It’s sometimes difficult for adults to wrap their heads around addiction and mental illness, so how can a parent explain these topics to their children in a way that is accurate and age-appropriate? At Cottonwood, in Tucson, Arizona, we want to provide you with the tools to help your child to understand behavioral health.
What Children Should Know About Behavioral Health
Mental health can be complicated, but when you’re talking to kids, you want to keep it simple. Even small children can understand:
- There are different types of sicknesses. Sometimes a person’s body becomes ill, but other times, their mind gets sick. This can make their brain work differently.
- A person whose mind becomes sick is not bad or dangerous.
- When a person has an illness that affects their brain, they might take medicine to help, just like we do when our body gets sick. Sometimes they only need the medicine for a little while, but sometimes they take it for a really long time.
- There are doctors who help people when their brains get sick. They teach their patients different ways to handle their illness, so they don’t feel as bad.
As your children grow up, you can continue the conversation and answer questions they ask about behavioral health in ways that are relatable to them:
- Depression is when someone feels sad more often than other people. It can also make them feel tired or believe that they are a bad person when they are not.
- Anxiety is when a person worries a lot. Sometimes it is helpful for a person with anxiety to take a break somewhere quiet and do some deep breathing to calm down.
- Bipolar disorder is when someone has really big changes in how they feel, that aren’t related to what is happening around them. Sometimes they are really sad for a while, but then they can get hyper and make choices that aren’t very good for them. It can be really confusing when we know a person with bipolar disorder because they can act really differently, depending on what is going on inside their minds.
- Addiction is when a person cannot stop using an unhealthy coping skill, like alcohol, drugs, or gambling, on their own. People who become addicted to something aren’t bad. They are usually just people who are hurting and don’t know what to do about it. There are programs they can go to, to help them learn more coping skills and to deal with the things that caused them to use unhealthy coping skills in the first place.
- Sometimes, when a behavioral health problem gets really big, the person goes to live at a hospital or treatment program for a while. This allows them to focus on getting better without being distracted by other things.
Why Kids Need to Know About Behavioral Health
You might prefer that your child not be exposed to information about substance use and mental illness. You would probably rather let them just be kids. Understandably, a parent would want to protect their child from unpleasant concepts; however, knowledge is power, and equipping your children with age-appropriate information will serve them better, long-term, by providing them with:
- Vocabulary: Most mental illnesses begin before the age of 18. Talking to your child can give them the tools to ask for help if they ever need it. Being able to say what they are experiencing will also improve their chances of getting the right help quickly, which can reduce their risk of developing problems that can result from delayed treatment, such as substance use disorders.
- Permission: A child who has not been taught that mental illness and substance use disorders are topics that are closed to discussion is less likely to feel shame and stigma when they want to ask questions or express worries. It will also likely make them feel safer talking to you about their behavioral health if you ever see signs that they could be struggling.
- Insight: Chances are, your child will encounter people who struggle with mental illness and/or addiction at some point in their lives. There might be a person in your family, house of worship, neighborhood, or their school who experiences these concerns. If your children are educated about behavioral health, they are less likely to be fearful. They are also less likely to internalize stigma if they develop a mental health or substance use disorder later, which may make it easier for them to seek out the support they need to recover.
At Cottonwood, we think it’s important for children, adolescents, and adults to have the tools they need to understand behavioral health disorder basics. Whether you have a small child or a teenager who is ready for deeper conversations, we encourage you to think about ways you can equip your kids to better understand mental health and addiction in an age-appropriate way.
