5 ways to teach your kids about their mental health

We teach them how to say “mama” or “dada”. We teach them how to hold a spoon. We teach them how to connect letters and read words. We try and keep them physically healthy by encouraging exercise and eating healthy foods. But the one thing that most parents seem to neglect to do, is teach our kids how to take care of their own mental health.

10 October is World Mental Health Day and as adults, we’ve read a lot about the importance of caring for our mental health. But with mental health disorders on the rise among young people too, there’s never been a better time to foster good mental health practises in our children.

Here are 5 ways to teach your children about the importance of taking care of their mental health:

Prioritise sleep

Good sleep habits start from when they’re babies. Teach them to self soothe, stick to a consistent bedtime routine, and ensure that sleep is a priority in their lives – not an afterthought. If your tweens or teens have cellphones, it’s imperative that they don’t take the device to bed with them. Establish family rules that after a certain time of day (8pm for example), all devices are placed in the kitchen/office and then only returned again the next morning.

Also Read: ‘I have not had a good night’s sleep for almost a year’, says mom

Be their role model

Just as they model their other behaviour on you, so too will they model any examples you make in terms of your mental health. Whether it’s putting away your phone at certain times of the day, diarising your weekly yoga class, or going off to do a 15-minute daily mindfulness session, make it obvious to them that you make mental wellness a priority – and they will follow suit.

Also Read: COLUMN: How does your behaviour influence your child?

Help them identify emotions

This is especially true for younger children, but it will serve them well as they grow up too. So often a child struggles with the way they are feeling because they can’t put a label to it, and they don’t know that it’s actually a very common emotion for everyone to feel. Teach them what “disappointment” feels like, or “frustration”, or “embarrassment”, and tell them that it’s normal to feel like this at times – life isn’t about being happy 100% of the time.

It’s also a strength to ask for help when you need it: if you need some professional guidance, some medical aid companies like Fedhealth have Emotional Wellbeing Programmes, where consultants will provide a listening ear and refer you or your child for professional counselling, if needed.

Also Read: Kids don’t cry for no reason

Make time for playing and creativity

Adults have to give a name to our play time: we call them hobbies! With all this overscheduling we do for our kids, it’s vital for their mental health that we set aside free time – and not just when they’re toddlers. Tweens, teens and young adults all need free time when nothing is expected of them and they can just relax, recharge and have fun. Ensure that as the parent, you work this into their busy schedules.

Also Read: 10 reasons why playful parenting builds successful children

Talk and communicate

This sounds so obvious, but unless you’re making a conscious effort to pause in your busy lives and connect with your children, enquiring about how they’re feeling – you could miss vital warning signs. A useful and practical solution to this is to hold “family meetings” once a week, where you all sit down and take a turn to talk about what happened to you this week, and how you felt about it. It could be around the dinner table on a Sunday – and you could even take notes, listing a goal for each of you that you’d like to achieve, or something problematic that you want to address.

We owe it our children to give them practical tools and habits that will build their resilience and prepare them for whatever awaits them in the wider world – and strong mental health is crucial in order to do this.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.