How do adults view mental health in children and youth?

SereniMind is urging parents, teachers and communities to see children's behaviour as communication, not just misconduct.[Courtesy]

A new continent-wide campaign is challenging African families, schools and communities to look past what children do, and start asking what they may be trying to say.

She was always the first to arrive at school. Her exercise books were neat. Her uniform was pressed.

Her teacher described her as a model student.

Then, sometime in the middle of last term, something shifted.

She stopped answering questions in class. She started eating her lunch alone.

Also, she began arriving late and leaving early. When her teacher raised the issue with her parents, they increased her study hours and reduced her screen time. Her grades did not improve.

No one thought to ask her what was wrong.

This child is not an exception. She exists in classrooms in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu and Nakuru.

She sits in private schools and public ones. She grows up in households that love her deeply but do not always understand what she is carrying.

And the gap between what she is experiencing and what the adults around her are equipped to notice is the subject of a new Africa-wide conversation and campaign that a Nigerian mental health organisation has now brought to Kenya.

The message behind the campaign.

SereniMind, a youth mental health technology platform whose campaigns have reached over 100 million people across over 25 African countries, launched a continent-wide campaign early this month in Nairobi titled "The Child Behind the Smile: Every Behaviour Has a Story."

The campaign carries one central message: children communicate through their behaviour every single day. The quiet, restless child, the one who stops eating lunch, whose grades fall without explanation, in most cases, these are not discipline problems.

They are emotional signals from children who do not yet have the words to name what they are feeling.

Ridwan Oyenuga, the 20-year-old Nigerian founder and chief executive officer of SereniMind, explains it plainly.

"A child's behaviour is often a form of communication. Sometimes children do not have the words to explain fear, pressure, sadness, confusion, loneliness or insecurity,” said Oyenuga during a virtual interview with Health and Science.

He added: “That is why adults must learn to observe, listen and respond with understanding, not only correction. When we only punish behaviour without asking what may be behind it, we miss the deeper emotional need of the child."

Why Kenya cannot afford to ignore this.

Kenya has built one of East Africa's most respected education systems.

The families invest enormously in their children's futures.

“But that investment has overwhelmingly focused on academic outcomes while the emotional foundation that makes academic success possible has received far less attention,” said Oyenuga, who is also a tech entrepreneur and youth mental health advocate.

The statistics, Oyenuga, who is also the Harvard Aspire Leaders Fellow, ForbesBLK member and member of the West Africa Peace Advisory Council, said, make the case clearly.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), one in seven adolescents aged 10 to 19 globally experiences a mental health condition.

In sub-Saharan Africa, prevalence rates for depression, anxiety and emotional difficulties among young people exceed global averages.

The treatment gap across the region sits at approximately 90 percent, meaning nine out of every ten people living with a mental health condition receive no professional care whatsoever.

Kenya has fewer than 100 psychiatrists serving a population of over 55 million people, with most services concentrated in Nairobi.

For a child in Garissa, Eldoret or Kisii experiencing anxiety, grief or emotional overwhelm, professional mental health support is effectively out of reach.

It is here that SereniMind's campaign comes in, not with a clinical solution but with something more immediate, a shift in how adults see children's behaviour.

That shift, the organisation argues, costs nothing, requires no specialist training and can begin today.

What does emotional wellbeing look like in practice?

SereniMind defines child emotional wellbeing as a child's ability to feel safe, loved, heard, supported and understood.

“In practical terms for Kenyan families, this means creating homes where children can express difficulty without fear of ridicule or punishment,” said Oyenuga.

He added: “It means teachers treating sudden changes in a student's behaviour like withdrawal, aggression, poor concentration and social isolation as signals rather than misconduct. The question is not whether Kenyan parents love their children; they do," Oyenuga said.

The question, he says, is whether children feel safe enough to show their parents what they are really carrying.

These, he says, are two different things, and the gap between them is where children suffer in silence.

Research consistently shows that children who are emotionally supported learn better, form stronger relationships and develop greater resilience.

Conversely, children whose emotional needs go unmet carry that deficit into adolescence and adulthood, affecting their educational attainment, employment prospects, relationships and long-term mental health.

For Kenya, which has staked its development ambitions on the potential of its young people, he says investing in that emotional foundation is not a soft priority but a strategic one.

The role of Kenya’s teachers.

The campaign places particular emphasis on teachers and with good reason.

In many Kenyan households, a teacher is the adult who spends the most waking hours with a child. They are also often the first to observe when something changes.

A student who was engaged, participative and suddenly falls silent. A child whose friendships shift abruptly.

A pupil whose punctuality, appetite or personal presentation changes without apparent cause.

“These are the earliest visible signs of emotional distress, and teachers who know how to recognise them can intervene at a point when support is most effective. Kenyan teachers are doing remarkable work under considerable pressure," Oyenuga said.

He added:  "We are not asking them to become therapists but to notice and to treat what they notice as a signal worth following up on. That one habit, practised consistently, can change the course of a child's life."

The “Child Behind the Smile: Every Behaviour Has a Story" campaign is the first in SereniMind's 12-month Africa-wide wellbeing campaign series, one theme per month, running across the continent throughout 2026.

The campaign builds on SereniMind's Africa Wellness Voices Initiative, which generated over 100 million media impressions across over 25 African countries earlier in 2026, one of the most far- reaching youth-led mental health campaigns in the continent's history.

"Kenya has always led East Africa in education, in innovation and in regional vision," Oyenuga said.

He added: "We believe Kenya can also lead the continent in how we see, understand and support the emotional lives of our children. The country has everything it needs to make that shift. What it needs now is the conversation."

The girl who stopped raising her hand is still in her classroom.

She is still waiting. The question is whether the adults around her will learn to ask what she is waiting to say.

In Kenya, the campaign has hosted webinars in 2025, reaching over 500 participants in Nairobi and Nakuru regions.

SereniMind has partnered with Nakuru Rotary Club, connecting with youth organisations and community groups.