Effective communication about mental health between parents and children is pivotal to fostering understanding, reducing stigma, and promoting well-being in the family. The prevalence of children whose parents are struggling with a mental health challenge makes this topic imperative. In the same breath, reports by the CDC reveal that 1 in 6 U.S. children between ages 2–8 years has a diagnosed mental, behavioral, or developmental disorder, and 37% of adolescents aged 12 – 17 years reported having persistent feelings of sadness. Parents, therefore, need to be equipped with the right strategies to address mental health issues sensitively and constructively.
Communicate Effectively About Your Mental Health
Parents must be aware of their mental health and communicate effectively with their children about it. To do so, parents need to:
- Talk about their feelings appropriately when they are stressed.
- With appropriate boundaries, share their mental health journey with their children to normalize seeking help and talking about feelings.
- Be willing to tolerate some amount of vulnerability to show children that it’s okay to feel and to talk about emotions.
Set the stage for effective parent-child communication about mental health:
- Create your home into a safe place where children feel comfortable expressing their thoughts and feelings.
- Choose the appropriate timing and setting to talk. Avoid discussing serious topics in rushed or public settings.
- Practice active listening. When your child speaks, listen without interrupting. Show empathy and understanding. Reflect on what they say to confirm understanding and validate their feelings.
- Be available and approachable. Create time for dialogue by regularly asking about their day and showing genuine interest in their feelings.
- Have a non-judgmental attitude. Avoid criticizing or dismissing their feelings. Instead, offer support and understanding and let them know that no topic is off-limits.
- Encourage emotional expression. Help your child build a vocabulary for their emotions.
- Be supportive. Reassure your child that you are there for them and will help them through whatever they are experiencing. Don’t make promises you can't keep, like guaranteeing they won't feel sad again.
- Encourage your child to come up with solutions to their problems as much as possible. Guide them through the process rather than solving problems for them.
- Use positive reinforcement by acknowledging and praising their efforts to manage stress and emotions.
Learn together with your children
- Communication can be through dialogue or written materials. Reading is one of the ways parents and children can communicate effectively as it encourages bonding during this activity as well as co-learning. Parents can encourage their teenage children to read books on mental health, ensure they also read the same books, and find opportunities to share what they learned together.
- There is a plethora of children’s books on a wide variety of mental health issues including ADHD, anxiety, depression, trauma, eating disorders, body image, and self-esteem, to mention a few. The Child Mind Institute recently published an article that reviewed 77 children’s books on mental health issues.
Learn and teach your children coping skills
Children who are dealing with mental health issues often struggle with managing their big feelings. These feelings can be managed with different forms of coping skills including Deep Breathing, Relaxation, Distraction, Sensory, Movement, and Processing. All of these can also be done visually using pictures. Below are examples of each form:
- Deep Breathing Skills: Deep breathing with a pinwheel, with bubbles, or with your fingers. Smell the soup – cool the soup, Smell the flower – blow out the birthday candles.
- Relaxation Skills: Imagine or think about a favorite place, people, or things, remember a favorite song, and count numbers or say the alphabet slowly.
- Distraction Skills: Play a board game, do a puzzle, do something that makes you laugh, be creative, play with a pet, and do something for someone else.
- Sensory Skills: Take a cold drink of water, play in the sand, move back and forth on a swing, stretch on an exercise ball, and wrap up in a warm blanket.
- Movement Skills: Take a walk, squeeze something, use a fidget, use a jump rope, do stretches, and listen to music and dance.
- Processing skills: Draw or journal about what’s bothering you, think about things you’re grateful for, make a worry box, use colors to talk about feelings, say how you feel, and talk to someone you trust.
Seek Professional Help When Necessary
When therapy becomes necessary, it is important for parents to communicate effectively with children about the purpose of therapy. Some of the strategies to do this include:
- Assess your child's understanding of therapy by using open-ended questions to gently explore what they already know.
- Normalize therapy. Explain that seeing a therapist for mental health issues is like visiting a doctor for physical health issues.
- Emphasize that therapy is a tool for growth and self-discovery during tricky times. For young children, using simple and concrete terms and books can be a helpful way to communicate in a way that is engaging and easy to understand.
- Keep the line of communication open by checking in with the child before and after therapy sessions.
- Be sure to respond to their questions and concerns.
Benefits of Effective Parent-Child Communication About Mental Health
Effective communication about mental health between parents and children is essential for fostering a supportive and understanding environment. By being aware of their mental health, creating a safe place for discussion, learning together with their children, learning and teaching coping skills to children, and seeking professional help, when necessary, parents can foster resilience and reduce stigma thereby impacting their child’s mental health positively. Teaching children resilience and coping skills can help them manage stress and mental health challenges more effectively.
HopeNation therapists provide excellent support to families using evidence-based therapies to work with children one-on-one and in family therapy.