As a youth mental health speaker, I work with students every day. But I also know that the most important conversations happen at home. As a parent, you are the single most important person in your child’s support network.
Why Your Role is So Important?
Building strong relationships is a key foundation in mental health as it affects our social and emotional wellbeing. This is even more true in the child and teenage years, where the rapid changes and development that occur mean these factors are impacted more than in any other stage of life. Whilst our programs aim to equip young people with the skills to live mentally healthy and resilience lives we recognise this is something we cannot achieve without your help. As a parent your ability to love, understand and support your child can have a direct positive impact on their mental health and even reduce their likelihood of experiencing mental illness.
Less than half of all Australian children who need mental health support ever receive it, highlighting why a supportive home environment is so crucial.
WAYS Youth and Family
WAYS Youth and Family is a community based non-government organisation that has been providing educational and support services to young people and their families.
The WAYS website outlines a number of things you as a parent can do to promote positive mental health and wellbeing in your pre-teen and teenager:
- Show love, affection and care for your child
- Show interest in what’s happening in your child’s life
- Praise them when necessary
- Be mindful to consider their opinion and ideas when they speak, don’t shut them down.
- Encourage your child to talk about feelings with you
- Spend time together with your child, and also as a family and show that you enjoy it.
- Don’t let issues build up. Deal with problems as they arise
- Keep active. Physical fitness will help your child stay healthy, have more energy, feel confident, manage stress and sleep well
- Seek a professional
The Australian Parenting Website – raisingchildren.net.au
The Australian Parenting website raisingchildren.net.au covers a wide range of topics relating to parenting through providing free parenting videos, articles and apps backed by Australian experts and funded by the Australian Government. Their extensive range of resources address almost every question a parent may ask and provides effective strategies and solutions.
Their mental health section can be found here:
Parentline
Parentline is a telephone and online counselling and support service created by the Kids Helpline for parents and carers with children aged 0 to 18. You can call if you’re a parent, step parent, grandparent, guardian or carer.
The benefits of this service include:
- A qualified counselor outside the situation to listen and help guide you
- Recognising your needs as a parent (as well as your child’s)
- Developing strategies for making meaningful change
- Information and resources relating to children and parenting
- Access to individually paced over-the-phone parenting skills training
- Understanding your family dynamics more clearly
There is a different Parentline service in each State or Territory.
A full list of services and contacts can be found here:
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