Mental health issues in children are rising. In Ireland, it's been reported that by the age of 13 years, 1 in 3 young people is likely to have experienced some type of mental health difficulty. Most parents know the importance of supporting and nurturing their child's healthy eating and physical health. Still, more and more parents realise the importance of spending time encouraging and supporting their child's mental health.
There seems to be a misunderstanding that we only need to think about children's mental health when a child has difficulty. On the contrary, we can and should be thinking about children's mental health every day. Fostering good mental health is really about helping to create, encourage, and promote daily habits like sharing, talking about feelings, correcting unhelpful thinking, encouraging helpful and healthy reviews, modelling empathy, and building resilience.
What is mental health, and what can you do to support your child?
Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. For example, our minds can affect our relationships with others and influence our behaviour, grades in school, motivation, and even our physical health.
How can Parents help?
Parents play a critical role in supporting and developing their child's mental health. Mental health difficulties do tend to run in families, so if you or someone in your family has a mental health difficulty (e.g., high anxiety), your child may be at risk of a similar problem and need a little more attention. However, even those with no family history of mental health difficulties also need positive input from their parents since mental health is influenced by the environment.
1. Allow your child to fail.
Understandably parents want to protect their children, and as part of this can swoop in and stop them from experiencing heartache or failure. However, these distressing experiences can be healthy for a child's mental health. It helps develop resilience and encourages them to grow. So next time your child loses a match or experiences failure try to stand back and allow them to navigate the situation themselves instead of jumping in to fix it for them.
2. Allow your child to be bored.
How often have you heard your child say, 'I'm bored!'? If they haven't said it this week, they may be too busy!! Boredom is healthy for your child; it gives them time to work out and tap into different parts of the brain. It encourages creativity and enables your child to problem solve and find new ways to entertain themselves – all good things. Boredom is also a time that children can use to freely play with siblings and friends -a time when they learn how to resolve disagreements and compromise. So, don't feel pressured to pack your child's day full of activities – next time they say they are bored, just smile and know you are doing them a favour.
3. Set clear boundaries and routines.
It's easier for a child to deal with struggles in life when they know there are clear boundaries in place. Setting clear boundaries for bedtime, time on electronics, and rules for speaking to and treating others and ourselves are all critical for developing well-being and mental health. Sometimes it's easy to give in to a child's demands (e.g., for more electronic time), but reinforcing rules and boundaries and saying 'no' is not always the easy option for you, but it is healthy. Of course, you can always be flexible, but ensuring your child knows the boundaries is essential.
4. Model Good behaviour.
This is one of the most important ways to develop your child's mental health. Modelling good behaviour includes:
- Be open with your children.
- Talking about your feelings.
- Acknowledging when you are wrong.
- Modelling how you deal with disappointments.
- Modelling healthy thinking.
Parents are not perfect, and when stressed, we can often unnecessarily lose our cool with our children – if this happens, we need to recognise it and show our remorse to our children – tell them we are sorry. Doing this helps build resilience; it shows them that it's okay to mess up and helps to teach them to not dwell on the past but recognise and move on.
5. Balance video game time.
Being social and meeting up with friends face-to-face is an essential and healthy part of a child's development. Building time into the day for meeting friends will help your child be a better friend and learn critical social skills such as reading non-verbal cues. It's been suggested that children need 30 minutes face-to-face for every hour of video games. Learning to balance screen time with time outside and with friends will be necessary for their development.
6. Love Unconditionally.
Lastly and by no means least, there is no such thing as too much love. Only what you choose to do (or give) in the name of love can be too much. For example, material indulgence, leniency, low expectations, and over-protection. When these things are given in place of real love, that's when you'll have a spoiled child and one that perhaps will not be ready for the challenges of 'real' life. On the other hand, showing your child love can be as simple as giving hugs, spending time with them, and listening to them every day. If you can spend 15 minutes of quality time with your child (without distraction), you will do wonders for their health and well-being.
These are just a few tips to help you establish daily habits to develop healthy mental health in your child. However, every child is different, and no one size fits all. You will know your child best and know what they need more of and maybe what they need less.
Despite your best efforts, your child will struggle with their mental health - if you feel your child is struggling with mental health, you can contact your local Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS) clinic.
We have three fabulous courses to support children and young people with mental health difficulties.
