Hello!
It’s Children’s Mental Health Week this week and on Monday we held a free webinar for parents and caregivers based on the theme “Know Yourself, Grow Yourself” with the aim of recognising the challenges for adults and children alike and opening up a discussion about how to navigate them.
It’s impossible to escape the reality that both adults and children are living in a world where mental health issues are at the forefront of the news. We believe that mental health is one of the factors that leads to sustainable cultural change. And the mental health of the young people that our colleagues have in their lives will, in turn, have an impact on them, so addressing this is fundamental to our core mission. This is in addition to the human response to a situation in which our young people, the future workforce, are struggling to this degree.
Caregivers are in an environment which is very different from the generation before, being expected to care for both children as well as their parents, transitioning into a world of tech that is moving faster than ever and moving into a new unchartered paradigm of caregiving that they have no experience of.
Children are in an environment of constant comparison and conflicting messages on social media, with mounting parental/academic/peer pressure, and without the in-person interactions that foster a sense of identity, confidence and resilience.
It’s no wonder then that absenteeism at work and school is still higher than pre-COVID, and rates of anxiety, self-harm and suicide ideation are at record highs.
Here are some of the key points that we wanted to share:
- Together we looked at the role we have as adults and how we can reframe our actions from “what do we need to do” to “what do we need to be”. We learnt that children between 2 and 12 need us to be the 'coach' - creating boundaries and developing consequences - while those aged 12-18 need us to be 'counsellor' - giving more space to make mistakes and offering advice only when needed
- We spoke about the need for tiny moments of self-care so we can ‘put our oxygen mask on first'. This might be just a breath to acknowledge how you feel in a moment or perhaps giving yourself a ‘time-out’ before tackling a difficult situation.
- We talked about some things to avoid for better communication with children around emotions:
- Replacing phrases like 'you are angry' with 'you feel angry' to avoid negative labelling
- Don't try and 'solve' when you're really being asked to listen
- Stay away from comparing your child to others or imposing your needs/wants onto them - instead encourage them to develop their own sense of identity.
If you’re interested in learning a bit more about the above – you can download the slides and all the resources that we shared here.
It was clear from this session that we don’t have all the answers (unfortunately!) but the opportunity to recognise the shared humanity in the experience of being a caregiver and to learn from each other’s experiences, good and bad, felt really nourishing.
The webinar left us with more to talk about and sparked an idea about creating a drop in community that gathers once in a while to discuss these sorts of issues – a sort of open caregivers resource group. It’s just the seed of an idea at the moment but if it resonates with you, drop us an email. If there’s an appetite for it, we will create it!
We have another free webinar coming up in April as part of Autism Awareness Month. Click here or on the picture below for more info and to register.
In the meantime, be kind to yourself – we’re in this together.
Team THC x