Celebrating World Mental Health Day: Plus 10 Mental Health Tips
October is here and with its arrival comes World Mental Health Day on October 10th.
Have you been curious about where to get resources for World Mental Health Day for your home or classroom? Or are you just looking for tips on how to support your child’s mental well-being?
You’re in the right place! I’ve outlined great answers to both questions below.
October is here and with its arrival comes World Mental Health Day on October 10th.
Have you been curious about where to get resources for World Mental Health Day for your home or classroom? Or are you just looking for tips on how to support your child’s mental well-being?
You’re in the right place! I’ve outlined great answers to both questions below.
What Is World Mental Health Day?
Organizations around the world recognize that meeting mental health needs is just as important as any other need. It’s just as important as food, water, clothing, and shelter. While you can’t always see a child’s poor mental health, it impacts their life in monumental ways.
Because of the magnitude of importance about this topic, there is not just one organization that sponsors events and provides resources for World Mental Health Day. There are a variety to choose from.
Some organizations that you can check out are the United Nations, the Mental Health Foundation, the World Health Organization, and the World Federation For Mental Health. The theme that was chosen this year by the World Federation for Mental Health is ‘Make Mental Health & Well-Being for All a Global Priority.’ It is widely recognized that especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, many people need more mental health support.
Many of these websites provide printable and digital resources that educate on mental health. Some will have guest speakers or will host community events around the globe.
Focusing on mental health is important for everyone in every place. So, no matter where you and your child are, there is sure to be a way that you can learn and grow from World Mental Health Day.
Ways to Help Your Child with Their Mental Health
Beyond just the big event, what are some ways that you can support your child’s mental health every day?
1. Read Books About Identifying Various Emotions
Books can be a great way to start a conversation about what emotions that your child may be feeling. Kids can see how the characters label their emotions and how they cope with them in healthy ways. Many books focus on a specific emotion, so if your child struggles with one emotion, like anger, in particular, there is likely a book out there that you can read together.
2. Help Them Learn how to Relax and Perform Self-care
School, social pressures, and navigating all the challenges of growing up may cause stress in your child. They need to know how to unwind and relax in order to nurture positive mental health.
Help them find relaxing activities that they enjoy like reading, taking a walk, or drawing. They may also find that more strenuous activities like running or playing a sport help clear their mind. It doesn’t really matter what the activity is. They just need a healthy way to recharge.
3. Keep the Line of Communication Open
Ask your child often about their friends, how their school work is going, and what is new in their lives. As you keep track of soccer practices and dance lessons and their favorite lunch, you may think that you know everything about them. However, you may be surprised with what you learn by asking these simple questions.
Staying in tune to our children’s lives helps us be the first to know when something seems amiss or when they may be needing more support. (1) We want our children to feel safe coming to us whenever they have a problem. That is more likely to happen if there’s already a pattern of open communication in place.
4. Model Healthy Coping Skills
It’s easy to feel like we should never be mad, frustrated, or sad around our children. Sometimes we just put on a happy face because it’s easier. Yet, this is not always in our children’s best interest.
It’s good when they see you frustrated in traffic, but you take calming deep breaths. Or maybe they see you upset when your favorite snack is all gone, but then you calmly chose another option. These may seem like really small things, nonetheless, our children are always watching. They are learning coping skills every time they watch you handle your feelings in a productive way.
5. Create Household Routines and Stick to a Sleep Schedule
Children feel more secure and function better when they know what to expect. This is why routines and schedules can be beneficial for children.
A sleep schedule is particularly important because not getting enough high-quality sleep is a risk factor for many mental illnesses.(2) Make sure that your child is getting enough hours of sleep at night and is sleeping soundly.
6. Give Them Encouragement and Support
Remind your child often how proud you are of them. Children need to hear that they are loved and that you are always there for them. It’s important to show this with your actions, but it’s also important to say it with your words.
7. Encourage Daily Movement and Healthy Habits
A healthy body supports a healthy mind. Encourage your child to get their body moving for at least 30 minutes a day. There are lots of fun ways to make this happen. They could do anything from jumping jumps to kicking a ball around the yard to play at the park.
Also, make sure that your child is eating well-balanced meals and getting all the vitamins and nutrients that they need. Healthy food will fuel their mind and body to help them function at 100%.
8. Watch for Changes in Mood or Behavior
Much like we talked about earlier, you want to understand well how your child is feeling on any particular day. Watch for sudden, drastic changes in their moods or behaviors. This could be a sign of an event that needs to be addressed.
You may also notice slow, more permanent changes over time. While kids' personalities change as they grow, this is referring to increased sadness, anxiety, or other negative emotions for extended periods of time. These may be signs of a mental health struggle.
9. Nurture Their Self-esteem
Help your child feel comfortable with who they are. (3) One way to build self-esteem is to give your child the power to make decisions whenever possible. This sense of accomplishment and power to be independent will do wonders for their self-confidence.
10. Get Professional Support if You Need it
It’s never too early or too late to reach out for help. If you feel like you can’t give your child all of the support that they need, consider talking with a mental health professional. Therapy can be incredibly beneficial not just after the onset of mental illness but even before. A therapist will be able to give you strategies and tips for preventing your child from slipping further into poor mental health.
Now, these tips don’t just apply to children. They are good mental health practices for anyone. We all need to take care of ourselves before we can take care of others. In the same way, World Mental Health Day can be beneficial for anyone. So, let’s go take care of our mental health!
For more information on child mental health, be sure to check out my podcast, Genius Little Minds, and subscribe to my newsletter.
References
What Is Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia? Recognizing the Causes, Symptoms, and Treatments
Most of us really enjoy being at home. It's a place with all our favorite things. It contains familiar faces and special memories. It houses our family members and pets that we love. It’s a safe and comfortable place to be.
This love of familiarity is often felt by our children as well. They like having their own space, a reprieve from an often demanding outside world.
Sometimes, however, it's more than that. What if your child never wants to leave? What if leaving their home or safe space causes them to spiral out of control, having panic attacks or uncontrollable irrational fears? It may seem like something more than average anxiety. It may be panic disorder with agoraphobia.(1)
Most of us really enjoy being at home. It's a place with all our favorite things. It contains familiar faces and special memories. It houses our family members and pets that we love. It’s a safe and comfortable place to be.
This love of familiarity is often felt by our children as well. They like having their own space, a reprieve from an often demanding outside world.
Sometimes, however, it's more than that. What if your child never wants to leave? What if leaving their home or safe space causes them to spiral out of control, having panic attacks or uncontrollable irrational fears? It may seem like something more than average anxiety. It may be panic disorder with agoraphobia.(1)
Panic Disorder
Panic disorder is part of the family of anxiety disorders. It is characterized by sudden, unexpected episodes of intense fear. These episodes are often called panic attacks, and they cause extreme physical and emotional discomfort. Panic attacks can feel so intense that the person may mistake them for a heart attack or other physical issue.(2)
The symptoms and duration of panic attacks vary from person to person. Some people only experience one panic attack that lasts a few minutes, while other people may experience multiple panic attacks in a row with the whole episode lasting hours.
Sometimes it’s easy to pinpoint what triggers the panic attack, but other times they can pop up with little warning or explanation. With therapy and self-reflection, a person experiencing panic attacks may be able to anticipate the attacks and take steps to prevent them or decrease their severity.
Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder that involves an intense fear of being trapped.(1) What exactly ‘trapped’ means can vary from person to person. Some people with agoraphobia feel trapped by small or crowded spaces. This could include places like elevators, the movies, or large events.
Conversely, others feel trapped by wide-open spaces, such as a bridge or park. Being in these situations can cause panic attacks. In some cases, the person does not even have to be in the situation for a panic attack to be triggered. They may simply be thinking about the anxiety-inducing place or be on their way to such places. Because of this, those with agoraphobia tend to avoid these situations if at all possible.
Symptoms
When a child experiences panic attacks along with their fear of being trapped, they may be diagnosed with panic disorder with agoraphobia.
Physical symptoms of panic disorder with agoraphobia include:(2)
Panic attacks
Rapid heartbeat
Difficulty breathing
Pressure or pain in the chest
Headaches
Stomachaches
Shakiness and/or tingling in hands and limbs
Feelings of weakness
Excessive sweating
Fatigue
Insomnia
Children may also experience emotional symptoms such as:
Feeling trapped with no escape
Sensing that something bad is about to happen to them
Fear of open spaces or enclosed spaces
Fear of long lines or crowds
Feeling like they are losing control or dying
Difficulty concentrating
Intense fear of separating from parents
Refusal to go to school or leave home
Feeling anxiety in anticipation of a feared situation
Expecting the worst possible consequences if in open or enclosed spaces
Avoidance of situations that may lead to the feeling of being trapped
These symptoms will often begin to interfere with a child’s day-to-day life. School may become more difficult. They may not get enough sleep at night. Concentrating on academic and fun tasks alike may be harder. This is the point at which a mental health professional is needed.
Causes
Panic disorder with agoraphobia is caused by three main factors: predisposition, genetics, and environment.(3)
Children’s personality or tolerance for stress can make them predisposed to developing anxiety disorders. Children with a family history of mental health illness are more likely to develop a mental illness themselves.
Certain experiences or events that invoke intense fear in a child can also bring on panic disorder with agoraphobia. A child may have a traumatic experience in a crowded or enclosed space. Or they may experience a traumatic event in some other part of their life, like a car accident, abuse, or parental divorce, and that event manifests into panic disorder as agoraphobia.
Treatment
Like with many other anxiety-related disorders, cognitive-behavioral therapy is the most widely-recognized and evidence-based treatment for panic disorder with agoraphobia.(4)
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a type of talk therapy that helps children recognize what their thought patterns are and how they may be affecting their emotions and behaviors.
CBT will walk a child through how the outcome that they are imagining is not realistic. It is easier to recognize that these outcomes are not realistic when a child is not in the midst of a panic attack, but they also need to be able to recognize this when they are in the moment. So, CBT gives tools, such as self-talk or relaxation techniques, to use when the fear and panic are starting to build.
A mental health professional will likely also use Graded Exposure. In this CBT technique, a child will slowly face their fear, employing the techniques CBT has given them to keep them calm. They will start with a situation that only makes them slightly uncomfortable and then work closer and closer to the feared situation.
An example of this would be starting off by being in a small space with one person, then with two or three people. Then, perhaps the child would be in a space with four or more people that is also noisy. Slowly they would go to places with more and more people until they can manage their anxiety effectively.
Implementing CBT Techniques
Children learn by seeing. They learn by watching someone walk through a situation and then mimicking what they saw.
If your child is suffering from panic disorder with agoraphobia, you may be struggling with how to help them, particularly if you don’t struggle with the disorder yourself. You don’t fully understand what they are experiencing or what their anxiety feels like.
Books like, Pablo Parrot Is Afraid of Being Trapped!, provide a great solution to both of these issues. Part of Dr. Madeleine Vieira’s anxiety disorder series, I’M AFRAID, this book specifically focuses on panic disorder with agoraphobia. Pablo Parrot experiences all the feelings and emotions that your child is about being trapped in certain situations. Your child will see themself in Pablo.
Pablo Parrot can help your child practice the CBT techniques, like Graded Exposure, that they are learning with their mental health professional. You will also get to play a vital role in your child’s treatment as you work through the exercises with your child. You will have actionable steps to help your child work through their anxiety and fear.
On the days when facing their fears feels extra tough, books like Pablo Parrot Is Afraid of Being Trapped!, can provide a reprieve. Your child will know they are not alone and they are strong enough to face their fear.
To learn more about the I’M AFRAID series, click here.
Medication
If the symptoms of panic disorder with agoraphobia persist even with therapy, medication such as SSRI may be recommended.(1) Medication should only be used under the direct guidance of a mental health professional and a doctor.
Panic disorder with agoraphobia can feel like a beast that needs to be tamed. It can rearrange your whole schedule if your child struggles intensely with leaving the house.
However, with the proper treatment, and enough time, returning to normal life is possible.
Would you like more information on childhood mental health? Check out my podcast, Genius Little Minds, for new episodes every two weeks.
Don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter to hear about new blogs and podcast episodes!
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