'Growing Together' - we must take children's mental health seriously

Tori_Scope

Children's Mental Health Week is drawing to a close today. It's a time to reflect on the mental health of our children, and how we can improve the mental health of future generations. 

You can find out more about Children's Mental Health Week on Mentally Healthy Schools' website.

The theme for this year’s Children’s Mental Health Week is ‘growing together’.

During the week, schools across the UK will be exploring the concept of growing emotionally and thinking about ways to help each other grow.

To help children and young people to grow emotionally, and grow together as a whole school community, it’s important that we embrace and celebrate diversity in all its forms.

It’s vital that pupils feel able to be their full authentic selves in the school environment, and by encouraging this school staff will also support their pupils’ wellbeing, confidence and self-esteem.

Children's mental health and the pandemic

This UK Parliament research briefing outlines that:

In the UK, mental health disorders are the leading cause of child disability, and there are high unmet child mental health needs. The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified known risk factors for child mental health disorders and disrupted support structures, leading to concerns that children’s mental health may be negatively affected.

There has been limited research published to date about the mental health of children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most studies that have been undertaken have found that, on average, children’s mental health had worsened during the pandemic, although the majority of children remained well. Assessment of NHS data has shown that rates of referrals to child mental health services are now at record highs. Evidence suggests that those at greatest risk of poor mental health during the pandemic include children with previous mental health or learning difficulties and those at socioeconomic disadvantage. 

This is worrying, as it shows that many children are struggling more with their mental health, and that disabled children may have been disproportionately affected. It's therefore more important than ever that we consider the effect of the pandemic on our children's mental health, and how we can help them to stay well.

Growth Stories

Children's Mental Health Week have put together a series of videos where famous faces discuss their experiences of emotional growth.

You can find the videos here, and I've also posted one below:

https://youtu.be/tyBK0Evcyyo

I'd encourage you to show these videos to your children to spark a discussion about emotional growth, and how to overcome challenges.

How to speak to your child about mental health

Mental health can be a difficult subject to talk about, especially with children. However, it's important we try and normalise these sorts of discussions so that children and young people grow up knowing it's okay to tell someone if they're struggling. 

There's no set formula for having these discussions, as each child is different, but Young Minds have some guidance that might come in handy. 

This guidance includes some ideas for conversation starters. Here are a few of them:

• How are you feeling?

• What do you want to talk about?

• What was the best and worst bit of your day?

• If you could start today again, what would you do differently?

• Do you want to talk about what’s going on?

• Is there anything that you need from me? Space, time to talk, time to do something fun... 

If your child finds it difficult to communicate verbally, you could always try encouraging them to use a different method of communication to show how they're feeling. For example, by drawing a picture, or using a feelings chart.

Resources for children and young people

There are an increasing number of resources out there targeted towards supporting young people with their mental health. It can be a good idea to make sure your children are aware of these resources so that they feel comfortable using them if they need to. I've listed a few below

• Childline - have a helpline, live chat, email service, and message boards
• Young Minds - have information for parents and young people, including a parents helpline
• Papyrus - have a suicide prevention helpline for young people
• CYPMHS (NHS) - Children and young people’s mental health services (CYPMHS) is used as a term for all services that work with children and young people who have difficulties with their mental health or wellbeing
• ChillPanda app - helps children and their parents and carers understand different emotions, and introduces skills to help regulate these including breathing techniques and calming games
• Catch it app - helps you to track your mood and look at problems in a different way
• Calm Harm app provides tasks to help you resist or manage the urge to self-harm

Over to you

Do you have any other ideas for starting conversations with children and young people around mental health?

What more could be done to help protect young people's mental health?

Do you think disabled children's mental health has been disproportionately affected by the pandemic?

Any other thoughts on the topic are welcome  

Sandy_123

Good awareness topic. I always make time with grandchildren to listen, encourage to engage in conversation for their age needs. It's very important for them to be able to off load, about school, home, freinds. To talk about their interests and anything that may be worrying. 

RoseyG

Kids need time. All kids. They all just want to feel wanted and cared for and respected. Mental health services for kids and adults are really lacking due to underfunding. You have to be at crisis point to get any sort of support for somebody and even then it’s difficult. More needs to be put into prevention and protection to help children and all people. My son’s mental health really suffered during lockdown as he relies on routine and went from having his groups and carer to nothing. He was just dropped from everything and no support or help from anyone. It was a very hard time but I’m so lucky he’s doing better now. 

CoffeeFirst

My daughter still continues to struggle with her mental health (young adult). It’s often hard to know what to do. To get to see a Dr isn’t always a straightforward process either. Day to day, keeping the lines of communication open is necessary but on a long term situation you (as a parent) can find yourself slipping every now and again. That said there is some good support out there which can bridge the gap. Being kind to others I always am as you just don’t know what someone else is going through. 

Danielle_2022

@CoffeeFirst,
Just wanted to drop by and say that I know how hard it can be to watch a loved one struggle with their mental health & feel as if you can't do anything to help. But I also know how valuable it is to be present in these situations. Even if your daughter doesn't appear to be very receptive, I have no doubt that she'll appreciate your efforts. It's always nice to feel like you're not being forgotten, you know? You might not always know what to say, but at least she knows that you're there, if she needs anything

I think that can be applied to children's mental health more broadly, too. As well as acknowledging that we can never truly understand what the world looks like from their perspective, but being open to learning from them. Otherwise, a lot just goes invalidated because they're young. In short: if you're trying, it's enough. I think that being open about our own mental health, as adults (in an age-appropriate way) is helpful, too. Because nobody is ever truly alone in it all.

Is there anything that we can do to support you through everything, too?

CoffeeFirst

@Danielle_2022;
Bit of an update, my daughter went to see the doctor who prescribed her Sertraline which we’re hoping will help with the anxiety she’s feeling. Early days but I’m happy she did agree to go to the surgery.

As for me, well I find coming on here a couple of times a week helps, as I don’t feel as alone 😀.  There’s always something to read which I like too. 

Tori_Scope

That's good news @CoffeeFirst I hope that the sertraline helps over time!