Your Guide to Good Mental Health for the Family
Everyone knows that good mental health is essential, but not everyone recognizes it. To maintain good mental health in the family, parents must find ways to promote overall well-being.
Even those with a mental health disorder, such as depression or anxiety, or who develop one during substance use disorder can take proactive measures to achieve good mental health for the family. What is good mental health? What can parents do to promote it? Here are some points to consider.
What Is Good Mental Health?
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines mental health this way: “Mental health ?is an integral and essential component of health.” Furthermore, the WHO states, “Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
Promoting Good Mental Health
Good mental health requires action. Promoting mental health encompasses various strategies, all to make a positive impact on mental health. These include:
The range of available choices has the added benefit of increasing opportunities for everyone to experience the benefits of good mental health or improve it.
What Factors Determine Mental Health?
Multiple factors affect?mental health ?and mental health disorders.?Often these factors interact and include psychological, biological, and social elements.
According to experts, some of the most apparent evidence of mental health is associated with various poverty indicators.
Good mental health is impossible without policies and an environment that respects and protects fundamental civil, cultural, political, and socio-economic rights. People must have the security and freedom of these rights to achieve and maintain good mental health.
Behavior and Mental Health
Specific mental, social, and behavioral health problems may interact and intensify effects on a person’s behavior and well-being. Key examples include:
Other problems that are more prevalent and difficult to cope with include:
Cost-Effective Interventions to Promote Good Mental Health
Good mental health doesn’t require million-dollar promotional budgets. Low-cost, cost-effective interventions can improve mental health on an individual and community level. The following effective evidence-based interventions can help promote good mental health:
Parents: Good Mental Health Basics for Children at Home
Promoting good mental health in children involves several things parents can do at home.
1.?????Give children unconditional love.
All children need unconditional love from their parents. This love, and the associated acceptance and security, are the foundation for a child’s good mental health. Children must be reassured that parental love doesn’t depend on getting good grades, doing well in sports, or how they look.
Another crucial point is that childhood mistakes and defeats are common. These should be expected and accepted. When parents show unconditional love, and their children know this exists no matter what happens, their self-confidence will grow.
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2.?????Nurture confidence and self-esteem.
Parents can nurture their child’s confidence and self-esteem by praising their efforts for things they attempt for the first time or those they do well. This encourages the child to learn new things and explore the unknown. Parents can also build their child’s confidence and self-esteem by providing a safe play environment, active involvement in their activities, assurance, and smiling.
Set realistic goals for children that match their abilities and ambition. They can choose more challenging goals that test their abilities as they age. Avoid being critical or sarcastic. Instead, give children a pep talk if they fail a test or lose a game. They need reassurance, not criticism.
Be honest, yet don’t make light of parental failures or disappointments. Knowing their?parents are human ?and sometimes make mistakes helps children to grow. Please encourage them to do their best and enjoy learning. Trying new activities helps children learn teamwork, build self-esteem, and develop new skills.
3.?????Guidance and discipline
Children also need to know that some actions and behaviors and actions are inappropriate and unacceptable, whether at home, school, or elsewhere. As primary authority figures, parents need to provide their children with appropriate guidance and discipline. In the family, ensure the field is fair and consistent, not having different rules for the child’s other siblings.
4.?????Parents should set a good example.
Set a good example since kids won’t adhere to rules if parents break them. Also, when the child does something wrong, talk about their inappropriate behavior, but don’t blame the child. Please explain the reason for the discipline and the potential consequences their actions may involve.
Do not nag, threaten, or bribe. Children quickly ignore those tactics. They’re also ineffective. Try not to lose your self-control. If you do, talk about what happened and apologize. Providing parental guidance and discipline is not for controlling children but for allowing them to learn self-control.
5.?????Provide safe and secure surroundings.
Children should feel safe and secure at home and not be fearful there. Yet, despite parents’ and caregivers’ best intentions, children experience fear and anxiety, become secretive or withdraw during certain circumstances and situations. It’s important to remember that fear is a natural emotion for children. Trying to determine the cause of the fear and doing something to correct it is necessary.
Children may show signs of fear, including aggressiveness, extreme shyness, nervousness, and changes in eating or sleeping patterns. Moving to a new neighborhood, school, or another stressful event may trigger fears, and being ill can bring on suspicion of going back to school.
6.?????Create play opportunities with other children.
Children should have opportunities to play with other children inside and outside the home. Besides being fun, playtime helps children learn to solve problems, be creative, learn new skills, and exercise self-control.
Playing tag, jumping, and running helps them become mentally and physically healthy. If there aren’t age-appropriate kids in the neighborhood, investigate a children’s program at a recreation or park center, community center, or school.
7.?????Encouraging, supportive teachers and caretakers work with parents.
Parents, teachers, and caretakers play an instrumental role in promoting a child’s good mental health. As such, they should be actively involved in the child’s development, offering consistent encouragement and support to them and their parents.
Resiliency and Good Mental Health
Resiliency is all about emotional balance. Yet, being mentally and emotionally healthy doesn’t mean people never experience challenging times or painful situations. Disappointments,?loneliness , loss, and change are part of life and cause even the healthiest individuals to feel anxious, sad, or stressed.
When someone is resilient, they can bounce back from adversities like losing a job or going through a relationship breakup, illness, grief, sadness, or other setbacks. They recognize the reality of the circumstance and do what is necessary to restore their emotional balance.
Parents: Teach Resilience for Good Mental Health
Parents can teach themselves to become more resilient, improve their mental health, and help their children do the same. It is essential to recognize emotions. This prevents a person from becoming trapped in negativity, anxiety, or depression. A good support network of family, co-workers, friends, counselors, and therapists can also help parents during times of need.
According to the American Psychological Association (APA),?resiliency ?is not a trait. However, it involves thoughts, behaviors, and actions that anyone can learn and develop. They suggest the following 10 ways to help build?resilience ?in the family:
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