Tag Archive for emotional health

The Parent’s Key

I like what Alison Gopnik said in The Gardner and The Carpenter:

“The key to love in practice is doing things together, participating in the world in a way that acknowledges the strengths and weaknesses of both of you.”

Her book, and this quote, are about becoming a parent as a form of love. One of the best ways, if not the best way, to nurture love with your children is to do things together, not just child-centered things but all things–shopping trips, yard work, baking, playing, riding bikes, whatever daily tasks you do you can do with your children. Involving your children in your daily tasks provides the key that opens up doors of opportunity.

Behind the first door of opportunity, door number one, lies the opportunity for time together. Time together translates into greater intimacy. More time together means more opportunity to interact, converse, and learn about one another. Your child experiences the opportunity to witness your character and your values in a variety of settings, a variety of places, and with a variety of people. You get to witness your child interact with a variety of settings, places, and people as well. You learn about one another’s priorities as well as one another’s limitations and weaknesses. You also learn ways of managing those limitations. All of this leads to a deeper knowledge between parent and child. It leads to deeper trust and deeper intimacy.

Behind door number two we find learning life skills. Children watch us, imitate us, and learn. They learn life skills like cooking, cleaning, money management, how to use a fork and knife, how to approach store clerks and strangers, and…. Actually, they’re learning about anything you expose them to while you’re together. In fact, our children learn almost everything by observing, imitating, and participating with us. Who needs flash cards to learn new vocabulary words when family dinners encourage a growing vocabulary and teach conversational skills? Why limit our children to the math on flashcards when learning to grocery shop on a budget or measure ingredients for a cake can teach so much math? Allowing your child to do things with you allows them the opportunity to observe, imitate, and participate, which are three ingredients that contribute to amazing learning for you and your child. 

Behind door number three you will discover social skills. Once again, children learn by observing you engage in social interactions and imitating those actions. Not only will they learn by interacting with you, but they will have the opportunity to interact with adults, and children, people they know and people they do not know, people on the job and people passing by as well. All this contributes to amazing opportunities for social skills practice.

In the midst of all this, door number four becomes apparent. Behind door number four your children will enjoy the opportunity to learn and practice emotional management skills. They will observe, imitate, and participate in tolerating boredom, expressing frustration and anger, managing disappointment and sorrow, and sharing joy and happiness.

Fortunately, unlike the game show Let’s Make a Deal, you don’t have to pick a door when you “love your children in practice by doing things together.” All four doors will open to you and your child, allowing you to enjoy the prize behind every door and more. Know why? Because you have the master key for all four doors—the key of doing things together.

A Simple, Brief Reminder

Anxiety and depression have increased dramatically in the U.S. over the last several years. Specifically, between 2005 to 2017, anxiety and depression have increased 63% among young adults. Several contributors have been identified implying that our society will likely need to address several areas over time to bring those numbers down. That being said, you can take a simple action today that will help reduce the number of young adults struggling with anxiety and depression. It’s true. We, the adults in this world, can play a huge role in reducing the number of young adults with anxiety and/or depression.

A Columbia University study (among others) revealed the simple action you can take to reduce anxiety and depression in young adults. All you need to do is develop a warm, nurturing relationship with the children in your life. Children who have at least one positive, committed adult-child relationship are less likely to develop depression or anxiety in their life. That is amazing, isn’t it? Even more amazing, if enough adults commit to having a positive relationship with the children in their lives, we could decrease the number of young adults struggling with anxiety or depression in one generation. Take a moment now and consider the impact. Then answer these two questions.

  • Who are the children in your life?
  • What could you do to nurture a positive relationship with them over the next week?

It’s a simple, brief reminder: the power of forming a positive, healthy relationship with children can have long term benefits for their life. Make the time to enjoy your relationship with the children in your life. While you do, bask in the knowledge that your relationship is a step toward making their life better and toward changing the world.

The Key to Emotional Health in Adolescence

Adolescence is a time of challenge and opportunity, a time of growth for parent and child. At times you and your child may feel like pulling your hair out during their adolescent years. And, at other times, you may feel like pulling one another’s hair out. But there is a key that can help nurture health for parent and child during the adolescent years. It’s a key that the parent holds but both parent and teen benefit from it. Psychologists call this key “authoritative parenting.” Several studies have shown authoritative parenting beneficial for raising children. Among other things, studies suggest it promotes a positive self-concept and better self-control in children as well as better relationships between parents and their children. Why? Because it sets health, age-appropriate limits AND it offers warm relationships.

What makes a warm relationship between parent and child? In a warm relationship, parents show delight in their children. They are responsive to their children. Not only do they respond to their children on a consistent basis, but their responses match the children’s needs of the moment. Parents listen, observing their children’s behavior as well as hearing the message behind their words, and respond in a way that communicates understanding and affection. Warm parent-child relationships also involve sharing time together enjoying positive interactions.

In addition to warm relationships, authoritative parenting also involves healthy, age-appropriate limits. Children are not allowed to do whatever they want when they want. Instead, parents establish and enforce limits for their children’s safety and health. These limits help assure predictability and security for their children. Ironically, children more easily explore their world and their interests from the safety of well-established and lovingly enforced limits. Exploration helps them learn and grow. So, in effect, lovingly enforced, age-appropriate limits nurture our children’s ability to learn and grow.

Together, warm parenting combined with healthy, age-appropriate limits make up authoritative parenting, the type of parenting that promotes a healthy adolescence for both parent and adolescent. Know what I like about this? You can learn to practice authoritative parenting. You can practice warmth in your relationship and learn to lovingly enforce healthy limits. Here’s a few basics.

  • Listen intently to your children’s verbal and nonverbal communications. Even their behaviors are communicating something for you to “hear.”
  • Remain responsive to your children’s communications and needs.
  • Establish healthy, age-appropriate limits and lovingly enforce those limits.
  • Show consistency in your responsiveness to your children and in the enforcement of limits.
  • As our children mature, allow the limits to change. Let them become increasingly “in charge” of their own decisions and consequences.
  • Enjoy your maturing adolescent and your relationship with them.

Encourage Your Child’s Anger

If you want your children to achieve challenging goals in their lives, you may have to encourage their anger. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean letting them blow up or “rage” around the house. I mean accepting their anger and then teaching them how to manage that anger as a motivating factor in their lives. After all, anger, like all emotions, plays an important role in our lives and the lives of our children.

  • First, anger reveals our priorities and values. It also alerts us to important situations that require action. We really only get angry over things we value. Situations and things that don’t matter to us don’t arouse our emotions either. We only get angry or happy or sad about those things we value, things important to us. So, when your children express anger, consider what priority and value that anger is communicating. Help them identify the priority or value their anger reveals. Is it a value of respect? Safety? Fairness? Does it reveal the hurt of not being included? Help your child discover and understand the value underlying their anger.
  • Second, anger energizes us to respond and align the situation with our values and priorities. This energy can help motivate our children to pursue a goal or align a situation with their values. In fact, at least one study found anger improved a person’s ability to reach a goal while a “neutral “emotion did not. Anger increased effort. But, we have to channel the energy and motivation of anger toward our priority in a healthy way. Unfortunately, children often use the energy of anger without considering the value or priority they want to communicate. They strike out in anger because they feel disrespected. Or they strike out in anger when they feel excluded. In doing so, they miscommunicate. Rather than communicating a priority of respect, they arouse further disrespect or fear. Rather than communicating a desire for inclusion, they push the other people away.
  • So, after you help your child identify the value underlying their anger, you can brainstorm actions they can take to effectively communicate their values or achieve the goals related to their values.

Practicing these three steps with your children will teach them to accept their anger, understand the value behind the anger, and utilize its energy to achieve their goals. In this way, anger becomes an ally, a motivator, even a teacher rather than a hindrance.

The Risk of Depression, Cut in Half

Depression in the United States is on the rise. Consider these statistics: depression for adults between 18-years-old and 29-years-old is up 13.9 percentage points (from 20.4% in 2017 to 34.3% in 2023). During the same time period, depression among those between 30-years-old and 44-years-old rose 12.6 percentage points (from 22.3% to 34.9%). The rate of depression in youth has also increased 24% between 2016 and 2019. Most recently, 11.5% of youth reported severe major depression in 2023. Depression has increased dramatically in our society. (For more on this see U.S. Depression Rates Reach New Highs (gallup.com) and The State of Pediatric Mental Health in America 2023 Report – Office Practicum.)

Fortunately, you can help cut the risk of depression in half for your family members by practicing a few habits in your home. Specifically, research suggests that practicing five or more of these seven habits can cut the risk of depression in half. Don’t limit yourself to five though. You can build all seven into your family lifestyle, protecting your family from depression. Here are the seven habits.

  • Develop healthy, age-appropriate sleep habits. Getting a good night’s rest reduces the risk of depression. It also reduces the risk of suicide. So, create a positive bedtime routine and encourage everyone to get their eight hours.
  • Exercise. Physical activity has been shown to be as effective as medication for many in managing and reducing depression. You can go for a walk, ride your bike, run, play a sport, swim… The options are countless. The goal is to get moving. Exercise and reduce your risk of depression.
  • Maintain a healthy diet. Eat those fruits and vegetables to fight depression. A healthy balanced diet helps to stabilize our mood and protects us from depression. Along those same lines…
  • Limit alcohol consumption. Alcohol is a depressant. It slows brain activity. People who drink more than the recommended amount of alcohol (more than two drinks a day for men or one drink a day for women) increase their risk of depression.
  • Stop smoking. Smoking increases the risk of depression. The more a person smokes, the higher the risk of depression. Smoking cessation decreases the risk of depression and the longer the duration of not smoking, the lower the risk of depression.
  • Get away from the screen. Put down the technology and get moving. Long periods of sedentary behavior represent an increased risk for depression. Instead of binge watching your favorite series, “go old school” and watch one episode a week. If you don’t want to “go totally old school,” watch one episode a day. The goal is to get up and get moving every day to avoid sedentary behavior. In addition, get off social media and socialize face-to-face more often…which leads to our last daily habit to decrease the risk of depression.
  • Cultivate friendships and social connections. Hobbies and activities with those who share your interests will create an excellent opportunity to build social connections. Engaging in hobbies and activities that we enjoy, especially with other people, boosts our mood. It increases our sense of well-being and increases our life satisfaction. It decreases depression.

Know what I like about these seven habits? They are good, healthy habits for everyone. They represent a lifestyle of wellness that will benefit all of us. Cutting the risk of depression does not demand we do something extraordinary. It simply means we live a healthy lifestyle and promote a healthy lifestyle in our families. Make it a point to do so this year.

Protect Your Child from the Dangers of Achievement

Every parent wants their children to succeed. But is that a wise desire? A healthy desire? Don’t get me wrong. Our children need a certain level of achievement so they can make a meaningful contribution to the world around them. But an overemphasis on achievement becomes toxic. In fact, the pressure for academic and career success has become toxic in our society. One survey found that 70% of 28- to- 30-year-olds believed their parents “valued and appreciated” them more if they succeeded in school. A full 50% believed their parents loved them more if they were successful. Those statistics reveal achievement gone awry, an achievement toxic to our children’s health.

In fact, a report from the experts at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have added “excessive pressure to excel” and “youth in high-achieving schools” to the list of “at-risk youth.” They rank the overemphasis of achievement in our society to be as detrimental to a child’s healthy emotional and mental health as poverty, trauma, discrimination, and parental incarceration. (Learn more in Why Achievement Culture Has Become So Toxic.)

Why has achievement become so toxic? Probably a number of factors contribute, including parents’ legitimate concern for their child’s future. Let’s face it, we (parents) fear for our children’s future economic and reputational future. Society tells us that our children’s future security is based on success in academics, extracurricular activities, and careers. But all the academic, sport, or career achievement does not necessarily bring success in adulthood. And it definitely does not result in happiness or well-being in life. In fact, an overemphasis on achievement increases stress, anxiety, and depression, placing our children in the “at-risk group” for emotional challenges.

What can a parent do to counteract society’s push for overachievement? First, make sure your children know they matter to you and others. As many as one third of adolescents in the U.S. believe (dare I say, “fear”) they do not matter to the people in their communities. They don’t feel heard, celebrated, or delighted in. They fear no one cares enough about them to check in on them when they are sick or simply missing from an activity. Make sure your children know they matter. Check in on them. Learn about their friends, their interests, their fears, their struggles. Celebrate their progress. Acknowledge and celebrate their efforts. Remain actively engaged in their lives.

Second, provide opportunities for them to engage in activities that add meaning to other people’s lives. Such activities can be as simple as mowing the lawn for a shut-in or doing a significant task to maintain the household. Or it may be as complex as volunteering at a homeless shelter, sharing a mission, or becoming active in a social cause. Such activities help our children find their sense of purpose. They help our children discover that they add meaning to other people’s lives through service and seeking the greater good of others.

Third, support their hobbies. Research has discovered that those who engaged in a hobby of interest to them experienced a boost in well-being and a drop in stress and anxiety. Of course, a child’s hobby may also tie in with their purpose. At times, it may even overlap with an “activity that adds meaning to other people’s lives.” Either way, pursuing a hobby boosted well-being and decreased stress and anxiety.

In the long run, what do you really desire for your children? A wall of plaques noting their achievements…or happiness, healthy relationships, and a sense of well-being? Don’t let a goal of achievement become toxic and poison your children, robbing them of happiness, well-being, and healthy relationships. Instead, help them build a life in which they know they matter.

Are You There For Me?

Our families are filled with people—spouses, children, us—who crave connection. But you already know that. You have experienced that craving in yourself and seen it in others, I’m sure. In fact, the #1 goal of arguments is connection. We desire emotional connection with one another. Emotional connection makes us secure. It communicates our acceptance. And fortunately, we can nurture emotional connection with our family. It is nurtured by everyday interactions. Each time we respond to our spouse, our children, or our parents, we build trust and emotional connection. We communicate acceptance. We let them know that “we are there for them.” Ironically, even benign statements open the door to building emotional connection, if and when we respond. For instance:

  • “It’s a beautiful day today” becomes more than a comment about the day. It’s an invitation to engage, a request to “join me in paying attention to something I find interesting.”
  • Your response to “Can you grab me a drink while you’re up?” becomes the answer to the silent question of “Will you listen and respond to my simple requests? Will you help me?”
  • “How do you like this recipe? It’s the first time I tried it” is an invitation to show interest or excitement in “my experimentation and my accomplishments, my life.”
  • “Did you have a good day?” seeks more than a simple “yes/no” response. It’s a request for you to take the time to share your day. Your response answers the silent question, “Will you take the time to share your life with me?”
  • “I’m exhausted” becomes an invitation to “help me destress and relax.”
  • “Remind me when we get home to tell you what happened” is an invitation to have a private conversation and hear something about my day.

These statements often sound like simple conversation starters, but they are much more. They are open doors inviting you into greater emotional connection. Take the time to respond, walk through the door, and connect emotionally with your family. Each time you do, you answer an important, albeit silent, question everyone asks within their relationships, a question asked indirectly through subtle statements like those above: “Are you there for me?” Answer wisely. Be present. Respond. Connect.

Don’t Phub Your Children

Many parents worry about the impact of screen time on our children’s mental health. (For one example see Just So You Know.) However, you may also need to think about the impact of your screen time on your children’s mental health. In fact, a study completed by Robin Nabi (UC Santa Barbara) surveyed 40 parents of children between 5-years-old and 12-years-old.  The surveys asked about and gathered a variety of information including:

  • Their children’s level of emotional awareness and control
  • Their children’s level of concern for others.
  • Their children’s use of television, computers, game consoles, tablets, and smartphones.
  • How often their children engaged in activities like reading, listening to music, outdoor play, and indoor play.
  • How much time the parents spend on digital devices in the presence of their children.
  • How often the parent-initiated conversation with their children while engaged in various types of media activities.
  • How often the parents-initiated conversation with their children while engaged in various types of nonmedia activities.

Ironically, the ONLY thing associated with lower child emotional intelligence was parental use of cell phones in the presence of their children.

Children thrive on parental responsiveness. They grow through parental responsiveness. When a parent is focused on their cellphone, they become less responsive to their children. In fact, “parental phone use is associated with ‘still face,’ an expressionless appearance” that creates great emotional chaos in children. If you have not seen the “still face experiment,” take a moment to watch it in this short clip. You will see how it throws a child into a state of insecurity and results in them experiencing emotional chaos.

Your older children may not react in the same way as the infant in the video. However, a lack of responsiveness toward your older child or teen communicates a lack of value, raises a fear of insecurity, creates distance between you and them, and hinders your effectiveness as a parent. It will also stunt the development of emotional intelligence in their lives. All that being said, when your child approaches you put down the cellphone. Look them in the eye. Listen carefully. Converse with them. Connect with them. Your child will grow more emotionally intelligent and more confident in their self-worth. And your relationship with your child will grow more intimate. Don’t phub your child. Put down the cellphone and fully respond to your child instead.

What If We Treated Life Like We Treat Sleep?

I was reading Why Sleep Matters for Kids’ Bodies and Brains. The author noted that “kids don’t sleep enough.” She quoted Rafael Pelayo, a sleep expert, as saying, “Whenever I tell people that my work is on sleep, people say things, like, ‘I love to sleep.’ That’s an odd thing to say, because it’s like saying you’re fond of oxygen.” Sleep is as important as oxygen. We need it to survive. Yet we tend to think of it as an enjoyable thing we don’t get enough of. Fact is: sleep-deprivation is associated with a host of physical and mental ailments. We need sleep to live healthy, happy lives.  

A little later in the article, the sleep expert compared people’s thoughts about their need for sleep with their thoughts about food. He said, “You don’t say to your kids, ‘Eat whatever you want on Saturday or Sunday, because I’m going to starve you Monday to Friday. Yet that’s the way we treat sleep.” What? He’s right. We let our children stay up late and force them to get up early Monday through Friday, limiting their sleep time and then allowing them to sleep all day Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately, “it doesn’t work that way.” We don’t catch up on our sleep. We’ve starved their need for sleep during the week and gorged on the weekend. Not a healthy diet of sleep.

He also noted that we dream in the last quarter of the night. So when we awaken children early, we interfere with the dream cycle of their sleep. We are “dream-depriving them.” He then goes on to say, “It’s a platitude we say to teenagers all of the time: we want you to follow your dreams. But we cut off the ability to dream with the schedules we impose on them.”

Those statements “got me wondering.” How else do we treat sleep in ways wildly contradictory to the rest of life. Consider these examples:

  • We need to model good sleep habits for our children, but we often don’t make great sleep role models. We live in a world that does not value sleep.  I’ve even heard people pridefully talk about how little sleep they got last night to highlight their dedication to the current activity or the busyness of their work. Such statements do not model good sleep habits. Such actions and statements basically tell our children to “Do as I say, not as I do.” Who would smoke a cigarette and tell their child to “Do as I say, not as I do” and expect they won’t try smoking?
  • Sometimes we reward our children with the “privilege” of staying up late. If they finish their homework, help clean the kitchen, or behave appropriately all day, they can stay up late and skip some of their needed time of sleep. That’s like telling our children, “Do a good job and you can engage in this unhealthy practice of sleep-deprivation.” It would be like sitting at the dinner table and saying, “If you eat all your donuts, you don’t have to eat your vegetables.”
  • Times get busy and sleep gets put on the back burner. But remember, sleep is essential for our mental, emotional, and physical health. Without sleep, we struggle. Yet, we put it on a back burner compared to other things in our lives—work, school, athletics, music, socialization, TV, gaming, social media. What if we did the same when it came to using the bathroom? “Don’t take time to go to the bathroom, just do your work.” “Don’t quit gaming when you ‘need to go.’ Hold it. You’ll be fine.” The outcome would be less than desirable. When we put sleep on a back burner to our other interests, the outcome is just as undesirable. It’s a disaster.  

I know those statements sound silly when applied to parts of life other than sleep. But they should sound just as silly when applied to sleep. Sleep is crucial to our health. Make it a priority in your family. You, your spouse, and your children will be glad you did.

Feeling Stressed? Try Gratitude

Many people minimize the power of gratitude. “Just be thankful.” Sounds too simplistic, right? Besides, encouraging an “attitude of gratitude” has become a platitude, just another cliché to say when things are tough. Still, gratitude is powerful. It’s not a cure-all, but it can help. In fact, gratitude may be what you need to reduce the stress in your marriage and family.

A study carried out at the Irish University of Maynooth suggests that gratitude will help you and your family react with less stress AND recover more quickly from stress. Specifically, gratitude predicted lower systolic blood pressure in response to a stress arousing experience in this study. A lower systolic blood pressure contributes to a lower risk of stroke or heart attack. In other words, if you want a family that manages stress more effectively and recovers more quickly from stressful events, make gratitude a daily practice in your family. If you’re not sure how to make gratitude a daily practice, here are three ideas to get you started.

  • Start a gratitude photo album on your phone.  Every day, take a picture of something for which you are grateful. In fact, take two or three photos a day of things for which you are grateful. Store them on your phone in an album entitled “Grateful.” When you’re feeling blue or stressed, flip through the photos. While you’re at it, randomly share a photo of gratitude with your family.  Share your gratitude pics anytime you feel the urge. They will be your “random expressions of gratitude.”
  • Engage in intentional expressions of gratitude as well. Intentionally watch for opportunities to express gratitude to your spouse, your children, and your parents. Obviously, you can thank them for the extraordinary things they do. However, make it a point to thank them for the mundane as well—like doing the laundry, cleaning their room, playing quietly, watching a movie with you, doing their chores. Don’t stop with your family. Thank the clerk at the checkout counter, your postal worker, the guy who holds the door for you, your waiter…. You get the idea. Offer thanks every chance you get. Not only will you enjoy the benefits of gratitude, you’ll be modeling a lifestyle of gratitude for your children as well.
  • End the day with gratitude. Each evening take time to review your day and write down three things for which you are grateful. Push yourself to think of something different every day. It will be easy at first, but you’ll soon find yourself thinking more deeply to identify things for which you are grateful. You’ll begin to see a whole new world of gratitude open up as you dig deep to find those things for which you can give thanks.

As you and your family develop the practice of giving thanks, you’ll discover that family stress decreases. You’ll also learn that when stress does arise, you manage it better and recover more quickly. And that is something to be thankful for.

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