics can put on students. The couple has also been affected by the long-term effects of losing a family member to suicide. The Day Time Break program has already reached more than 200,000 students. In partnering with The Kids Mental Health Foundation, the program will expand to also include resources geared toward high school.
“In today’s day and age now, they’re processing so much information on a daily basis through their phones and just the way the world comes at young people nowadays,” Ryan Day said. “So we need to help them understand where they are in all this.”
In 2023, the Center for Disease Control found 40% of high school students had persistent sad or hopeless feelings. The CDC reported 20% of students had seriously considered attempting suicide, and 9% had attempted suicide. According to the CDC, suicide is the third-leading cause of death among 15-19-year-olds and the second-leading cause of death among 10-14-year-olds.
The Foundation said kids are not born with the tools to fight mental health concerns, so parents and adults need to be proactive. The Foundation asked more than 1,000 parents nationwide about how their kids react to setbacks, and only about half reported immediately bouncing back or trying again.
“I think a lot of our children know how to take care of themselves physically,” Nina Day said. “They drink water, get sleep and sometimes eat their broccoli, but they don’t know how to help their mental wellness. Ryan and I are trying to help out with the Day Time Break program.”
Day Time Break offers mental health activities and lesson plans for teachers for free online. The program recommends taking quick breaks to build up students’ mental health, like complimenting a classmate, stretching or creating a gratitude list. The Days also offer resources for parents to help them talk with their kids about their thoughts and feelings.
“Once you get the conversation going about mental health, it’s just amazing where it can go,” said Ryan Day. “It’s been humbling to realize how many people we’ve reached, but also when you realize how many more we can reach.”
The Days have long been involved with mental health advocacy in central Ohio, donating $1 million to OSU’s mental health research in 2022 and starting the Christina and Ryan Day Fund for Pediatric and Adolescent Mental Wellness at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
