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Speaker 2Your Kids podcast. So, wear yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. This is episode 140 and given that the date of release, of this episode, is in Children's Mental Health Week, I thought it would be really helpful to share a previous episode I've recorded about children's mental health. Remember, repetition is the mother of all learning and sometimes we just need that prompt, we need that refocus to be considering what are the things that are really crucial when it comes to protecting my child's mental health? What are the things that we can do preventatively? What should we know as parents and also as educators? So, enjoy the episode. This is really an awareness episode rather than me getting stuck in with possible ways of identifying if your child is struggling with their mental health. If you want more specific tips on how to spot mental health issues and what you can do to help your child, then do go and listen to episodes 3 and 10, where I talk directly about that. Let's start by defining what we actually mean by mental health. Now, to me, mental health is the ability to control our mental health. It's the ability to control our mental health. It's the ability to cope emotionally and cognitively when we experience problems or challenges in life. Now, as I was thinking about this sort of definition, I was coming up with it. I started writing cope emotionally and mentally, but actually, what do we mean by mentally? So, cognitively is all to do with the way that our children think and process the internal chatter. So, to me, mental health is our children's ability to cope not only with the emotions that come with problems that they'll experience and the challenges. And so, it's the ability to cope with the emotions that come with problems that they'll experience and the challenges. And so, to me, mental health is our children's ability to cope not only with the emotions that come with problems that they'll experience and the challenges. And so, to me, mental health is our children's ability to cope not only with the emotions that come with of life, but it's what their internal narrative and their chatter is and how they manage that chatter that is associated with their experiences, the problems that they experience and the challenges in life. So, in the same way as, let's say, when our children fall over and maybe they graze their knee or maybe they break a bone or they get chicken pox, a sickness virus or so on, their recovery rate is dependent on their physical health, which is their immune system. When it comes to mental health, your child is going to experience setbacks and difficulties much in the same way as our children experience these falls and stumbles and viruses. Their ability to navigate their mental health well and not struggle with mental health issues relates to their mental immunity. I mean, this is something I've coined, it's a term that I've coined, I don't think it's not, doesn't necessarily exist, but this was the easiest way that I could think of in terms of trying to explain it. And their mental immunity is how, well, they cope emotionally and cognitively with problems and challenges that they face through life. So, when we talk about immunity in our bodies, it is generally a given that we have immunity and that these can be optimised by sleep and good nutrition. In other words, we have a certain amount of immunity already and we can optimise it with tweaks here and there. Of course, that is assuming that our children don't have an autoimmune disorder or something that impacts their immunity. But when we're talking in general terms, it's a given, we have a certain amount already, kind of inherit that, but we can tweak it and refine it and optimise it with good nutrition, making sure that we sleep well and all of these other things. When we talk about immunity in our mental health, in my view, we have to be thinking that it is all, it all has to be learnt. Problems with friends, we're not born innately able to navigate that. Challenges with friendships, academic pressures, social pressures, comparison the whole comparison trap, consent using our voice, managing body images, self-image, confidence, all of these skills as such, the ability to navigate these and to create an element of immunity, all have to be acquired through life and they're not automatically given to us through our genetic makeup. And I love the way, I'd always do some research before I do my podcast episodes, I'd always have my own personal opinions and I like to do a little bit of research beforehand. And I loved these, these are a couple of sort of bits of information that I grabbed from more of a neurochemical side, but I think it's important that we also take these things into account. So our experiences, the experiences our children have and the experiences that we have leave a chemical signature on the genes, which determine whether and how those genes are expressed. Now, the interaction of genes, what we're born with genetically, and experience affects childhood mental health. So genes are not our destiny just because we're born genetically. Our genes contain instructions that I'll tell our body how to work, but the chemical signature, which comes from our environment, can either authorise or prevent these instructions from being carried out. So yes, we have got a genetic, you know, there are things that we are born with genetically, but these chemical signatures that come from our body come from our experiences, either switch them on or switch them off. So in other words, our children's environment and their lived experiences can play a hugely significant part in whether they will struggle with a mental health issue more than what they have inherited from us genetically. And that's a really important factor because quite often when I speak to families, there's a huge amount of guilt. Let's say if, if a parent is struggling with anxiety or maybe they've experienced depression or they've had their own mental health struggles and they feel that they are entirely responsible for challenges that their children experience. And whilst there will be some aspects of the genetic inheritance, it is these environmental factors, their environmental experiences, which trigger this. And when we look at it genetically, which psychologists will often do when they look at identical twins, because identical twins share the same genetic makeup, 100% genetics. And they talk about something called concordance rate. So if one identical twin experiences a mental health issue, what's the likelihood of the other twin also struggling with a mental health issue? And those rates are not 100%. Then they, well, depending on the mental health issue, they can vary from sort of 30 up to 50. So what we know is genetics plays a part, but it is not the whole story. So as parents, if we're listening to this podcast, episode, and we're, maybe we've got teenagers, maybe we've got a child that's struggling with mental health issues, or maybe we've got a preschooler or a tiny baby, then know that we can massively impact in a positive way, the outcome, the prognosis for our children in terms of their mental health, because we can begin to teach them those skills. We can understand what are the things that we need to be doing, because it's the experiences in their environment that make a huge impact. Now, I want to just look at a couple of things before I go into my usual top tips. So I want to look at what are the common factors which can impact a child's mental health. So these are the common things. Now, the first is being in good physical health. Now, I'm not a nutritional expert and I would love to get Lucinda back on, but if you want to look at specifically the relationship between food and our children's mental health, then go back to one of the early episodes that I did with Lucinda Miller, where she talks about this. But when you look at the relationship between food and our children's mental health, we know that if our children are in good physical health, they're eating a balanced diet and they are getting regular exercise, that that can have a really positive impact in terms of that protection against mental health issues. If our children have time and freedom to play. Now, obviously our children, play is often a word that we use with much younger children, but it's the same with older children. Play just takes on a different form, but it's having regular time within their days, their school days, to spend time indoors and outdoors where they are doing something other than a work perspective. Being part of a family that gets along most of the time. Yeah, we are never, happy families just does not exist. It is not a concept that I think any of us need to be aspiring towards because it simply doesn't exist. We are people, we have social interactions and there are going to be times where there will be friction, but being part of a family that generally gets along most of the time, we are part of a family that gets along most of the time. Again, is another safeguarding mechanism. Another one is going to a school that looks after their wellbeing. So a school where our children feel happy, safe, and an environment where they feel that their interests are encouraged and they feel part of that community. Now, again, that doesn't mean that if your child is struggling with friendship issues, that that means that they're going to automatically struggle with mental health issues. That's all part of it. There are going to be ups and downs in the same way. So if your child is struggling with friendship issues, the same way be ups and downs within family life. There'll be ups and downs within schools, but it is making sure that in the whole, that's what our child is experiencing. The next one is about being able to take part in local activities, being involved in their local community. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that your child needs to be volunteering for things, but it's much more a case of making sure they've got local friends, that they interact with neighbours, or in some of you won't have immediate neighbours, but it is being part of that local area and that local community. Other factors that will impact our children's mental health is sleep. Sleep is a huge one, and it is a bit of a chicken and egg scenario. And I think certainly from when I did the last trawl on it, I think the jury is out as such. So it's not necessarily, what we don't know, we know that we don't know, but we know that we don't know. We know that there's an association between quality of sleep and positive mental health. So good quality sleep, children who sleep the right amount, who have good quality sleep, who generally fall asleep relatively quickly, they don't have to fall asleep the minute their head hits the pillow, but sleep is associated with positive mental health, and sleep is also associated with poor mental health. So if you have a child who struggles to fall asleep at night, who complains often of poor quality sleep, there is often an association with poor mental health. We don't know whether it's the sleep that positively impacts, or whether the lack of sleep creates the mental health issue, or whether it's the other way around. But it's enough that we just signal, it's one of those aspects that affects their mental health. So sleep is a huge part. Life events are another big part that can impact children's mental health, and we're going to look at that in a little bit more detail in a moment. And also transitions, our children will transition to various aspects of their life, as will we, and those will also impact our children's mental health. So those are kind of the common factors. Now, the question is then, are some children more likely to experience mental health issues? Now, if we're talking about environmental here, rather than genetic, we've said that the genetics plays a bit, but it's the environmental experiences that then leave this chemical signature that either switches on or switches things off. So are some children more likely to experience mental health issues? Now, there are some common ones that we are aware of. The first is having a long-term physical illness. If a child has a long-term physical illness, then that may impact their mental health. Now, as I talk through these, actually, it's probably really important that I qualify this. I'm going to go through a list of about seven or eight. If your child has experienced this, does not mean that they are automatically, going to experience a mental health issue. Remember, this is about, when we go back to this notion of immunity, it's about how our child is able, how equipped they are. So children can have these, can experience these things, can have these things going on in their life, but be phenomenally equipped and therefore emotionally very resilient and therefore less likely to struggle with a mental health issue. The idea behind identifying this is a way of helping you identify, do I need to be putting in, do I need to be starting to work on these things? Do I need to be working on these things? Because actually you've mentioned a couple of things that I'm aware that my child is going to be experiencing. So what are the things that I can do rather than you, I don't want people sit here, you know, listening to this and then worrying and thinking, oh my goodness me, I've set myself, my child up for all sorts of problems. That isn't the case. This is a really, it's a podcast episode that it's about a discussion. It's exploratory and it's sort of helping you begin to sow those seeds of what you might well then want to do next. So these are some of the things. So having a long-term physical illness can sometimes impact our children's mental health. The next one is a parent who has had mental health issues, which are not being actively managed. This is really important because I don't want parents listening to this who are struggling with their mental health thinking, oh my goodness me, I have totally screwing up my child. It is not. If you have a mental health issue, which you are actively managing, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's completely on track and as you would want things. But if you are doing things to actively manage it, then your child is not any more likely than any other child. It's where it is not actively managed. So children do inherit our genes, but as we know, children are more likely to do what they see than what we say. So how we cope ourselves has a huge impact on our ability, because that affects their experiences and what they learn and the skills that they pick up. Another one might be the death of someone close to them, parents who separate or divorce, if a child experiences severe bullying, or whether there has been physical or sexual abuse, poverty or homelessness, whether a child has experienced discrimination, or whether they're caring for a relative, or they're taking on adult responsibilities, or they're having long-lasting difficulties at school. And those long-lasting difficulties at school may be related to their learning, or may be related to the environment, and that things are not being put in place. So these are some of the common issues that we need to be aware of, but they do not necessarily mean that our child is absolutely then going to have a mental health issue. Now what we know is currently one in six children is struggling with a probable mental health issue, and this issue is global. This is not specific to the United Kingdom, where I happen to live. This is a global statistic. And I guess if you actually talk to practitioners, they would probably say it's closer to one in four. So that's a staggering 25% of children aged four years and above that are struggling to cope emotionally and cognitively with problems and challenges they face day to day. Why? Now, if we think about my immunity definition of mental health, that it is learned, and not a given, so it's not like our physical immunity, and we consider the world our children are navigating, we have to ask ourselves as parents, have we equipped our children to cope emotionally and cognitively with setbacks? Can they successfully navigate friendship issues, peer pressure, body image, self-confidence, comparison? The list goes on. If the answer is yes, then it is unlikely your child will have a mental health issue. If the answer is no, or you're not entirely sure, then there are some simple steps that you can take to equip your children. And so let's move on to my top five tips. And they're in no particular order, they're just in the order that I wrote them down when I was thinking them through. The first one is encouraging our children with problem solving. And you'd have heard me talking about this so, so often. If we're working on the basis that our children's emotional resilience, and therefore their emotional immunity, their mental immunity, their ability to manage and cope emotionally and cognitively with setbacks and problems through life, then this is learnt. So our children have to learn how to be able to solve their own problems. And this is a really, really key part to any aspect of our children. So whether that is their mental health, whether it's their confidence, whether it's their ability to be successful academically, or their ability to be successfully when they move beyond living at home and becoming full-grown adults living independently, their ability to problem solve is key. Now, they don't always have to come up with the best solution. They don't always have to come up with a solution. They may come up with a couple of solutions, but it's really important that they are able to look at a situation that they find themselves in and consider ways that they may navigate it. And sometimes one of the ways that they may choose to solve their own problems is by encouraging them to take more steps back. So encouraging our children to problem solve is really key. And as parents, that means we need to take more steps back. We need to encourage, rather than jumping in to fix our children's problems, encourage them to consider what they might do next time. So absolutely be there empathetically, absolutely acknowledge the challenge from your child's perspective, completely, whether that's to do with their body image, whether it's to do with their confidence, whether it's to do with comparison, peer pressure, or they're struggling with a friendship issue or something academically. Absolutely acknowledge how the challenge feels to them and sit with them and help them work through, coach them rather than preach to them. Help them get really clear on what the problem is. So what I'm hearing you saying is that this is what you're struggling with. Am I right? So we're trying to help coach them and then helping them think about, well, if this is your issue, what might you do? What are the options available to you? What have you done in the past? And if children, as I've said before, you know, I am a reformed control enthusiast who would always jump in and give my children the answers because I just felt that I didn't want to see them hurt or upset. Or a lot of the time it was just simply, I've been there, I've done it. I know what the answer is. Let me just tell you what to do. That doesn't help them in any way. But what we can do when they are struggling and they're not really sure is that we might say, well, I found in the past when I've been in this situation that this has sometimes helped and sometimes this has helped. And then what we're then doing is not solving it for our children but giving them a couple of options based on our experiences and then asking them to choose what might they do first what might they try so the first one is really encourage our children to problem solve because these mental immunity is an acquired skill set that's the first one the second one is to teach our children a regular self-care practice so i talk so much about us as parents taking care of ourselves how often do we talk to our children about what they might need to do to take care of themselves their self-care what do they need to do so this goes back to the analogy that i've used in previous podcast episodes about our bucket filling and our children are no different their bucket fills with all of the things the trials and tribulations of the day and sometimes what goes gets poured into our bucket is huge maybe they've had a huge disagreement with a friend they've had a big falling out and they're really worried maybe they've got a huge pressure of an exam or they've done an exam that hasn't gone really well so we can get these big pressures but we can sometimes get these small pressures waking up early on a cold and dark day feeling tired not feeling fully rested having a stubbing their toe not feeling a hundred percent these sorts of things might trickle into our bucket but in essence our children like us have a bucket which fills and at some point it overflows and we often that's where the intervention will come in that's where we will all jump in and look at problem solving but we know that we can drain that bucket by turning the tap and it's encouraging our children to consider what are the things that they need to do regularly to make sure that they drain their bucket what are the regular practices of self-care that your child needs and it will be different for each child maybe you have a child that needs to jump on a trampoline because actually expending energy is a exercise is a really important thing to do and it's a really important thing for them maybe you have a child where it's actually spending time with friends maybe another child loves needs reading a book or some active creative play or maybe it's sketching things out or coloring or drawing or building something it's helping our children to understand this whole notion of the bucket helping them understand this notion of self-care and what they might need to do or become at least aware of of what they need to do for their own self-care what's important for them how do they drain their bucket and what when they look at their day how can we begin to build some of that within their day so that they are able to have a regular daily self-care practice so that's that is number two so the first one is encouraging our children to problem solve the second is about teaching our children about their own self-care practice the third is about creating space in their daily routine which is similar to this notion of self-care but not getting too sucked into this notion of allowing our children to have extremely busy days where they're going from a long school day to activities now sometimes you may well have a child who is very musical or a child who's really sporty or a child who just loves going to activities and that's great but you have to look at a balance whilst you might have a child that likes a lot of this social stuff and they like to be busy and to be doing things outside school if they don't have space and time then what they don't do is they don't get regularly used to just being in their own company and as we know when we've talked about this before one of the internal dialogue that does not this internal chatter that does not stop that is incessantly narrating which our children then often experience at night time when they're trying to go to sleep and they're full of anxiety and they're trying to go to bed and they're trying to go to bed and they're full of this chatter that they cannot switch off if our children have been super super busy with their days and not been able to switch off and have some some of that downtime then the first time they really connect with that chatter is when they go to bed so it's really important that we create space in our children's daily routine so they become aware that this internal dialogue this internal narrative is ongoing it happens all through the day it comes and goes it ebbs and flows so we can create that space and help our children so the first is about encouraging our children to problem solve not stepping in too quickly as their parents to solve their problems the second is about teaching our child self-care practice what do they need for them and helping them understand that it is unique to them and that their self-care practice may well look very different to their siblings and will look very different to yours or their friends the third is about creating space in their daily routine daily and if you are not familiar with self-care practice it's a very important part of self-care so if you are not entirely convinced go back to my episode which i can't remember off the top of my head around why children need to play the fourth one is promote a regular reflective practice and this is very much around being aware of their inner critic so whether it's becoming a reflective practice by encouraging your child to journal that might be one way but often there's quite a lot of resistance around doing that but what i'm talking about much more is a reflective practice of being aware of their internal dialogue that they have an internal dialogue and that internal dialogue narrates their day it is hugely impactful in terms of their ability to step out of their comfort zone and try new things and it impacts all aspects of the challenges that they're going to face so when we talk about mental immunity being their ability to cope emotionally and cognitively with setbacks promoting a reflective practice where they're aware of their internal chatter is absolutely feeding into equipping that cognitive aspect so that internal chatter so it's making our children aware that we do have an internal dialogue and one aspect of that internal dialogue is our inner critic our inner ogre the chatter that says we're not clever enough we're not popular enough we're not funny enough we're not sporty enough whatever it is enough that we are or that we can't do something because we're not particularly brave or something feels really scary and what if this is something that we can't do or that we can't do because we don't know how to do it what if we can't do it what if we can't do it what if we can't do it what if we can't do it we can't do it we can't do it particularly in those challenges that they face so that they're aware of that and that they're equally aware that there is another aspect to their internal chatter and that's the voice of their best friend the voice of their best friend the voice of that you know the sort of your you if need be but it's the voice that is much more pragmatic the voice of their cheerleader and it's not the cheerleader that is saying oh my goodness me you are so good at this you're so amazing you've totally got this you are so incredible you can do anything let's not get into this whole positive negative that absolutely isn't what this is it's the pragmatic side that says i know this is really scary but there are people here who can help you i know you feel that you can't do this but you know once you get started you generally find it easier it's that sort of your best friend it's that version of your best self it's that version that is the that kind of internal cheerleader that is able to look at a situation and understand and acknowledge how scary it feels but is able to take a much more pragmatic view so by promoting a regular reflective practice our children become connected to their internal chatter and aware that just because they think something doesn't make it true doesn't make it real they can look and examine and unpick and hold up to the light some of this internal critical chatter how how true is that how real is that where does it come from why do i believe that what is an alternative explanation for that and that's a huge huge part of helping our children and equipping them with that mental immunity so we have covered encouraging problem solving teaching our children to create their own self-care practice creating space in their daily routine promoting a regular reflective practice so they become aware of that internal chatter and the last one is about maintaining connections we're human beings we're social beings and we need to maintain connections now not all children are extroverts so let's just talk a little bit about extroverts and introverts and i know i've talked about this before but i just want to do this again we often think that an extrovert is a outgoing person who is super loud and in lots of ways we seem to kind of culturally maybe seem to hold up the extrovert as the ideal and then the introvert is this quiet quivering wreck absolutely not and please don't get sucked into the narrative that says that extroverts are the only confident people out there and introverts aren't it is nothing to do with that the distinction between an introvert and an extrovert is simply where they get their energy an extrovert is charged their energy is charged by the extrovert and the extrovert is charged by the extrovert is recharged and they get their energy from being around people and they become their energy is discharged when they're on their own an introvert gets their energy by time in isolation and being around people discharges their energy as people we are not clearly in one camp or another it is not that extreme even though we tend to culturally view it that way we're often mixtures of the two and introverts can be phenomenally sociable and and are quite often i have to say in my experience is quite often more confident we perceive an extrovert to be. But this idea about maintaining connection is about maintaining connection that is at the right level for your child. So it is really important that we don't have children isolating in rooms for extended periods of time. We've got teenagers, of course they want to move towards having some time on their own. That's a natural part of the transition of them pulling themselves away. And in lots of ways, nature is phenomenally clever in that at some point our children are going to leave home. And maybe part of this pulling and isolation is a way of our children getting to a point where they feel brave enough that they've had enough of us and they're desperate to move out. And that we reach a point where we're also desperate for them to go because we want them to have that independence. So I'm not saying that teenagers aren't going to want to spend time isolated, aren't want to go to have create their own space and time, but it's making sure that all of our children maintain connections, whether that's local or regional. Local friends, school friends, activities, but that they maintain those connections that are at the level that are appropriate for them. And I know this is really difficult. If you're a super, super social parents and you have a child that doesn't necessarily need that charging in the same way that you do, we can often sort of feel like, oh my goodness me, they're not getting out and they're not doing something. And I'm really worried. It's all about relative. If they are in their bedrooms a hundred percent of the time, then I'm obviously do not want to encourage that, but it is all relative to them. But it is make sure it's, it is ensuring if we're talking about mental immunity, if we're talking about having our children being equipped to cope emotionally and cognitively with setbacks and problems and challenges that they experience, we have to help them maintain those connections and those connections that are important to them. So let's just recap the five top tips. We've covered loads in this podcast episode. So you know, we've covered a couple of times, but the first is about encouraging problem solving. Let's not jump in to fix our children's problems, acknowledge how they feel, help them coach, don't preach. Number two, teach your child about self as regular self-care practice for them. And what does it look like for them? How do they drain their bucket? What do they need to do? And how can they make sure that that's a regular feature of their day and their week? Number three is coaching your child about self-care practice for them. How create space in their daily routine so that they have an opportunity to just be that they're just being isn't when they finally go to bed. Number four is create a reflective, a regular reflective practice. And this can be in the form of journaling, although it doesn't necessarily have to. The important aspect of this is their awareness of their internal chatter, particularly their inner critic. So they are able to flip that on its head. And then come up with some of the pragmatic alternatives or mantras, as I usually call them, that come from there, the voice of their cheerleader, the voice of their best selves. And number five is about making sure that they maintain connections, whether that's friendships, local or school or activities or with families, making sure that they do that. So my give this week will be these top five strategies in a checklist with space so that you're able just to reflect on which aspects you might feel that you need to work on with your child instantly. Which ones do you think that you're probably doing a reasonable job with? What's the one thing that when you look at those five, you think, actually, that's the one that we're doing the least. Maybe focus in on that one first. So the idea is that your checklist will serve as a reminder and it's also a practical tool to use. So as usual, head over to my free resource library, drmaryhand.com forward slash library, where you'll find the link to download the resource. All you need to do is pop in your email. And you'll get instant access, not only to this week's resource, but all the other free resources across all my other podcast episodes. I'm going to do another plea for reviews. If you have enjoyed this podcast episode, if you are enjoying listening to the podcast episodes, just generally, please, please consider leaving a review. Ratings are great and literally take a second. Reviews are more powerful in that what by leaving a review, you help other people. Find this podcast because what then happens is it gets recommended or shown to parents as a potential thing that they may like. And that happens as a result of the reviews. So I would really be ever so grateful if you would consider leaving a rating and a review. So if you've enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you could follow because that means you then automatically get the new episodes sent to you and review this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love. So. Until next time.
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