Childrens mental health
Children’s Mental Health Awareness
In the last 15 years, researchers have given us increasingly alarming statistics on a sharp and steady increase in childhood mental illness that is now reaching epidemic proportions.
Statistics do not lie:
- 1 in 10 children & adolescents (age 5-17) are affected by psychiatric disorders
- 60% of children diagnosed with depression are not getting treatment
- 50% of mental ill-health lifetime cases begin at the age of 14 years and 75% at the age of 24 years.
- There has been a global increase of 200% in the suicide rate in children aged 10 to 14
What is happening and where are we going wrong?
Today’s generation are being over-stimulated and over-gifted with material objects, but they are deprived of the fundamentals of a healthy childhood, such as:
- Emotionally available parents
- Clearly defined limits
- Responsibilities
- Balanced nutrition and adequate sleep
- Movement in general; especially outdoors
- Creative play, social interaction, unstructured game opportunities and boredom spaces
Research shows that our children have been filled with:
- Digitally distracted parents
- Indulgent and permissive parents who let children “rule the world”.
- A sense of right, of deserving everything without earning it
- A lack of responsibility and instant gratification
- Inadequate sleep and unbalanced nutrition
- A sedentary lifestyle
- Endless technological stimulation
What to do?
If we want our children to be happy and healthy individuals, we have to get back to basics.
Many families see immediate improvements after weeks of implementing the following recommendations:
- Set limits and remember that you are the captain of the ship.
- Your children will feel more confident knowing that you have control of the wheel.
- Offer children a balanced lifestyle full of what they NEED, not just what they WANT.
- Don’t be afraid to say “no” to your children if what they want is not what they need.
- Provide nutritious food and limit junk food.
- Spend at least one hour a day outdoors doing activities such as: cycling, walking, fishing, bird / insect watching
- Enjoy a daily family dinner without smartphones or distracting technology.
- Play board games as a family or if children are very small for board games, get carried away by their interests and allow them to rule in the game
- Involve your children in some homework or household chores according to their age (folding clothes, ordering toys, hanging clothes, unpacking food, setting the table, feeding the dog etc.)
- Implement a consistent sleep routine. Sleep schedules will be even more important for scholars
- Teach them to fish – Do not carry your children’s backpack, do not carry their backpacks, do not carry the homework they forgot, do not peel bananas or peel oranges if they can do it on their own (4-5 years).
- Teach them to wait and delay gratification.
- Provide opportunities for “boredom”, boredom awakens their creativity. Do not feel responsible for always keeping children entertained.
- Do not use technology as a cure for boredom, nor offer it at the first second of in-activity.
- Avoid using technology during meals, in cars, restaurants and shopping malls. Use these moments as opportunities to socialize and interact.
- Be emotionally available to connect with children and teach them self-regulation and social skills
- Turn off the phones at night when children have to go to bed to avoid digital distraction.
- Become a regulator or emotional trainer for your children. Teach them to recognize and manage their own frustrations and anger.
- Teach them to greet, to take turns, to share without running out of anything, to say thank you and please, to acknowledge the error and apologize (do not force them), be a model of all those values you instil in them.
- Connect emotionally – smile, hug, kiss, tickle, read, dance, jump, play or crawl with them.
Source: The South African Depression & Anxiety Group, www.sadag.org, 08 March 2021.
Article: A silent tragedy, Dr. Luis Rojas Marcos, Atrium Counselling, 10 November 2019.