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Discover how children's mental and physical health are deeply connected. Learn how to break the stigma, raise awareness, and support your child's well-being.
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Do you know that the mental and physical health of children are interconnected?
Both of them are interconnected and contribute to the overall wellbeing and development of the child. It’s the good mental health that prepares a child to think, behave, feel and shape his ability to handle the stress, relationships and overcome the challenges of life.
However, in our societies, children’s mental health is often overlooked. There has been a stigma around children’s mental health that there are no mental health issues in children and mostly, they develop due to lack of discipline or bad parenting. The worst part is that people look at such issues as signs of weakness or some kind of fault in the child’s character. Such thoughts and misconceptions contribute further to the stigmatization of children with such issues.
So, what is the solution?
Breaking the stigma around children’ mental health and raising awareness. In this article, we will give you the complete guide to your child's mental health but before that let’s understand what is childhood mental health stigma?
When people develop certain kinds of negative beliefs, false attitudes and stereotype behavior towards children facing mental health challenges, it is referred to as the childhood mental health stigma. It’s the social discrimination that forces parents and children to not talk freely and seek support about the issues, bringing a profound impact on children’s lives.
However, like adults, their Children also face mental health problems. Some situations increase their anxiety, sometimes, they feel too aggressive and some children feel depressed due to several reasons. There are many other such mental health issues but, unfortunately, parents and caregivers often overlook or misunderstand them. Most parents think that it is just a phase or believe that they will get better with time. The reasons for this are multifaceted; fear of judgment, discrimination or lack of public acceptance. Whatever is the reason, parents often fail to seek medical intervention during early stages. As a result, these issues bring long term negative effects on children’s health, happiness and overall well being.
In our communities, there is a lack of understanding and awareness about the prevalence and impact of mental health problems in children. As a result, people have judgemental attitudes and show reluctance to seek or offer help to the affected children, parents and families.
Raising awareness in the society about children’s mental health is very important. However, before that it is even more important that parents must understand the warning signs of their child’s deteriorating mental health. Here are some warning signs allowing you to do child mental health evaluation:
In the step towards child mental health development, the first one is breaking the stigma. For this, we will have to normalize the discussions and conversations about mental health in schools, home and public places. Here are some steps that we can take to do this:
To address chidlrens’ mental health and break the stigma around it, education can play a crucial role. Through education, we can give accurate information regarding childrens’ mental health problems and signs to identify children struggling with such problems to educate parents, teachers and caregivers. Schools should have mental health programs so that families can access such professionals.
Further, we need to raise awareness in the community by conducting seminars, workshops, or public gatherings and invite mental health professionals who discuss ways to manage your child’s mental health. We need to engage parents, caregivers and community members in such gatherings to create a supportive environment for children. When adults know what to look for, they can intervene early and give needed support on time. Conducting different programs during Children’s Mental Health Week (3rd Feb to 9th Feb 2025) is also a great and effective idea to communicate right information about childrens’ mental health.
As we talk normally about our fever, cough, stomach-ache or headache, we need to create an environment where children and parents can discuss such issues without any shame or discomfort. Children must express their feelings and emotions without any hesitation.
Providing right resources like therapy sessions and counseling by mental health professionals can give an opportunity to children and students to freely discuss their issues. Appointment of mental health speakers for school is important so that every child and student could learn about such issues and seek help before they escalate to more severe issues.
To further raise awareness, our health policies can help. There should be a clear mandate in the children's mental health policies that the authorities must provide better health support systems to children. Also, Policies should be designed in such a way that they prefer inclusivity and foster a positive and respectful language while mentioning about mental health challenges in children.
This is the greatest support that a child with mental health problems can have. Parents should create that comfort zone in homes where children don’t hesitate while talking about their emotions. Parents, themselves, should discuss their issues with children so that children feel that it’s okay to discuss your problems and issues with your family.
Bringing media into the field is also a very effective way to shape public opinion about children’s mental health. The media should portray that mental health problems in children are in-real and should be handled sensitively. Broadcasting or printing positive stories mentioning childrens’ recovery from such issues and maintaining resilience and discussions challenging stereotypes and other efforts contribute in reducing stigma around it.
Everyone should understand that children's mental health issues are serious, and it should not be ignored. A distorted mental health brings a negative impact on the physical and emotional health of a child. He fails to express himself properly, remains unconfident and does not grow properly. As we are witnessing a high rise in such cases these days, it's time that we act on it. Let's come together to break this stigma around it and make children's mental health problems a normal thing.
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