Mental health matters even if you are a child or an adult it can be important to look after your mental health. As an adult might have psychological and emotional needs children can also have psychological and emotional needs.
If a child has good mental health he may do good in academics, build good relationships, and grow immensely.
Building healthy relationships with your child is a must.
Communication: A child should have a good relationship with his parents.
A good parent-child relationship should have healthy communication which means the child should be able to express his thoughts, opinions, and emotions without fear.
If you are attentive and a good listener your child can have no problems and feel safe expressing himself.
If you neglect your children when they are speaking they can feel resentment and can have constant cravings for attention.
Safe and secure attachment: A child should feel safe and secure with his parents or caregiver which helps build trust.
If a child knows he is loved and is taken care of he can feel safe with his parents and caregiver.
If a child has assurance then he can easily explore his surroundings because he might feel that he has someone who is watching out, that is when he can feel securely attached to his parents and caregiver.
Self-esteem: Healthy self-esteem of a child can help him build healthy relationships.
He can grow in academics, he can talk efficiently with people, he can have good social skills, and can perceive difficulties and challenges as opportunities to learn.
Why initial stages of a child’s mental health is important?
Building foundation: When a child is growing his brain may also be developing so the psychological needs should also met.
Brain regions that are related to emotional support and emotional needs might be growing too so parents and caregivers can check if their child’s emotional needs are met.
The behavior patterns developed in early stages such as ignorant, and anxious can cultivate toxic attachment styles when the child grows as an adult.
After becoming an adult, children who had secured relationships in their growing childhood may have healthy relationships later.
However, children who feel insecure during their childhood can develop low self-esteem and may have trust and intimacy issues.
Coping mechanisms: A behavior or pattern of how to face emotional breakdowns can often be developed in childhood.
Children could learn to express, identify, and manage emotions from their parents and caregivers.
A child can follow everyone surrounding him so if a parent or caregiver has healthy emotional habits like expressing emotions and solving problems he can develop those habits too.
Doctor Ashdin signifies about child’s mental health that some parenting styles can have a greater impact on a child’s mental health
Here are some of the parenting styles and their effects:
Excessive criticism:
Always criticizing a child and using harsh words or negative words can affect a child’s mental health and can also affect the thoughts on creating a self-image which can cause low self-esteem and low self-value. Criticizing can also cause a child to apologize constantly and a child can grow up with anxiety due to verbal lashing.
Being over-controlling and overprotective:
Always making decisions for your child and not allowing them to make the decisions is indirectly restricting the child’s independence which also doesn’t allow them to learn from their mistakes.
Being over-controlling or over-protecting can have some effects on a child’s mental health they can become mentally fragile, they will not be able to solve problems which means a lack of problem-solving skills, they can have anxiety and dependency issues, they can also struggle with independence as an adult.
Withholding love as a form of punishment:
Parents acting cold due to wrongdoings of the child can also affect the child’s mental health. Giving a cold shoulder to the child can affect their mental health, they can feel very unworthy of love they can also develop behaviour of people pleasing for seeking validation. They might also develop low self-esteem issues and low self-value.
Parenting styles you need to know and their impact on a child’s mental health.
Authoritarian parenting:
- Authoritarian parenting could be parents who are strict and want their children to follow rules and regulations.
- Wants their children to obey them. They can have expectations from their children to follow rules because of which their children may not be able to express their emotions and may feel that they have less freedom.
Impact of authoritarian parenting on child’s mental health:
- Children may suffer from expressing emotions and can develop stress, and anxiety. Children may develop low self-esteem and depression too.
- Because of having less independence due to authoritarian parenting, they may struggle to make good decisions and also struggle in solving problems.
Authoritative parenting:
- Authoritative parenting can be when parents along with rules and regulations consider their child’s needs and desires and nurture them with love and affection.
- So their children could become disciplined and happy as well because they receive love, and support from their parents.
Impacts of authoritative parenting on a child’s mental health
- Children can develop high self-esteem and confidence.
- They might see a high growth in their academics as well.
- Along with high self-esteem and confidence they may develop healthy relationships with their friends and people surrounding them as they can have good communication skills too.
Permissive parenting:
- Permissive parenting can be parenting in which parents nurture their children. Lots of love and affection is shown but there may be a lack of discipline and rules.
- Parents can have low or no expectations in return and might try to avoid conflicts with children even if they aren’t behaving well which means inappropriate behavior would be neglected.
Impacts of permissive parenting on child’s mental health:
Permissive parenting may have both positive as well as negative impacts on a child’s mental health
Positive impacts of permissive parenting on child’s mental health:
- Children may feel an emotional connection with their parents and caregivers as they can receive love and support from them which can create a strong bond between them.
- Permissive parenting can also help children to make firm decisions and can improve problem-solving ability, confidence, etc.
Negative impacts of permissive parenting on child’s mental health:
- Children may suffer from managing time because of a lack of discipline.
- Children raised by permissive parents may have a hard time respecting elderly people in their houses, relatives, etc.
- They may suffer from setting boundaries.
Some children might need special attention because they can have emotional, physical, intellectual, and developmental disabilities. Trying medical treatments and therapies can be necessary. As children are developing physically mentally and emotionally identifying the problems can be very important.
Closing thoughts:
In this blog I have mentioned how should be a child’s mental health and what can be done, I have also mentioned excessive criticism being overcontrolling and overprotective, and withholding love as a form of punishment can affect a child’s mental health and what are the impacts of permissive parenting on a child’s mental health, what permissive parenting is, what are the impacts of authoritative parenting, and what authoritative parenting is, impacts of authoritarian parenting.