Viral TikTok Video Sheds Light On Important Message About Mental Health

Do you think mental health days are important for all ages?

TikTok creator and influencer Noel Lapalomento thinks so! And tons of viewers agreed!

Noel recently shared a video of her daughter playing hooky from school captioned, "Mind your business," not realizing so many people would fully agree with her parenting style. In the short but powerful video, the single mom shares that she allows her 6-year-old daughter Giada to stay home from school once a month to have some fun, and so many people agreed with her parenting style.

The viral video that shows some highlights from Giada's day playing hooky from school has received more than 5.7 million views and 3,600 comments in just a few short days.

"I told my daughter she can pick one day each month to stay home from school without being sick," is written on the video to further explain what's going on. Giada enjoyed some cotton candy, bubble tea, and playing outside in the video to show that she's enjoying her day off.

Noel must have thought many would criticize her for her decision based on her caption choice, but the majority of comments are supportive and share the same sentiment of everyone needing a day off occasionally.

Popular TikTok creator Elyse Myers dropped into the comments to share her thoughts on the idea.

"A mental health day off would have done so much good for my hurting brain and heart when I was growing up. This is amazing!" Myers said.

Many others agreed with that mindset and left supportive comments for the mom and daughter.

"Everybody needs a regular 'mental health day' with mama! my favorite, ♥️" one person wrote. Another added, "I’m a teacher and I’m not even mad about it. Especially if she’s so little!! Mental health days are super important and let kids be kids! ?"

And just as there are tons of supportive comments stressing the importance of regular mental health days, there were, of course, a few that challenged the idea.

"One every month is a lil wild just bc she'll expect it as she gets older but I grew up knowing I could ask for a mental health day whenever I needed!!" one person wrote. "And then your child is truant, a DSS case can be opened and you’ll go to court and since she’s under the age of 12 you would get charged and jail time," another person said.

As a mom who truly believes that good mental health should be prioritized the same as good physical health, I personally feel that taking a day off once a month is good for the mind, body and soul regardless of age.

My kids are now teens and I while I didn't adopt a regularly scheduled day off for them when they were younger, I let them stay home if they just needed a day to themselves here or there. I truly believe it's even more important now that they are older. With so much stress to do the best, be the smartest, be involved in multiple sports or clubs, and the glorification of just always being busy, taking a much-needed rest day is important for every human being no matter how old they are.

What Noel is doing for Giada at such a young age is setting the tone for the rest of her life. When teenage drama hits and brings along its best friend stress, on top of all the demands of being a student, Giada is going to be fully equipped to know that taking a break will help her to deal better.

And who's the wise guy who decided that the school and work week should be five days long and the weekend only two? Two days to reset, recharge, and do all the things you didn't have time to do during the week - cleaning, errands, and all the other fun adult things we must do - is unrealistic. How many times did you push cleaning to the side because the weekend was so packed? Or how many weekends did you not stop moving at all because of a full schedule? If we don't plan days strictly to recharge our own battery, then it never happens and that's when your mental health begins to decline.

To the people in the comments saying that missing that much school, nine days to be exact, would affect Giada's education, you couldn't be more wrong.

When my youngest son was between 7 and 14-years-old, he was a working actor. He missed a few days of school a month for acting jobs and auditions and wasn't required a tutor on set because of the time frame he was working. He just flat out missed many days and was expected to make up the work at home. Fast forward to now as he's in his senior year of high school - he's an A student, in honors classes, and just got an early acceptance into a university.

Parenting styles aren't a one-size-fits-all kind of deal, but when it comes to preserving mental health, it would be great if the whole country could get on board and start to put more of an emphasis on taking breaks more often.

What are your thoughts on this topic? Do you think it's obsessive to have one day off a month for fun or rest?