Family Health
Talking With CHILDREN ABOUT THEIR PARENT’S Mental Health
Parents often worry that talking openly with their children about mental illness will make things worse. However, when parents and families are supported to have these conversations and offered accurate information, the opposite is true. Rose Cuff, Executive Director of Satellite Foundation offers some ideas on how parents, carers, and family members can discuss mental illness or mental health challenges with their children. Parenting, mental health and shame All parents struggle in their parenting role at some point. Life throws up big challenges and can test parents, their relationships inside and outside the family and their life goals. Experiencing mental health challenges is often accompanied by feelings of shame, judgement, blame and fear. This can be amplified if they are also a parent – assumptions can be made that they will automatically not be a ‘good enough’ parent. Their strengths and the uniqueness of their experience with mental health challenges can be lost, misunderstood and miscommunicated.
Why discuss mental health with children? All parents will come across issues that are challenging to talk about with children. Many issues that used to be taboo such as sex, death, and substance use are more openly discussed and therefore less confusing. However, mental health and in particular mental ill-health are still poorly understood by most. Combined with the stigma of mental illness, this can prevent people from talking about it and asking for help when it might be needed most.
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Children’s understanding Children worry less about something if they understand it. Providing children with opportunities to talk with their parent(s) or other trusted adults about times parents struggle or are unwell, may help reduce their worries. Children often express great relief at knowing that their parent is safe and receiving help, and to know that it is not their fault. It can be hard to find the right words to explain mental illness to children. A good start is for the adults to find out as much as they can about mental health (and ill-health) and think about how to share this safely with children. How mental health is described and (mis)understood varies enormously across cultural contexts. Language is used interchangeably throughout this – mental ill health, emotional and social wellbeing, mental health challenges, mental illness, mental distress. Use the language that best fits you and your family and remember that children are better off with simple, accurate, ageappropriate information.
Your Local Families Magazine April / May 2021 www.familiesmagazine.com.au