Childhood is such an essential part of one’s life. It determines the individual’s developmental and overall functioning. Childhood mental health simply put means that they have a positive relationship with their family, meets their developmental milestones; learn healthy coping skills, and a supportive environment around them. When one or more of these factors are not met, the child is likely to have mental health concerns.

Here are a few mental health signs that should not be neglected in children:

1.  BEHAVIOURAL SIGNS

Behavioural changes in children occur when there are modifications in the environment around them or when things do not go their way. This could include their interactions with their peers, family, and their interactions with significant others.

RED FLAGS: Temper tantrums, harming oneself or others, withdrawal, overeating or under-eating, changes in sleep patterns, and gadget dependence

2. EMOTIONAL SIGNS

Emotions form the framework of a human being’s ability to think and feel. Just as how adults experience complex emotions, children also experience a wide range of emotions. However, sometimes children find it difficult to explain the kind of emotions they are feeling and this leads to a lot of emotional distress leading to a spiral down in their overall well-being. In correlation with this, child abuse and domestic violence have seen to be the major contributors to these emotional concerns in children.

RED FLAGS: Persistent sadness over a period of time from 3-6 weeks, bouts of crying, feeling anxious, excessive fear, spells of anger, depression and attention seeking

3. ACADEMIC CONCERNS

Academics play a pivotal role in children for it determines their understanding, knowledge as well as the ability to retain and reproduce information that is learned.

RED FLAGS: The common academic concerns that a child experiences and exhibits are attention/retention, difficulty in comprehension, learning difficulties, drop in grades as a result of showing disinterest towards academics and skipping schools. The other concerns that could play a role in affecting academics in children are changes in their environment or with emotions that are difficult to handle

4. SELF/SOCIAL RELATED SIGNS

Childhood is the essence of adulthood and having a positive environment helps the child to have a healthy relationship with oneself and others around them. As children grow they are always in a constant struggle between their real self and their ideal self. The struggle is influenced by peer pressure, parenting styles, and social interactions.

RED FLAGS: When the child is in constant battle to find out their identity the common signs to look for are, self-doubt, and constant comparison with peers, inferiority complex

5. COPING RELATED SIGNS

The current pandemic has brought a lot of changes and even more in children when they try comprehending the “New Normal”. The meaning of freedom is lost somewhere along the way.

RED FLAGS: When the child is unable to cope with the stress around them and the common signs to look out for are, non-compliance to rules, lack of organization skills around the house, the need to gratify their wants immediately and importantly lack of time management which includes their increasing use of screen time

Children begin their formative years by observing and learning from their parents and significant others in their lives. It is important that parents model positive and healthy behaviour to their children for them to have a good transition through adolescence. These are just some common signs to look for; however, parents need to be more mindful in their approach for holistic growth in their children and walk along with them in this journey.

Susan Stephans
Sr. Counselor and Psychotherapist
Medall Mind

The post Childhood mental health : 5 signs which should not be neglected appeared first on Health Vision.

In the present race of life, we are concerned over the future of our children rather than nurturing them with love. It is not that our love has diminished, but we are unable to express it. Sometimes hugging your child and expressing your affection becomes more crucial than nurturing them with food and other worldly necessities. According to Research, babies with very affectionate and attentive parents grow up to be happier, more resilient, and less anxious adults.

Studies have revealed that children thrive well in environments where they are extended with love consistently from the day of their birth. Studies in neonatal care, says that parental hug has led to the improvement in the weight gain among the pre-matured babies. It is proven that hugging your child has several benefits.

Watch our video: How building an immunity is essential to fight against corona?

It is said to be that a child needs four hugs a day for survival, eight hugs a day for maintenance and twelve hugs a day for growth.  Indeed, the importance and benefits of hugging are boundless as it does wonders, for the cognitive and emotional development of children. One as a parent should not worry about hugging your child excessively. It is the right thing to do!

1. One Hug a day: You need not have a reason to hug your child. You do not have to wait for his exam results, birthday or any other occasion to do so, hug your child in the morning while you wake your child or in the evening when you put them to sleep. It is a nice gesture to extend your love.

2. Hugging for every age: Often, a child is hugged and kissed by parents. A parent may wonder if hugging or kissing is alright when children grow up, but I say, it works wonders and children need it at all ages.

3. Sense of Security:  Children often experience a sense of security by your hugs and feels that they are being loved. These secured and loved feelings in children help them to develop self-confidence and self-esteem as they grow up.  The nurturing touch of a hug helps to establish trust and a sense of safety among children. With this deep sensing of security, children tend to venture new things. It enhances proper communication between a child and a parent.

4. Hugging for proper understanding: When children go through difficult times, a warm embrace can say more than a thousand words of counsel. This non-verbal communication always gives a feeling of you being with the child and never being misunderstood. Children also feel that they are out of such difficult situations and are secured.

5. Expression of Love: Hug or embrace your child in your arms to acknowledge your love without verbally telling that you love them.  A Child will also learn to express its love and develop being expressive as they grow up.

6. Natural Stress Buster: Physical contact such as hugging releases a chemical in our brain called Oxytocin. Oxytocin, which is known as the love hormone, is produced primarily in the hypothalamus of the brain, which helps in reducing depression and anxiety. It is not a wonder that some children like to be hugged all the time. Thus, cuddling and hugging your child helps to face stress and helps children to get away with any pressure or stress they are undergoing.

7. Hugging for disciplining: Hugging plays a vital role in behavior modification among children. While we are disciplining our children when they misbehave, we often use different methods for punishment. However, embracing them could be what we need to start with the discipline process on a positive note, and go further with a firm explanation of what they did wrong.

Children might resist and reject the hug initially, but soon will give in and look forward to a hug, which brings on a feel-good effect. Children are more willing to listen to what we have to say when they feel good, so do encourage them with a hug to reassure them of your love. Then, you might as well explain the effects of such bad behavior, and you will notice a change in their behavior gradually.

Children benefit more from being embraced, and as a parent, it is the best remedy for us to eliminate our frustrations. This can happen when we are dealing with our children while letting them know that our love for them remains unchanged.

Finally, hugging uplifts the spirit of the child as well as the parents. Its function is similar to that of meditation and laughter. It helps a Parent to learn to let go of all negative vibes or feelings and encourage them to go with the flow.

Realize the importance of hugging your child – Enjoy Happy Parenting

Also Read: How to protect Child from Today’s infections?

Dr. Hemamalini Krupakar
Clinical Psychologist / Counselor

The post Embracing Children -Golden rule of Parenting appeared first on Health Vision.

As a parent, your responsibility is to deal with your children until the day shows up when they can completely stand on their own feet while they move on from secondary school realizing how to per sue, frame and compose their life and career.

Before your child ventures out from home, make sure that they are prepared to live autonomously while having a constructive outcome on the world. Take a second to read this agenda of fundamental abilities your child should learn before stepping into becoming independent.

Commonsense or practical life skills:

1. Manage time. Be a good example and allow your child to manage time and keep setting time frames for small goals so that they learn to manage their time as they grow. Teach your teenager the best way to utilize a schedule and work towards fulfilling a time constraint.

2. Study productively. Your child may certainly be profited from the teachings in school but encourage your child to adopt the habit of reading. Demonstrate how to recognize key concepts in the subject and design self-tests on any given subject.

3. Financial management. The decisions your child makes today will assist with deciding how successful he or she will be during their adulthood. Give them a head start on dealing with money related obligations, by allocating some responsibilities in financial handlings. For example, allowing them to manage and deal with their scholarship or giving them pocket money and allowing them to maintain the expenses responsibly.

4. Health and wellness. Smart dieting patterns should start early as well. Take your child along for shopping of groceries and welcome the child into the kitchen for cooking. Make them self- dependent. Stress the significance of eating a good balanced diet which is rich in vegetables, fruits and natural products.

5. Cleanliness.Children who grow up doing household chores turn out to be more mature and responsible in life. Show your children how to vacuum, dust, and keep their rooms clean. Give them the concept of a healthy environment. Make sure they maintain their personal hygiene. Parents should be a role model to their children in maintaining personal hygiene.

6. Staying safe. Talk with your child about being safe outside the house and caution them on all the danger they might encounter while they are out.

7. Handle crises. Does your child realize what to do when they have a minor accident or there’s an extreme emergency? Discuss various situations and teach them on how to react to these situations.

Social and psychological life skills:

1. Explain fundamental beliefs. The qualities your teenager picks up will define their conduct. Point them a promising way by guaranteeing that they can explain their convictions and put them out without hesitation.

2. Give liberally. Your teenager is going to be the mirror image of you in the society. Children learn watching and imitating elders and develop the attitude to help other people in need. Urge them to share their assets and volunteer their services so they will develop this habit of charity.

3. Act carefully. Over usage of cell phones are reducing the normal capacity to focus. Children consider their parents as idols and hence demonstrate a healthy way of using the gadgets and follow and adopt certain principles in regards to usage of gadgets in the family. For example Make it a family rule that no gadgets are permitted during supper, develop a habit of making conversation while eating at the dinner table, never watch television while eating and so on… to ensure there is proper communication among the family members enabling them to have a good bonding.

4. Oversee pressure. Caring and counseling will help your child in handling the stress. Parent can encourage the child to take part in a physical exercises, and allow them to develop hobbies in-order to divert the stress factors.

5. Basic telephonic etiquette. Regardless of whether your teenager spends quite a lot of their time on telephone, they may not know the basic etiquettes. Train your children on such issues and help them to speak to elders and different sect of people and extend the basic respects and courtesies.

6. Talk with eye contact. Your child might be more inclined to web-based networking media than having a discussion face to face. Encourage child to have a face to face communication instead of speaking over a gadget. Amidst of busy schedules ensure there is some time for the family discussions.

7. Healthy relationships. Healthy relationship plays a vital role in well-being. Teach your child to make healthy friendships and relations with their own and opposite genders.

8. Assertiveness. Help your child to develop good self-esteem and speak up for themselves. Knowing how to share their wants and needs will bring them closer to fulfilling their goals. You can ease your child’s transition into adulthood. Protect your children when they’re young, and then gradually give them more responsibility so that they can acquire the skills to speak for themselves, so that they are independent, when the time is right.

Research tells us that to raise a child with good confidence self-reliance and with high self-esteem, it is more important and effective to be democratic parent than authoritarians. If you want your child to give respect, confide in you and trust you rather than hide from you and fear you, one need to be a supportive and comforting parent and not a dictating parent.

All of these things are easy to set as goals, but hard to achieve. How do you find the right balance?

As your child develops, the challenges will change, and your thought may evolve, but your approach should be caring, loving, firm and consistent. Always allow them learn through experience, that makes them build their confidence and helps them to learn to tackle challenges. Calibrate your expectations about what your child is capable of doing independently, whether you have an infant learning to crawl, a toddler helping to put toys away, or an adolescent child resolving conflicts.

Keep in mind that there is no one right way to raise a child. Do your best, trust yourself and enjoy good parenting.

Also Read: HOW DO YOU TALK TO YOUR KIDS ABOUT THEIR FUTURE?

Dr.Hemamalini Krupakar
Clinical Psychologist/Counselor
Mysuru

The post Preparing children for adulthood appeared first on Health Vision.

A New Year is beginning, when conversations about goals and resolutions abound. What if you could have a different conversation with your children this year that gave them tools on how to choose what will contribute to their future and empower them to know what they know?

As the mother of three, two now into adulthood, I can remember the times when at least one of my children would come home with a school assignment on New Year’s resolutions. These assignments were not fun for my kids or me. I had never liked  goal setting, it never made sense when it was asked of me and my kids had a similar point of view about these assignments.

How can you start a conversation with your kids about what they would like to create for this year and beyond? What question can you ask your children to create a future of possibilities instead of barriers to the conversation? Start by talking to them about having targets instead of setting goals. Ask your children, “what are your targets for this year?”

The problem with resolutions or goals is that they set in place an immovable decisions about the future when in actuality our futures are full of change. These decisions allow for very little wiggle room and if your children are anything like mine then you know wiggling is something they like to do often.

Goals lead to judgments. Judgement of whether you have achieved the goal or failed. They are mostly a measure of failure. A goal will stop you from seeing anything  greater or different.  You cannot even invasion anything that does not match the point of view of your goal.

When you look at the energy of a target it is different, less fixed, it has more wiggle room. It does not lock you down. A target gives you the energy of what you are aiming for and you can always be checking with how you are doing towards achieving the target.If you want to change it, move it or something really different. Targets are more creative, you can shoot past a target which could lead you to something even more fun. If you get close to your targets you are still creating it, with a goal you can only judge you have not met it.

Children’s futures are full of possibilities. My children’s realities are full of ideas, some they created, some that become uninteresting and some that are yet to actualize. Their ideas were and are fabulous and all over the place. “Mom I’m going to be a surgeon who works on babies in the womb” “Mom I am going to make the first flying car” “Mom I am going to animate Disney movies.” “Mom let’s get an elephant.” “Mom, I’m going to be a mermaid.”

If your target is being a Mermaid then you can play with how to be one. You can put your sister in a bathtub and have her drink salt water. (This is one way to become a mermaid that I did not know of). Now if it does not work and it is a target, then you and not wrong just because you still have legs, you can keep shooting for it. You can find out there are actual professional mermaid jobs at amusement parks that actually pay well and now you have a new mermaid target. If this is a goal then you are left judging your untailed legs and your sister for making you drink salt water.

Once you have the conversations going you can ask also ask your kids, “if you choose this what will your future be like in a year, a week, in 10 years? So they can begin to know what they know about creating the future they desire.

These are wonderful tools to have and the more your kids use them the bigger the muscle of knowing what their choices will create becomes. What a gift to have this as a kid! To be able to trust your knowing and to know that choice creates awareness!

The most important thing you can give your kids is the understanding that their point of view is okay.

~ Gary Douglas, Conscious Parenting Conscious Kids

Dr. Glenna Rice
glennarice.com
accessconsciousness.com/drglennarice

The post How do you talk to your kids about their future? appeared first on Health Vision.