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Mental health problems are something that one in four adults in the UK experience at some point throughout their lives, but it seems like it’s somewhat relegated to adults rather than children. Being a good parent means not putting mental health problems in a box or thinking that children won’t experience them because they’re so young, but it’s also important to remember that children will experience their own internal struggles. 

As the pandemic has shown, children are experiencing various forms of struggle with their mental health or feelings of isolation. So what is the answer? Is it about educating them or is it about practising good mental health hygiene? We are going to talk firmly about the latter, and show you how you can avoid compartmentalising mental health struggles while also dealing with them in a proactive manner. 

Understanding the Struggle and Strength Is a Mixture That Everyone Experiences

As part of normalising mental health struggles, it’s important that we show our children that everybody experiences the good and bad. Some people still believe that showing signs of struggling is something to be ashamed of, and that we should embody a “stiff upper lip” attitude. 

But if we teach our children that everybody experiences a mixture of both, and teach this early on, it will give them a better understanding of how to deal with struggles. Often, there are times when children get stuck and this sends a clear signal that they don’t think they are good enough. However, when we hit a brick wall, we need to understand that this is not the signal for us to stop, but to realise that obstacles are normal. 

In life, even in our chosen career, we find the areas that can prove a challenge, and we use these reasons to stop us from achieving our dreams. For example, your child may have dreams of being a medic but are immediately thrown off by the simple notion that stress is part of the job. But as part of preparing for this career, you could teach your children the pillars of strength needed to cope with the rigours of the job. 

A very handy resource when applying for medical education is the University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT), and as part of UCAT preparation having an understanding of the key subtests, such as abstract reasoning and situational judgement can better prepare our children for those environments. 

But these are tests that we and our children can take in life to recognise how to deal with certain stresses. Stress is one of the biggest barriers to mental health hygiene, and if we find ourselves prone to stress, this is arguably the biggest reason we experience anxiety throughout our lives.

Understanding the Language of Feelings

One of the most important things we can teach our children is to understand and recognise what they are feeling. What’s more, we have to embody the ideals of being able to communicate these feelings. 

Children can shut down when they are upset because they think that any feeling that is not happy can be a shameful one. But it’s crucial to help our children grow by helping them understand and communicate different emotions. But we also need to recognise that we have examples to hand when those emotions arise. 

There is nothing wrong with feeling good and there is nothing wrong with feeling bad. Children may not want to talk about those feelings, and we have to understand that feelings can be a very useful signpost, and can give us insight into how we are feeling, but also how we can navigate these roads better. 

If your children shut down when you ask them about feeling bad, this is down to a lack of appropriate social skills. If they start to develop emotional intelligence, they are able to deal with what they are feeling, but also able to communicate themselves better which will support their sense of resilience, while also allowing us to support them as well.

Be Aware of Your Child’s Behaviours and Actions

Our children are more likely to show us they are experiencing problems through their behaviour rather than the things they say. Your child may be acting out, or they may be getting into trouble more, and while it’s important to have discipline especially if your child is misbehaving if this is not getting to the root of the problem, it’s important to solve the issue or recognise they may need emotional support to cope and progress. 

Communicating feelings is important, but we have to be aware that if our children are acting out, or they are more naughty than usual, this may be down to something that they are not able to communicate. 

So how can we help? Asking more questions, in an open-ended manner, will help to pinpoint certain issues. It is so important that we do not encourage “yes” or “no” answers, but giving them a number of examples and scenarios could help them to pinpoint the issue. But also, we can then start to help moving forward.

Put Yourself in Their Shoes

Such a simple thing for us as parents, but very hard in practice. We can sometimes feel that we’ve got many pressures of our own, and this means that sometimes we get angry if our children are not behaving, which is not fair if the behaviours arise from an internal difficulty. But when our children are upset, it’s important that we validate that they are feeling what they are feeling despite whether you agree or not. 

We also have to remember that if we want to help our children, we’ve got to build the bridge of trust. And while our children may have been misbehaving, we have to put a consequence in place for that, but it is obviously crucial that our children can express why they did what they did because if we do not accept their feelings, they will struggle later in life.

Understanding Negative Thinking

Negative thinking is an incredibly difficult problem in our children and this could be due to the fact that our children think that they are not good enough. But this thinking starts very early in childhood. If they are getting constant messages that they are not good enough, they will become stuck in this way of thinking. This repetitive negative thinking soon compounds, and it becomes the norm, which will soon develop into mental health struggles. 

It’s so important for you to notice their comments about themselves. If they start to say negative things repeatedly, this is a problem, but we have to address the source. You may be very negative in your outlook and not realise it yourself which is why it’s important for you to learn how to reframe your choice of words and your outlook. 

But if you are recognising that your children are constantly practising negative self-talk this is going to negatively impact their mood, leave them more vulnerable, and could contribute to them being bullied. But the best approach to changing this is to swap negative statements for positive ones and rewording a negative statement to make it feel more positive. 

Our brains were built to change based on the thoughts and actions we put through our minds. This is why it’s so important to build up a mental toolbox of skills. Because if your child is constantly rehearsing negative thoughts, this is going to be the norm and is going to influence the actions and behaviours. It’s very easy to become good at negative things because you are endlessly repeating these patterns. 

But there are ways to improve this issue, such as positive self-talk. Positive self-talk is excellent for a number of reasons, but the most important reason is that your brain is not able to literally tell what is real or what is imagined, and when you start to influence your brain, this, in turn, influences your body. There are a number of amazing TED Talks on the power of retraining your thinking, and your body language, including this one.

It All Begins With You

Think back to your childhood. Were you made to not talk about your feelings? In fact, were you ashamed of them? The important thing to remember is that we pass on these attitudes and feelings unintentionally to our children. We need to teach our children to grow emotionally, by showing that we’re not afraid to express our feelings. 

When we are developing our own toolbox or learning how to ask for help, this is going to set the right example. Making significant changes in our children’s outlook involves us addressing those components of our mental health and recognising that change is something that can happen at any stage in our lives. Our children will reflect back on what they see in their environment. If your children need help, it’s important for you to show that you can ask for it as well. 

Mental health hygiene is more important than ever and in light of the pandemic, there will be a number of resources that are going by the wayside due to budget cuts. And this is why it’s so important that, as parents, we learn how to recognise what good mental health hygiene is.