Does age affect our mental health?

If mental health was tracked on a timeline, what would it look like at each stage? How does our age and development set the tone for certain conditions and what, if any, are the emotional health benefits of being young, mid-life or old? From baby behaviour to adulting, discover what’s really going on in that head of yours.

By Eliza LeMessurier w/ Clinical Psychologist Lynn Jenkins and Matt Stanton

As babies, we see the world anew, our emotions ‘fresh’ to say the least. By the time we’re at school, we’re forming a personality and navigating social worlds. Then teenagerhood hits as do our hormones propelling to a place where some would argue, ‘real life begins’. By the time we realise we’re middle age, we’ve likely experienced sides of ourselves we never knew existed. Then we start to slow down alongside our bodies and minds.?

How does our age set the tone for our mental health development and what are the emotional challenges and benefits of being young, mid-life or old?

Baby Behaviour

The first 100 days of a baby’s life is a time-sensitive critical period of development, especially when it comes to brain development and building emotional foundations, says Lynn Jenkins, Clinical Child Psychologist and author of?Best Start.?These foundations largely come from?interactions that babies have with their main caregivers. Experiences can help a baby to develop a positive idea of themselves as well as the beginnings of things like self-belief, thoughts and feelings; self-esteem and self-value; how they operate in relationships; how they behave socially; and a sense of emotional security. (1) For example, babies feel distress and cry when they’re hungry, cold, wet, or uncomfortable, and they experience positive emotions when they are fed, soothed, and held. (2)?

Common challenges for babies include:?

• Consistency in their care?
• Responsiveness to their needs?
• At the mercy of the ‘quality’ of the internal model they are developing (aka main carer)?

This experience-based sculpting of the brain is arguably THE most important part of a baby’s mental health journey because it is?formative. Not only does it alter the way a baby’s brain is built (I.e., formation of neural pathways and communication cells) but it also effects how the brain functions going forward. (3) As this?Harvard paper?so aptly describes,?a baby’s?early emotional experiences literally become embedded in the architecture of their brains.??

Mental benefits of being a baby:??

• Fresh brain with HUGE potential (to whatever their potential is)?
• Predictability is a good thing (creates sense of safety)?
• Wired to make strong connections with their adults?

So, if you are a parent or carer, the connection and interaction you have with your baby is helping to finesse their emotional mechanics (no pressure or anything folks!).?

Preschoolers

The emotional states of toddlers and preschoolers are complex – just ask any parent! Preschoolers move beyond the baby blue book of checks and balances to?developmental milestones like growth, motor movement, speech and hearing.???

At this age, carers can experience the terrible twos and threenagers, whose turbulent behaviours fluctuate like a rollercoaster of highs, lows, twists and tantrums. This can often feel to the adult observer as irrational and reactive. However, what’s happening mentally for kids at this age is that they’re learning how to notice things too! They’re figuring out their emerging capacity to?interpret their own?personal experiences and at the same time trying to understand what others are doing and thinking. (2)??

Common challenges for preschoolers include:?

• Still needing co-regulation but their adults might not expect them to
• Needing to be ‘social’ (take turns, share, etc) with varying levels of little skills (take turns, share, etc) with varying levels of developing skills
• Experiencing emotions as big and raw

‘Kids are wonderful observers but terrible interpreters’, says Lynn Jenkins. They’re so good at?observing?the nuances of people and life around them but don’t quite yet know how to?interpret?or respond to them, AND their little brains aren’t yet developed enough to interpret situations accurately. For this reason, preschooler behaviour can seem completely unreasonable to adults but it’s a precious time in a child’s emotional development.

Mental benefits of being a preschooler:??

• Naturally mindful i.e., living in the moment as it is happening
• Naturally excited and awed by the ‘simple things’
• Still in the ‘mold-able’ window of development

Another noteworthy experience in the toddler stage is exploration. As the toddler races around and explores the world curiously, they’re also learning essential play skills – the early roadmap for relationships.

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