Parenting for your Children’s Mental Health By Philippa Perry
There is no way to guarantee perfect mental health for your children. But there’s a lot you can do, and be, to help.
F
irstly, parents need to show warmth, acceptance and understanding. They need to be available physically and emotionally. They must be able to love, trust, respect and they need to know how to soothe, play and be generous with their attention and time. We have these qualities already: the trouble is, other things can get in the way. Things like childcare, money, school, work, tiredness, lack of time and busy-ness ... But what gets in the way more than any of this is what was given to us when we were babies and children. If we don’t look at how we were brought up and the effect it has had on us, it can come back to bite us. Think back to your childhood: were you ever made to feel ‘bad,’ in the wrong, or even responsible for your parents’ bad moods? If this happened to you, it is all too easy to try to repair your feeling of being wrong by making someone else feel wrong. The victims of this can be our children. So, we also need to be humble, flexible and admit to our kids when we’ve slipped up. We want them to know how and when to apologise, and not to hold on to being right when they have been mistaken. The only way to really teach our children this, is to show it. Another quality we need is optimism. Optimism that our children will pick up all the skills we model that everyone needs to get along: flexibility, problem-solving skills, tolerance for frustration and empathy. We all do better when someone we respect believes in us.
Good relationships with our children depend so much on being a good listener and observer. So often we only see and hear what we want to. Or sometimes we think we’ve heard but immediately interpret what they’ve said as an attack. For example, your child might say to you: “We never go out” when just last week you’ve taken them to a theme park. You might want to explode with: “How can you say that, we went to Legoland last week?” This would probably lead to an argument. If instead you listened to the feelings under those words and said: “You sound bored and fed up. What would you like to do?” and then they’d say something like: “I want to go back to Legoland again.” You could then have a moment of connection and say: “Yeah that was fun”. When we really listen to our children, we will hear that for a lot of the time, they don’t want us to fix them, they want us to understand them. They want to be felt with, not dealt with. If our children can feel heard, understood and seen, and especially if parents can help them put their feelings into words, they will be able to confide in you rather than hide from you. More than anything what our children need from us is our loving attention; to be taken seriously and understood. Being seen is a good defence against being driven crazy. More than anything we need to remember that children are not projects - something we get right or ruin, or chores to get through, but people to relate to.
Philippa Perry is the author of The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did), published by Penguin Life.
14 • Henley • Reading • Wokingham • Bracknell • Newbury • West Berkshire
The inside track Be Relaxed offers classes in Reading for families, school and nurseries that nurture positive wellbeing, and build self-esteem, awareness and confidence. Owner, Lorna Crossan, says: “I strongly believe in nourishing our children from the 'inside out' and affirming and setting a positive example for our natural state of 'being' (calm, caring and content). First and foremost how we are 'being' affects those around us, our thoughts, feelings, words. We need to cherish our children for being themselves. Leading by example, we can teach them ways to keep in their natural state of ‘being’ through, for example, self-acceptance and self-care. This can be underpinned through activities like Be Relaxed classes and by prioritising the 3 As in your child's upbringing – Affirmation, Attention and Affection.” berelaxed.co.uk ................................................................................ The Emotional Health Academy offers specific services directly to parents in and around West Berkshire to support their child or young person with their emotional needs. The EHA offers emotional health assessments and delivers evidenced-based, low-intensity talking therapies. Their advice is as follows: We often discuss the importance of children’s resilience with parents which is increasingly important considering the pressures of today’s society (education, peers, social media etc). Our instinct is to wrap our children up in cotton wall and fight all their battles, but we need to provide and allow opportunities for them to problem solve and learn that they can actually cope. This will strengthen their own confidence when the same or similar problem occurs. Some examples on how we can strengthen resilience: • Model & normalise – openly show that we as adults also find things difficult but cope with them, e.g. I was really nervous about a meeting today but I actually presented well and it went much better than I thought. • Emotional language – give them the tools to be able to communicate what they are experiencing. • Play to their strengths – this provides opportunities to promote their self-esteem. westberks.gov.uk/eha or call 01635 519018
familiesonline.co.uk
