Mental health, in layman terms, is about our feelings, our thinking, our notions, and our mood. Everybody is full of suggestions when it comes to looking after physical health. They might advise on visiting a doctor, some medication, home remedies, and many other things. But when it comes to mental health, suddenly everybody is at a loss of words. Those who might want to turn the awkward silence on its head suggest things like going out and having fun but nobody, literally nobody, has something to say that can actually help.

The fault doesn’t entirely lie with them too because we as a society have been trained to develop a stigma, a taboo around mental health. People generally want to avoid the company of people suffering from mental health issues and those who are actually experiencing some kind of problem are unable to talk about the same due to the fear of being ridiculed or ill-treated by their own friends and family. You can well imagine what kind of comments strangers must have up their sleeves. Only recently the issue related to mental health has been recognized by the general masses and is being taken seriously nowadays.

Now all you have to do is imagine the amount of trauma a child can experience if stigmas and social taboos can render even adults feel helpless and think about ending things once and for all. Thus in this article, we would be giving the top 5 ways through which you can ensure that your child has a great development trajectory when it comes to mental health just like the way you want their physical health to be.

The biggest problem with our generation of parents is that we do not have enough time even for ourselves or our spouse. How on earth can we take out time to talk to our kids? We are paying their fees, giving them a good education, prepare them awesome meals, get home their favorite toys, what else do they need? Well, that is your first challenge to overcome. And the challenge is to figure out a flaw in the thought process.

“What you are trying to do here is cover up emotional unavailability (an intangible metric) with materialistic inputs (tangible objects). See the problem?” – says Barbara who is a pschologist expert at TFTH, an assignment help company. Thus make sure that you have a heart to heart conversation with your child even if it is only 10 minutes a day. This will make you seem connected to them and as an entity, they can always fall back on. “For a child, this world can get lonely very quickly if they begin to think along the lines that nobody cares about them. They don’t have the necessary strength to fight off this feeling as adults do. So it is best to prevent such feelings from cropping up in the first place” – opines Mary who runs PaperDoers, a research paper writing service.

This point can be seen as a direct continuation of the above point. Talking to your child shouldn’t be a chore for you but an activity that you enjoy. And where there is fun, comfort and happy emotions automatically make their place. If the time you spend talking to your child seems more like a paid session with a psychiatrist then you really need to change things. The purpose is not to clock 10 minutes or 600 seconds with your child but actually to know what is going on in their life.

If you are uncomfortable while doing the same, your child will quickly pick up on these emotions and will never open up to you. The result of pent up feelings and emotions is pretty disastrous and doesn’t need a formal introduction. There are several examples all around the world where children have been involved in crimes, drugs, and other activities which the civilized society frowns upon. Since you are the adult between the two of you, therefore, it is your responsibility to ensure that your child really feels comfortable with you.

It is important to teach your child to open up about whatever goes on in their mind. Create an atmosphere where they are comfortable talking to you about anything. Just anything. It is not something that can be done in a day but when done properly can reap great results. Because chances are if your child is comfortable enough to talk to you about any kind of positive development or even a taboo topic when it comes to their life, then they might be more than willing to share their story when things go downhill.

But if the only thing that goes on in their mind is how will you react or how severely they will be reprimanded for whatever happened then it is just an added weight to the baggage of emotions they are already carrying. Teach them that it is okay to have negative emotions and openly talk about them as talking helps and releases the toxicity of pent up feelings. Teach them that it can be done in a civilized manner without being harsh or aggressive and in fact talking is much better than hiding it because as an adult and their friend you are quite experienced and capable of dealing with difficult situations. “No matter what, I always have your back buddy!” is what Raghav, a technical blogger at DigitoolsCoupons, says to his son whenever he exudes negative emotions.

Kids are all about fun activities, games, and tasty food! So that is your entry point into their deepest secrets right there! Improvise and adapt. Create mini-versions of games like never have I ever or trick or treat which revolve around opening up and telling secrets about themselves. Rajesh who provides programming homework help uses his programming skills to design small games that he and his young son plays. The deeper and darker a secret is the bigger the reward. But they’ll have to prove whatever they have to say as kids are also expert at cooking up fantasy stories. Remember that all this while you and your child, have this thought clear in their mind that whatever they say will be dealt with in a positive manner.

Having such a friendly environment at home is much better in comparison to a hostile environment. A friendly atmosphere gives rise to dialogues, discussions and healthy constructive debates whereas a hostile scenario gives rise to more secrets, deceit and mind games. So unless you specifically want your child to be the next criminal mastermind, then please try to keep it light at home. Inculcating values and discipline in your child doesn’t need to be done in an army training manner every time. A young mom, Archana who helps students with their “do my paper” requests says – “It does become difficult at times disciplining the kids and there is huge temptation for anger and frustration to take control of you but then you have to remind that what you sow is what you reap”.

To bring out something from within your child, you need to give them something to. Now we don’t expect you to talk to them about your office politics or secret affairs between your colleagues but sometimes just talking to them as adults and not mollycoddling them helps too. Remember when all you wanted as a child was to be heard and treated as an adult and be commended for you ‘valuable’ suggestions? Yeah, your child has the same mentality and you should recognize maybe what your parents and other people couldn’t.

Simple things like how your day went, what is stressing you out, you are thinking of them while in office or at home can go a long way to begin the process of two-way communication. A child or an adult are human beings at the end of the day and therefore it is in our genes to feel appreciated and valued if someone confides in with their secrets. It makes us feel good about ourselves and in a position of power. This is addictive and triggers happy emotions within. So, if you really want your child to open up, you should start opening up too! – opines Ankit who is a blogger and maintains TrumpLearning.

All the points above really help and have been tried and tested time and again when it comes to ensuring good mental health for a child. And the best part about all of them is that they can be done at home, right from this very moment. So what are you waiting for? Go to your kids and talk to them. When was the last time you did so?

In case you have something more to add, please feel free to reach out to us. We would be more than happy to have a look at your suggestions and tell the world about it.