How to speak with your child about mental health

Healthy communication with your child starts with a strong relationship.

To build a strong relationship, prioritize time with your child and foster acceptance. Build fun activities together into your schedule.

To start building good communication habits, you want to create an experience that your child will want to repeat with you. Your child wants to feel heard.

One effective way to make the other person feel heard is to practice paraphrasing some of what your child had said.

Some teens can be fairly uncommunicative at times, but luckily, this is temporary. Don’t use a direct approach confronting your child about this, but continue to talk to them with positive cues.

Continue to ask questions, even if you feel they are not interested in communicating.

Ask about depression and anxiety and how it can impact them.

Ask them if they are interested in talking to a professional about these feelings.

Tell them if they start to have thoughts of hurting themselves, to tell someone.

Instill a sense of hope, that there are other options available if they want to talk to someone about these.