Latest / Celeste The Therapist / Episode 485 Navigating Children's Mental Health: Practical Tips for Parents

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Episode 485 Navigating Children's Mental Health: Practical Tips for Parents · Celeste The Therapist

0:32
Hi, hi, beautiful people. So if you are watching me on
0:35
the replay, thank you for watching me. I appreciate
0:40
you. Let me just put
0:44
the headline there. We are We're
0:49
talking about children and their mental health,
0:53
but taking
0:57
care. I'm just going to add it to the banner really
1:01
quick. Kids and
1:08
their mental health. Oh,
1:12
good. I'm looking forward to this. OK, let me see. All
1:16
right, so my name is Celeste. I'm a therapist from Boston. And
1:21
I come on Wednesdays 12 p.m. Eastern Standard Time to
1:25
discuss different mental health topics that people struggle
1:29
with and kind of help people work
1:33
through ways to deal with it. And I am a
1:36
very practical, I'm
1:39
a very practical person when it comes
1:43
to talking about ways to deal with things because I recognize how
1:47
challenging it is, how difficult resources are. So I
1:50
really try to make things as accessible and
1:53
easy for people to digest. So if you are
1:57
new to my platform, I have a ton of episodes. If
2:01
you go to Celestetherapist.com, you can find the links for that. Some
2:05
people are watching me on YouTube, but if you're not on YouTube, I'm
2:09
also on YouTube. A ton of episodes on
2:12
there as well. So today we are talking about kids
2:16
and their mental health. This is a subject I'm really passionate about.
2:20
I work with adults only, but I
2:24
have kids and people have kids. I
2:29
understand the challenges that comes with raising
2:33
kids, especially in 2024, post-pandemic,
2:37
especially with technology. My
2:41
daughter says that I was one of the 1900s. It sounds
2:44
like wild when you say it like that, but it's true. Where
2:49
a lot of the things that the kids have access to, I never had access to. And
2:54
so the kids now, they have access to different things. The pressures
2:57
that they're under looks different than the pressures that I had,
3:01
different kind of pressures. And I think sometimes it's easy
3:05
to look at their situation as
3:08
a parent and think, oh, I don't understand. It's
3:11
not that bad. Or what are they complaining about, et cetera, et cetera. There are so
3:14
many different ways that we find ourselves
3:20
minimizing some of the things that they're dealing with, which isn't
3:23
fair. I'm hoping that the session today can help
3:27
you really think about the way that you are
3:30
dealing with your child, their mental health needs and
3:33
things like that. So let's just start with some common mental health
3:37
challenges that our children are facing. And
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if you have a child and you
3:45
haven't really thought about this, please do because it's important. So
3:49
some of the common ones are anxiety. That's a huge ones where
3:53
they're feeling anxious about going back to school and navigating classrooms
3:58
and bullying. And when it comes to bullying and navigating
4:01
these things, I also want to point out because when I went
4:05
to school, I dealt with things in my neighborhood or in the school. Now
4:09
there is social media. Now there's so many other
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ways that kids are being bullied. you
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know, it's easy to say, like, don't worry about it. But the
4:21
emotions that these kids are dealing with, even though I don't work with kids in my
4:24
practice, I worked in the ER for a long time in
4:27
the emergency room for a while. And I've met
4:31
with these parents, I met with these kids. And I
4:34
see the things that are happening and the
4:38
pressures that these kids are feeling that they don't
4:41
even have language for. So anxiety is a huge one.
4:44
Depression, is another one that kids are dealing
4:47
with. Stress, so going back to
4:51
school and trying to get more organized with
4:55
the assignments, especially if they're going from elementary to middle school,
4:59
middle school to high school. Just the fear of
5:02
school is scary for people. When the
5:06
pandemic happened, a lot of children whose kind
5:10
of development socially was hindered
5:14
because they were at home. And
5:17
especially if they didn't have any siblings, if they had siblings that was close in
5:20
age to them, it might've been a little bit more different, but if
5:23
they didn't have any siblings, a lot of times some
5:27
of the crucial points of their life when it comes to
5:30
development was disrupted because they spent a lot of
5:33
time alone. I do want you to keep that in mind because, you
5:37
know, it seems like it's the pandemic's been far removed, but
5:40
the effects of it you can see clearly from a psychological standpoint,
5:44
not just with kids, I see it with adults as well. Mood
5:48
changes, so students may experience a range of emotions including worrying,
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sadness, irritability, and fear. Loss of friends and
5:55
family, Death is a huge one. Kids,
6:00
they lose grandparents, they lose friends, they lose people. And
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when children lose people in their lives, sometimes as
6:08
adults, we just want to take their pain away. We don't want them to
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think about it. And, you know, when it comes to
6:14
death and losing people as a part of life, but
6:18
also we really have to be mindful to include children into
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the conversation on what they're feeling and how they're
6:24
feeling. And even if it's a person that was close to you as well, like
6:28
being okay with talking about the loss as
6:31
well. We're afraid to talk to our kids about hard
6:35
things because we think it'll make it worse, but I
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promise you it'll actually make it better because they start to
6:41
see you as human and they start to recognize that they're not alone
6:44
and they have a safe space to talk to their parent about
6:48
these things. And then sleep disorders. Sleep
6:52
disorders can be caused by medical issues, psychiatric issues, environmental
6:56
problems. When we're worried, just because we lay
6:59
down and go to sleep doesn't mean that we're going to sleep, right?
7:03
Our mind is still going. And so if your child
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is having a lot of sleep problems, that's something to
7:09
pay attention to and to communicate with them. And you
7:13
can even develop like a nice sleep routine with
7:16
them. I'll talk about that in a second. So strategies
7:20
for supporting your children. This
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is important. So creating a safe space, right?
7:28
Make your home a safe space for your child by having frequent conversations with
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them, that the frequent conversations is
7:36
important. Kids, if you don't have a
7:40
relationship with your child where you're talking regularly, it'd
7:44
be hard for them to talk to you when things are going wrong. You may notice some
7:47
signs, but it'd be really hard. So having frequent conversations is
7:52
so important. Establishing routines. So
7:55
having consistent routines for things like bedtime, mealtimes, and
7:59
family activities can allow for your child
8:03
to really feel safe and secure. The bedtime routine
8:07
is something that since, you know, they got to go to bed at some point, especially with
8:11
school starting, trying to develop some kind of system to
8:14
check in, whether it's if you're driving them to school or if
8:17
you're getting them ready in the morning. It doesn't have to be long or deep.
8:21
It can just be something that's simple, where
8:25
it's like, what are you looking forward to today? I do
8:29
my routine at night with my children, and I literally, we
8:33
ask four questions. How are you feeling? What
8:36
are you grateful for? What are you going to do to
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prepare for tomorrow? and what went
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well today. And you can create your
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own questions. Part of the dialogue needs to be, how are you feeling? Because
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you really want them to have a cadence on understanding what
8:53
they're feeling. But also, the gratitude piece allows them
8:57
to really look at what they're grateful for, what went well today. And then
9:00
preparing for tomorrow is something that can
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be, oh, my camera just unplugged. Hold
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on. Start cam. Preparing
9:13
them for tomorrow is something that can be important because
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it's going to help them build a sim for
9:22
themselves as they become adults, right? As they're getting older,
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like we turn 18 and it's like we get thrown out to the world. But
9:29
imagine if we had the tools to prep us for preparing for
9:33
the next day or finding gratitude in the day. Those things,
9:36
they actually do matter. So establishing routines
9:39
with your children can help. Encouraging physical activity
9:43
is important. You know, it's something, I didn't grow up with screens
9:47
and so you were outside. So a lot of
9:50
times I think that, you know, older
9:54
people that were forced to be outside, you know, you couldn't come back in. And
9:58
if you came back and you had to stay in, so you stayed outside. We were getting a
10:01
lot of good, our needs met through that physical activity
10:05
without realizing it. And so even if it's like going for
10:08
a walk together, going to the track, Just be mindful
10:12
that you are trying to encourage your kids to move their body a
10:15
little bit more, because if you're moving your body, it's hard
10:18
to get stuck with the anxiety. I'm a big, big,
10:22
big, big person that talks about movement because there's
10:25
so many healing factors to it. It's free. If
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you're able-bodied and you can move your body, really trying to create
10:33
a routine to move your body can be so important. Limiting
10:37
screen time is important. I know this is challenging for
10:40
so many parents to do. But there
10:44
are so many negative effects. Being on the screen all
10:47
day, all night can really mess up
10:50
a child's mental health if they're constantly on
10:54
there scrolling. So trying to create some kind of
10:57
routine with them around not
11:00
using their phone and replacing it with something else can
11:05
be so important. I know trying to get to this position
11:08
can be challenging, but on the other side of
11:11
that challenge is a reward because you're teaching them
11:15
new habits. giving them opportunities to
11:18
try new things. That's important. Um, teaching them to give back,
11:22
um, showing your child the benefits of sharing your time and
11:26
showing kindness is important. Talking about feelings. So
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if you lose your temper, talk about what happened, why you were angry that happens.
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You're human. I'm human. We're adults and we're
11:36
human and we need our children to know that we're human. So sometimes
11:40
you may lose your temper, Sometimes you've called them five times
11:43
and the sixth time you're screaming and then you
11:47
feel guilty for the scream. You feel bad for it. So really
11:51
kind of sitting down and saying, you know what? I didn't mean to talk
11:54
that way to you. Right. But the reality is, is that I
11:58
needed you to do something. So not excusing the behavior of them, not
12:02
listening to you, but also recognizing when you found yourself
12:05
getting, um, impulsively, like emotional about
12:09
something, and letting them know that it happens, but just
12:12
talking to them about it can be so powerful and important. And
12:18
then the last one is prioritizing family time. You
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know, not just kids are on their phone a lot. Adults, we're on our
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phones a lot too. And it's so important for us
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to create intentional time with our kids where we're not distracted.
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Kids know when we're distracted. They do. They
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know when we're not paying attention. And so really
12:40
trying to be intentional about the time. that you're creating with
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your child is important because you're showing them that you care.
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Not saying that you don't care because you're on your phone or you haven't
12:51
spoken to them as much, but remember as
12:54
children we believe everything is about us. We look at everything that's
12:57
happening and we start to create this narrative. And
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so if you're always working or you're always on your phone or you're always
13:04
busy, and you haven't created intentional time for
13:08
them, even though you may care about them, your actions are
13:11
showing them that you don't. So really being mindful. And
13:15
it's not saying you have to spend a whole day or spend a half a
13:18
day, but even 15, 20 minutes out your day before
13:21
bed in the morning, just kind of doing a check-in so
13:25
that they know that you care is important. Now,
13:29
encouraging open communication, right?
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That's important. And I know sometimes people struggle with, like, how do I,
13:36
like, talk to my kids or ask these open-ended
13:40
questions? Because that's going
13:43
to change the dynamic on the way the conversation is going to
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go. I just want to give you some examples of open-ended questions.
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Um, so what's bothering you asking your child, if there's anything that makes
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them feel stressed or unhappy, how are you feeling extra
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child, how their body is feeling and if they have any sleeping
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problems, um, because they may not realize that they're
14:04
stressed or what they feel. But when you ask
14:08
them that question, it can open up their mind to thinking about
14:11
it. Like, you know what? I haven't been sleeping well, literally the
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stuff that I'm talking about. to do with your kids is what I
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talk to my adult clients about, right? Paying
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attention to what your body's telling you, because your body is giving you
14:24
signs. If you're struggling with sleep, paying attention to that, because
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guess what? You're probably stressed or overwhelmed about something. What's
14:33
your favorite way to relax? So asking your child what they can do to
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de-stress or feel better when they're sad or worried. Sometimes they
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may not even realize it, like, because some kids like gym. They
14:43
like moving their body. They love puzzles.
14:47
Like, there are different things that kids like to do, but
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they don't realize, you know what? When I'm feeling stressed, I can actually tap into this
14:54
or tap into that. You kind of asking them that opens
14:57
up their mind to start thinking about it, right? That's
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important. What's the biggest problem you're
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facing? So ask your child what they're currently struggling
15:08
with. That's important. What's the best thing that's happened to
15:11
you this week? It allows them to, you
15:15
know, tap into the goodness that is happening. What do you
15:18
need right now? And how can we connect regularly?
15:22
So asking your child, like, what can we do to check in on a
15:25
more regular basis? So those are some examples on
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how you can ask your child open-ended questions so
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you can start to work on developing a healthy communicative
15:37
relationship with your kids. So
15:41
modeling healthy communication. Children
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learn from their parents, even when they're older, talk about your
15:49
day or share something that's on your mind. I know
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for some generations, like I grew up, you know,
15:55
my mom did not talk about what she was feeling, where her day went, went
15:59
like, I didn't know none of that stuff. And I realized like
16:02
growing up for some of us that wasn't modeled. And
16:06
so it kind of feels weird to talk about some of these things that
16:10
you go through. And I understand it feels weird, but I do want
16:13
you to challenge yourself and try to work on
16:17
being okay with being a little bit uncomfortable about it because
16:20
it allows your child to see you as human. And it also
16:24
allows them to start to be okay with realizing they're
16:27
not alone and sharing some of the things that they are dealing with. Can
16:32
you use this on teens? Yes. I use
16:36
it with my adult clients. The things that I am
16:39
talking about with the kids, I do it with my kids and I also do
16:43
it with my clients. So I do want people
16:46
to know you can use this on all all generation of
16:49
kids. Don't feel like it's too late to start. And
16:53
don't be discouraged. As you're starting, especially if you're starting
16:56
with teens, don't be discouraged by their lack
17:01
of enthusiasm. You're not going to get
17:04
it right around this stuff. I have two
17:08
children, they're two different, they're completely two, two
17:11
different kids. Um, and my son does not show any enthusiasm,
17:15
but he does it. He will check in about his feelings with me and
17:18
things like that. But there's no kind of like, Oh my God,
17:21
this is amazing. And that's okay. Because guess what? You're building resilience
17:25
for them. You're allowing them. to learn how to
17:29
develop good habits so when life happens, because
17:32
let's face it, life happens, they're going to have the tools to
17:36
deal with it. If we had social emotional learning in school growing
17:40
up, Imagine how many choices we would have
17:43
done differently if we understood like, oh, I'm feeling this.
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Because what we're feeling, unfortunately, we tend to base
17:51
our behavior off of it. So some of the impulsive things that are
17:55
happening is because of how you're feeling. But if you
17:58
were able to grab a motion chart, grab
18:01
this chart right here, and be like, oh, I'm feeling Bored
18:06
today, right if I said like I'm feeling bored and what
18:10
am I gonna do about it as opposed to like feeling bored and
18:13
then doing something that is gonna puts you in
18:16
a situation that you're going to be in the hole for
18:19
something, right? So really being mindful of your emotion and
18:23
what you're feeling, because then you can challenge that feeling. You
18:26
can do something else differently than what you've already done. I
18:31
have a child that just started college. Okay. Even a college
18:34
kid, no matter how, if they're still breathing, take opportunity
18:38
to make time to be intentional. Again, it's going
18:42
to feel weird. It's new, right? I was addicted
18:47
to Whoppers and Burger Kings. And when I decided I wanted to
18:50
eat healthy, I promise you that stuff tasted nasty. I
18:53
had to adjust my taste buds to a different type of
18:57
food choice. And eventually, I love vegetables and
19:01
those kinds of things. So It's okay that as
19:05
you're starting this process, it may feel weird, but continue to
19:08
be intentional about the process so that you can try to work on
19:12
building healthy communication patterns with
19:16
your children and even if they're adult, with your adult
19:20
children. Be an active listener. That's
19:24
important. Put your phones down. If you're working, really
19:27
create intentional time with your children as
19:31
they're talking because they can tell when you're not listening to
19:34
them and making that communication regular. Being
19:38
patient and neutral, please check your judgments at the
19:41
door. There are a lot of
19:45
ways that we don't understand this generation. I'm
19:48
going to raise my hand. There's a lot of ways I don't understand it,
19:51
but I also know I wasn't born in this generation. I
19:54
wasn't born in this time. And so I have to be mindful
19:58
on the things that they may be struggling with where I'm not
20:02
minimizing it. You don't want to minimize the things that they're talking
20:05
about just because you don't understand or just because you didn't
20:08
live in that era. And unfortunately, that's what's happening, especially thinking
20:12
about Like, oh, all the problems we have, and you're talking
20:16
about something that happened at school against,
20:20
you know, another person. You're talking about something where, as
20:23
a parent, I think parents start to think about all the things that they're dealing with,
20:27
and so they tend to minimize some of the things that their child is
20:31
talking about that they're struggling with. please be mindful of
20:34
not doing that. And even if you don't understand, let's say they're talking
20:37
about something on social media, something that you just don't understand, you
20:41
can still listen and you can be honest and be like, you know what? I
20:45
never went through that. I don't understand, but I can see
20:48
that it's affecting you, right? Like, what are you feeling? How does that make you
20:51
feel? Go towards that, the emotion behind it,
20:54
the situation that you may not understand or don't, don't
20:58
get why this is happening or why that's happening because it doesn't make
21:01
sense to you. That is okay. Acknowledge it doesn't make
21:05
sense, but get back to the fact that like your
21:08
child is feeling something about it. And so please be
21:12
mindful not to judge them as they're talking about the
21:15
things with you. know their space, get to
21:18
know your child's comfortable space. My son
21:22
reads anime. I don't know anything about anime. And
21:27
he's so quiet. And so for me, I said,
21:31
well, how do you read it? What platform? And I downloaded the app
21:35
that he uses to read it. And I've been reading some
21:39
to just connect with him more. I
21:42
have to put in work to go into his world. and
21:47
look at some of the things so that I can have conversations. He's
21:50
into basketball now. I was always into football, never into basketball. Guess
21:54
what I'm doing? I'm learning about basketball. Why? Because I
21:58
want to show him that I care about his interests and
22:02
want to learn more about what he's doing, right? So even
22:06
if your kid is doing something that you don't understand or not like again
22:09
anime never ever had interest in it don't understand it
22:13
i'm learning about it now and he gets excited when i talk about
22:16
it so whatever you notice them leaning towards if
22:19
it's a video game learn about the game Ask
22:23
if you can play, you know, like really getting into their
22:26
world because if you start doing that, you make yourself
22:30
more accessible to them and you show
22:34
them that you are understanding and you care, right? So really
22:37
be mindful of that. Did I go through all of them? Oh, initiate
22:41
conversation. So some children need you to start the conversation, even
22:45
about sexuality. You know, when it comes to sex and
22:49
intimacy, all that stuff that you probably have your parent
22:53
never talked to you about, or it feels uncomfortable, it sounds scary.
22:57
Let me let you know, you can choose not to do it, but if
23:00
you're choosing not to do it, you're choosing for the internet and society
23:04
to do it for you. And you want the knowledge
23:07
that your child is getting to come from you. I can't help
23:11
what happens when they leave the house. I can't. And I recognize that.
23:14
And that scares the heck out of me that there's so much out there
23:18
that they may be exposed to that I don't have
23:21
control over. But what alleviates my fear is that
23:25
I understand that I'm putting
23:29
in the work to teach them and give them a baseline. And
23:33
so I want you to really be mindful of like, yes, this may
23:36
be uncomfortable. This is new. I've never done this before.
23:40
I've never had this done. But I can actually put
23:43
in the work to start to
23:47
allow myself to have these uncomfortable conversations,
23:52
even if it's hard. Because guess what? I want my child to do well
23:56
in life. I want them to be OK and be comfortable. So
24:01
the next thing I want to talk about is parents. So I just talked about
24:04
ways to communicate with your child, thinking about their
24:08
mental health, like all of that stuff matters. The
24:11
most important thing that matters in this process
24:15
is you. We worry a
24:19
lot about our children and we want them to be okay. But
24:22
at the same token, a lot of times we're not
24:25
doing the things that we need to do to be okay. We're not modeling that
24:29
behavior. So why is it important for
24:32
you to be taking care of your mental health. So taking care
24:36
of your mental health is crucial because it directly impacts their ability to
24:39
provide a stable and supportive environment for your child. Research
24:43
shows that a parent's mental health significantly influences
24:47
a child's overall well-being, with poor mental
24:51
health potentially leading to adverse childhood experiences, developmental
24:56
issues, and increased risk of mental health problems in children themselves.
25:00
You have to really work on prioritizing your mental health. There's no way around
25:04
it. If you really want to make
25:08
sure that your kids are going to be OK, and if you're really concerned about their mental health,
25:12
ask yourself, what are you doing to take care and prioritize your
25:16
needs, right? And if you
25:19
can't honestly say, you know what, I've been doing X, Y, and Z. And if
25:22
you can't name one thing that you're doing to prioritize your needs, I
25:26
really want you to go back to the drawing board and think about how you
25:29
can start doing that. Because modeling that behavior
25:33
is going to be so beneficial. Here are some key reasons why
25:37
you should prioritize your mental health. One,
25:40
impacts of your child's development. So children of parents with
25:44
poor mental health are more likely to experience emotional difficulties. Because
25:49
if you're not okay, they're seeing it. Some of your behaviors and actions are
25:53
happening because of your own mental health. Parenting
25:56
capacity. So when parents are struggling with mental health issues, they
26:00
may have difficulty managing stress, regulating their emotions and
26:03
providing consistent care for children. Consistency is
26:06
key. I can't tell you how many times as I'm working with people and
26:10
they talk, and they talk about their anxiety, a lot of, and you know, they, their
26:13
needs were provided for them and things like that. But
26:17
you know, some of the anxieties that, uh, people have
26:21
are dealing with, um, are direct link from,
26:25
you know, when my parent came home, I
26:28
wasn't sure if they were going to be mad or sad or they were going to be complaining about
26:31
this or that, that I, you know, sometimes we
26:35
don't realize as adults, we're masking at work, we're
26:38
masking for society and bam, we come home and
26:42
then we let it all out. And it's not being
26:45
let out in a healthy way. And so unfortunately, who
26:49
gets the brunt of that? Your partner, your children, right? And
26:53
so it's so important to be honest with yourself about
26:57
what you're feeling, why you're feeling it, and
27:01
modeling that behavior for your child and understanding your
27:04
capacity. Um, positive role modeling by
27:08
prioritizing your mental health, you demonstrate healthy coping
27:11
mechanisms and practicing self care. So
27:15
many times adults don't know how to say they need
27:18
help. So many times adults don't know how to slow down
27:21
because guess what? They never watched their parents slow down. They've especially
27:25
certain cultures, especially when it comes to women. I know they
27:29
don't really know how to, like, take care of themselves as far as the self care
27:32
piece. The only thing they've watched modeled is other
27:36
people being taken care of. The only thing they watch model
27:40
is their caregiver always saying yes and doing all of
27:43
these things for other people. And you wonder why now
27:47
you're struggling with slowing down and taking care of yourself because that's
27:50
what was modeled for you. So if you work on prioritizing your needs and
27:54
creating self-care, you're teaching your child why
27:58
that's important and how they can make it happen. It
28:02
reduces abuse and neglect. So if you are working
28:06
on your mental health, your risk of neglecting
28:10
your kids' emotional needs is higher, is lower, right?
28:15
It'd be harder for you to neglect their emotional needs if
28:18
you're taking care of yourself emotionally. But if you're not taking care
28:21
of yourself, then it's the risk of you affecting their
28:28
mental health, the risk of abuse or neglect, right?
28:31
There's a difference between emotional abuse and emotional neglect. Abuse,
28:35
I'm talking about you talking down to your child, you calling them out their names,
28:39
like all of these things, that's abuse. Neglect, which
28:42
a lot of people, and a lot of people have experienced emotional abuse, but
28:46
a lot of us have experienced a lot of emotional neglect. And
28:49
it's not because our parent was
28:52
like, oh, I'm not gonna, take care of your emotional needs partly. They didn't know.
28:56
They've come from survival. They don't understand how to do that with
28:59
themselves, right? And so your emotional needs wasn't
29:06
taken care of. And it's not that your parent
29:09
was bad, but they didn't have the tools to take care of their emotional needs.
29:13
So it would be hard for them to take care of yours. And
29:17
so if you're a parent, if you're working
29:21
on your emotional needs, you'll be able to take care
29:24
of your child's emotional needs better as well. Improve
29:28
family dynamics. So if you're working on your mental health, the
29:32
way the dynamic of you and the relationship with your child
29:36
is going to look, it's going to look a lot better. I wanna show you this quick
29:39
clip on supporting your child, and then I'm just gonna talk about support
29:43
systems because that's important. I know a lot of people aren't used
29:46
to developing support systems, but I
29:50
promise you it takes a lot to
29:55
raise healthy kids. And if you have
29:58
that support, all the better. So let's just
30:06
I've noticed from my son, even at a very early age is
30:09
he notices when I'm on my phone, he notices when I'm not
30:13
fully present. And I think that has a huge impact on kids mental
30:16
health, be as present as you possibly can. And if you don't have
30:20
the bandwidth for it in that moment, like there's sometimes where I truly just have
30:23
to jump on something, then I am like expressing that to my son and
30:26
saying, Hey, you know, do you want to watch the show real quick? Mommy has to take
30:29
a call, but I'm being really clear that like, Mommy's focusing on
30:33
this. So I think I think that's, you know, no parents perfect. It
30:36
still happens all the time to me. But I think that's one
30:39
of the best things you can do for kids mental health for sure is just try to give them
30:42
the undivided attention when you have it or be really transparent that
30:52
So it's not about always, you know, my
30:55
kid needs me right now. Let me run to them. Sometimes you're not going to have the ability
30:59
to do that. That's okay. Just let them know,
31:02
like, I can't do it right now, but imagine if you were to create intentional time.
31:06
And the reason why I like the bedtime idea, cause it's something
31:10
that happens every night. It's something that you can be more consistent
31:13
with. But again, if there's other times that you can connect and
31:17
make intentional time, with your child, try to do that. That's
31:20
important. The last thing I want to say about this subject is
31:24
building support systems. Don't
31:27
be afraid to ask for help. I am the second
31:31
oldest child. My
31:36
brother's always been in and out of jail, so I've been the
31:40
oldest one. And I'm very independent. I'm
31:45
just a really self-sufficient, self-starter. And
31:49
me asking for help was something that was hard to do. Now
31:53
it's easier for me to do, but I do understand that it's not
31:57
something that I see modeled and kind
32:00
of put in a role to help with my younger siblings.
32:05
and do a lot of things. So being mindful of your
32:09
ability to ask for help and why it may be hard, but
32:13
sometimes you just have to do it, even if it's uncomfortable, because it's
32:16
what you need. So therapy is one, right?
32:20
I do believe in therapy. Family, I
32:23
know everybody doesn't have Everybody
32:27
doesn't have a family system that is functional or
32:30
works well, but then there may be some family members that
32:34
you find that can
32:38
be supportive. When I'm working with people and they've talked about
32:41
different people in their lives, I get to know their world. And I'll
32:45
be like, well, what about this person? They'll be like, you know what? I haven't really thought about that,
32:48
right? I want you to think about, like, as I'm reading these different support
32:51
systems, I want you to think about building a toolbox
32:55
so that you can have different options for support, right?
32:59
So as, you know, when I think about, if you're watching this, Like
33:05
this is you in the circle and then there's one line, right? It
33:09
can't just be one thing that you're looking at for support. Like
33:13
I want you to be able to have I
33:17
want you to be able to have so many different options to lean and different
33:21
things. OK, I could do this. I can do that. So
33:24
really building your toolbox so you have, because
33:27
that family member may not always be available, therapies once a
33:30
week. So what else can I do in the meantime? Coaches
33:35
are great. And then there's these different organizations. I
33:38
just put two here that I'm familiar with. NAMI is one and
33:42
NAMI is national. PPAL is
33:46
based in Massachusetts. I know people listen to me from different places, but
33:49
they have a lot of online programming. I spoke at one
33:53
of the one of the things that they had online. And
33:57
so that's why I'm sharing. And NAMI, again, national. There
34:00
are certain NAMI organizations, they do a lot of online
34:04
programming. Church, for some people, churches
34:08
do have different programs and things that
34:11
can help. Podcasts are helpful, support group, wellness
34:15
centers. I also said, use Google if
34:18
you have to and check out your state site. As
34:22
I'm sharing these different things, I want
34:25
to point out that if you're not used to asking for help, it may feel weird. I
34:29
also want to point out that if you don't
34:34
feel like doing it, understand that's normal. Because if
34:38
you're used to being a part of support system, your system is going to be like, yeah,
34:41
let's go do this. Not feeling like doing it, I
34:45
understand. But don't do it based off of the fact that you don't feel like doing
34:48
it. like don't do that to yourself because you go to work
34:52
when you don't feel like doing it because you know you want to get the
34:55
check and so I need you as you're trying to like
34:58
work on building resources and building uh support
35:02
for yourself I want you to think about the fact that like
35:05
this feels scary this feels hard but My
35:09
goal is because I want to be okay. I want my children to be okay. So
35:13
I'm going to do this anyway. So think about, and again, that, that
35:16
gratification, like the check you get a weekly or biweekly is the easier
35:20
gratification to lean on. But obviously this gratification that
35:23
I'm talking about when it comes to like being well,
35:26
it's going to take some time, but I promise you the more you deposit
35:30
into your life, the more you're depositing into your children's
35:34
life, the outcomes are going to look different, right? So
35:38
if you are struggling individually with
35:41
your own spiritual wellness and mental health, you got to really be honest
35:44
with yourself and ask yourself like, well, what am I depositing into
35:48
my life to be okay? Right. If I,
35:51
um, if, if it's the middle of the day, I try not to, I love like
35:55
my, one of my favorite meals is cheeseburgers and fries, but
35:59
I know if I have it for lunch, I'm going to feel like low,
36:02
very low energy. I'm going to feel a little energy for
36:06
the rest of the day because it weighs me down. The foods you
36:09
eat really has an effect on you. And it's
36:12
something we're not taught, especially in the Black community. Food's a big part of
36:16
what we do. It's a part of a lot of
36:19
things. But the types of foods that we're eating on
36:23
a regular basis are weighing us down and affecting our
36:27
mental health. So really being mindful on what you're
36:30
choosing And as you're trying to navigate
36:34
this new way of communicating with your child, as you're trying
36:38
to navigate this new way of taking care of your mental health, really
36:42
be mindful that there's going to be days you don't feel like doing it. And
36:45
that's OK. But if you start to look at your
36:49
goal, like what do you want to accomplish, let that help
36:53
lead you into creating some kind of discipline and consistency so
36:57
that you can get to where you need to be. So I hope
37:00
that was helpful. I hope that makes sense. If anything I ever say
37:04
resonates for you, understand that you
37:07
have the power to create change. A lot of times we think it's
37:11
this person or that person or it's our trauma or our history and
37:15
it's stopping us from being great or it's stopping us from getting
37:18
to where we need to be. And if you think about your trauma or your history,
37:22
it's in the past. You can't change it. But because you're
37:26
not dealing with the things, unfortunately, it's the lens on
37:29
your present. And it doesn't have to be that way. A
37:33
lot of times, you're stopping your progress and change because
37:37
the thing that you need to do, it feels hard. And
37:40
if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. So there's no way around the
37:44
hard part. And I think if you start to remind yourself
37:48
of that, it can help you check yourself. It
37:51
can help you change your language around what you're choosing
37:55
to do and do it despite how you feel. Feelings
37:58
are there. They're trying to tell us a story, but
38:02
they're not facts. And we shouldn't be basing our decision
38:05
making off of our feelings. So I
38:09
would thank you so much for tuning in. And if you are not following
38:12
me on social media, you can follow me at Celeste,
38:16
the therapist everywhere. And then if you want
38:19
to learn more about my wellness center, you can go to S T
38:23
W Y T.com. And that's the acronym for, uh,
38:27
shifting the way you think. Um, You're so welcome.
38:30
I'm glad you enjoyed it. That's the acronym for shifting the way you
38:33
think. And this video platform, whatever you're
38:37
watching me on, because I'm on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, it
38:40
stays on the video platform. And then the
38:43
audio is going to be released next
38:59
You stay focused and your life gon' be lit And you are