Children Are Just Small Adults
When I first started working with Mental Health, I was nervous about treating children. I wasn’t sure how they would respond to natural medicines or communicate how they were feeling. Turns out that many kids are just as open to discussing their mental health (sometimes more open!) than adults. In many cases, these children have been experiencing symptoms for a while, but face a communication barrier with their parents.
Your Child’s Mental Health Depends Largely on Your Own
While there is less stigma around depression and anxiety now, many parents are still unsure how to communicate about their own mental health. Years of struggle with work-life balance can create anxiety, poor sleep and fatigue. We focus so much on raising good kids that we often ignore our own health and the warning signs that we need help.
The research suggests that children raised around one anxious parent are up to SEVEN times more likely than other children to develop anxiety. How much of this is genetics, and how much is growing up in an anxious environment is unknown. But, we know for sure that parents are the greatest role models for their children. How parents cope with stress, largely determines the child’s response later in life.
Stress Exposure Begins Before Birth
The genetics vs. environment debate is so complex, because both begin their impact on human development at the same time. Genetics are determined at conception, but the environment in which the child develops before birth is largely influenced by the mother. Stress hormones and inflammatory cells can migrate between the mother and baby during pregnancy. Higher levels of prenatal stress can influence brain plasticity and cognitive functions in the developing fetus. This can increase the risk of sleeping disorders, feeding difficulties and mental illness into adulthood.
Opening Up the Mental Health Conversation
Open the mental health conversation with your children early and often. This begins with parents discussing their own emotions in certain situations, and normalizing the conversation around feeling sad or angry.
Understanding your child’s language and communicating effectively as a parent can help eliminate sleeping problems, tantrums and picky eaters. A child who feels supported will create healthy relationships and will be better equipped to ask for what they want later in life.
Developing Healthy Coping Skills
In life, there is a 100% chance of rain. Healthy habits are important for holding up the umbrella when the rain comes. We can hide under someone else’s umbrella for a while, but eventually we will have to create our own shelter.
Our umbrella is made up of our coping skills. We develop some of them at home with our families, but most of them come from the difficult situations we face in life. Overcoming these challenges allows our umbrellas to expand and provide us with greater shelter from the rain. Children who overcome challenges without parental intervention are more likely to have higher self-confidence and stronger coping skills.
Minimizing Screen Time
It is no coincidence the rates of childhood anxiety and screen time have both increased. Technology is built into our education system and there is absolutely no way to completely avoid it. Looking into bright screens activates parts of our brains that alert the stress response. We tell our bodies that it is daytime and this signal travels to the end of every nerve.
Many of us adults grew up without technology. This allowed our brains and nervous system to develop without an ongoing neurological stressor. Research is still inconclusive as to how screens are affecting brain and neurological development in young children today. The best we can do for now is minimize the exposure as much as possible. This means limiting video games and screen time after school. It means setting boundaries at the dinner table and completely avoiding them at bedtime.
Your Child’s Diet, Sleep and Environment
As a Naturopathic Doctor, no treatment plan would be complete without a dietary and environmental assessment. Children have much higher exposures to sugar in their diet and this can wreak havoc on brain and immune system development. Inflammation in the brain can present as anxiety and depression. Lowering sugar and increasing vegetable content is an important way to teach kids about healthy eating and lower inflammation in their bodies. The more they become involved in cooking meals, the more likely they will be to try new foods and experiment.
A healthy environment with access to parks and playgrounds is also fundamental for a child’s social development. They learn how to be creative and use their imaginations, while communicating with other children. The outdoor environment exposes them to essential bacteria that will build their immune systems and prevent illness.
This may all sound very basic. But in a rapidly evolving world, the fundamentals of health will always remain the same. The challenge for most parents is overcoming the social pressures around screen time and maximizing whatever green space we have available. But the more time we have to spend with our children, the better equipped they will be to face life and all its obstacles later on.