Most Valuable Tips That will Promote Your Child's Good Mental Health & Emotional Well Being

Miscellaneous

The Child’s early home environment plays an important role in their overall development. If you as a parent maintain a good and friendly environment that addresses your child’s physical, mental and emotional needs, then it will be very beneficial for the kids and will have a direct impact on their behavior, learning abilities, and personality when they grow up.

Let’s talk about various types of ways using which you can nurture your child’s mental health

What are the Best Ways to Promote your Kid’s Good Mental Health?

1. Get a One-on-One session with Your Kid

Make time to have a one-on-one conversation with your kid and ask them about their feelings and thoughts. Just don’t judge your child, only listen to them without interrupting them in between. Always try to address their concerns and encourage them to share and talk with you whenever they feel anxious or stressed about something. Give your child some reassurance by telling them that you are always there to help them cope up with the situation. You can share your personal ways of dealing with stress & anxiety with your kids and cheer them up by providing some kind of positive reinforcement i.e giving a high five etc.

2. Let go of the Overthinking

Teach your child to let go of the vicious cycle of overthinking ( to think about a particular thing too much and for a longer period of time.) as this habit can lead to serious emotional distress and can increase the risk of having mental health problems. To eliminate overthinking you need to educate your kids to focus on things that they can control and stop thinking about the things which they can’t control. This is the most simple way to control the “what-if” thinking.

3. Develop a Positive Thinking Attitude

You can teach your child the mechanism using which they can accept the negative thoughts and process them in a healthy manner. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy(CBT) which is the most evidence-based treatment available for anxiety uses a common practice of reframing the negative thoughts into a more positive one. By encouraging a positive attitude within your child, you can improve their self-confidence and make them optimistic to cope up in a better way whenever they face any type of bad situation.

4. Praise your Child

The children especially the older children get self-motivated when they get praise from their parents. Praise your child whenever they have done a good deed no matter how small. By doing this you can encourage positive self-esteem and self-worth. One thing which every parent should keep in mind is praise. Try to avoid comparisons of your child’s performance with other children because it will lower their morale and self-worth which makes them less motivated to work hard. Instead, if you praise your children on the basis of their efforts and past good achievements and teach them the ways using which they can improve their performance then they will get motivated to work hard. Children who are self-motivated have better mental health and well being.

5. Encourage Physical Activity

There is a strong correlation between good mental health and physical activity. You need to make a proper timetable for your kids that will encourage them to drink adequate amounts of water, get enough sleep( 8 hours of sleep), eat nutritional fruits & vegetables, follow a daily exercise routine of doing workout or yoga, and meditation to boost up their mood, energy levels, and mental health.

6. Refresh your Child’s Mood

If your child is upset about something and is in a very bad mood then as a parent you can try a couple of things to lighten your kid’s mood such as ask them about the thing which upsets the mood and provide your child with undivided attention and cheer them up by sharing positive outlook about the entire situation. You can teach them that life is filled with ups and downs and reassure them with the remark that “Everything will be alright!”.

Apart from all the above-mentioned point, in order to get the most valuable tips about mental health, you can join the webinar “Track Symptoms of Depression & Suicidal Behaviour” on this Saturday, 20 June 2020 at 5 PM to 6:15 PM which is curated by our expert Archana Prashar, who is a certified counselor and a child psychologist.