Mental health is just as important as physical health but unlike a cut or bruise, it can be hard to tell when someone is suffering and know how to help. We have teamed up with a private school in Hampstead to share a few top tips for supporting your child with their mental health.
Take Care of Your Own Mental Health
To help your child with their mental health, it’s important that you prioritise your own. Practising mindfulness, self-care and talking about yourself in a positive light can rub on to your child, allowing them to form healthy habits.
Create a Safe Space
To help your child with their mental health, it’s important to create a non-judgemental safe space that they can turn to when things become overwhelming. Having a relationship where they feel safe enough to talk about their issues can help you to work with them in finding ways to help and relieve some of their burdens.
Phone Usage
We all know that spending hours behind a screen isn’t particularly great for our physical and mental health. In fact, recent studies have found that those that spend over 3.5 hours on social media suffer far more with their mental health than those that don’t. To support your child with their mental health, it’s important to be mindful of how long they spend on their phone and to have conversations about social media. So much of what we consume through the platforms is edited, creating unrealistic beauty standards and making your child aware of this can help them with their mental health.
Asking for Help
Teaching your child that it’s okay to ask for help and how to do so can help them when they need it the most. A lot of those that experience mental health issues often suffer in silence and while coping strategies can work well, sometimes medication and professional referrals are needed.