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How to Talk to Your Kids About Mental Health – GGHS

Introduction

Parents are always the first to understand when something is wrong with their children. They notice differences in mood, health, or personality long before anyone else does. Sadly, it’s not uncommon for these changes to be related to mental health issues like depression & anxiety. These health problems can go undiagnosed for years if parents don’t take the endeavour to talk about them candidly & honestly with their kids from an early age. In this blog post, we will examine how you can learn more regarding your child’s mental health by asking open-ended questions & listening energetically without judgment.

Importance of mental health for children

Mental health is essential for everyone, including children. They can experience mental health problems as they increase up just like adults do. It’s difficult and uncertain when your child has a problem that you can’t fix or understand but there are numerous things you can say to help them in difficult times. Here are some of the essential points why mental is equally essential for children:

It’s not just a phase they’re moving through & it won’t get better on its own.

They ought to know that mental health is something you can do anything around, instead of assuming nothing will make any distinction or trying to cope with the problem alone.

To be helped is the best solution

The earlier someone gets help for their mental health, the most useful are the results for his better upbringing & development.

Mental health is important for kids

A lot of people think that mental health is not necessary for children, but the opposite is true. Mental health can be just as challenging and troubling for a child as it can be for an adult, if not more so because they have to manage their emotions without any knowledge on how to do this.

Tips to Talk to Your Kids Around Mental Health

It can be hard and challenging to have a conversation with kids around health, but it is necessary to make the action. When talking to your children about health issues such as mental hygiene, you like them to feel that they can ask questions & get an honest answer from you without feeling judged or ashamed for what they are running through.

Talk about how you can start: 

the first step in this conversation is making sure that we are asking questions & talking openly so that mental health isn’t seen as something awful or taboo from our kids’ point of view.

Talk about how the brain works: 

starting a conversation around how the brain works. Describe what health means in our body & how it can affect the brain, 

Talk about mental health:  

Explore with your kids what they think mental hygiene is, why would somebody require support for their mental health? What do you think happens to a person when they’re not well mentally? How can we support people who are having difficulties?

Conclusion

It’s never too early to teach your children regarding mental hygiene and how they can take care of themselves. Children are more familiar than you think, so it may be best not to whitewash the truth when talking with them. Being honest is always more suitable in this case because kids will possibly hear information from other sources as well. 

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