One of the hardest things about having a handful of mental illness diagnoses is being a mom. You don’t get days off, you have tiny people relying on you no matter how you feel. So learning how to manage your mental illness and being a mom is tough, but how do you talk to your kids about it?
You set your kids up for breaking the stigma around mental illness and to be more empathetic towards others when you teach them about what is going on with mommy or daddy. So here are my top 5 tips to doing so:
1. Age Appropriate: Make the talks appropriate for the age. When Lilly was young, I simply explained it as “mommy’s brain doesn’t work right”. So if I was having a rough day, one where I maybe couldn’t control my crying 100%, I’d tell her “mommy’s brain isn’t working right today” and she knew she didn’t need to worry if mommy was crying. Now that Lilly is older, I tell her “I’m having a bad brain day” and she is the sweetest kid ever. She’s open to talks of mental illness, she ask questions and she’s at an age I can fairly well explain to her what I have going on.
2. Communicate When You Are Struggling: Like I stated this is big! Lilly is on here best behavior and helps when I need a hand around the house on the days I’m struggling. My kid also knows it’s okay to have rough days herself and feels comfortable communicating that to me. Kids need mental health days too and I’m lucky enough to have a kid who can communicate that to me.
3. Give Them a Safe Space to Communicate to You: While it’s important to explain to them when you are struggling, it’s important for them to have a safe place to explain how they are feeling and how your struggles are affecting them. Don’t guilt them for saying anything about their feelings, their feelings are valid like yours are. If you hurt their feelings they have a right to tell you.
4. Teach Them More As They Grow: While making things age appropriate, teach them more about mental health as they grow older. Teaching them about your mental struggles will also teach them about their own mental health. They’ll grow into young people that can identify when they need to have a mental health day, ones that don’t feel ashamed if they need to ask for help, and people that will have empathy for those around them.
5. Stop Pretending Everything is Perfect: Is a world where we live on social media and everyone is pretending to be perfect, it’s important to at the very least not continue to pretend everything is perfect in your own home. I’ve seen a family situation firsthand, where the mother becomes psychotic if everything isn’t perfect. Her daughter shouldn’t have a mental illness, she tried to micromanage her adult children’s life, and she went as far as to try to control her ex-husband. LIFE ISN’T PERFECT SO STOP TRYING TO PRETEND YOURS IS. It creates an unhealthy environment where children don’t feel safe to come forward with struggles they may be having.
It's okay not to be okay and it’s okay for your kids to know mommy or daddy isn’t always okay. Parents are human too.
Thanks for reading!
M
Comments