Lesson Tag: Mental health

As your child moves to college, your relationship changes, but remains important. In this quick video, you'll hear some strategies to maintain open communication with your teen as they transition into college.

Before you can support your college student, it's important to understand what might be affecting their mental health. In this quick video, we'll talk about the trifecta of educational pressures, family pressures and social pressures that today's teens are facing.

From applications to move-in to taking their first exams, college students are under a lot of pressure and are navigating some big transitions. This quick video will help you understand what make college so stressful for young adults.

We hope our children will make healthy choices, form lasting, meaningful connections, and develop a strong, positive sense of self. In other words, we want them to thrive! LGBTQ+ youth face more risks to their well-being than their non-LGBTQ+ peers. Risks are even greater for people with low income and for people of color. The good news is that with the right information you can support your child through these obstacles.

School refusal, also known as school avoidance, is a misunderstood and complex challenge. While school refusal is often viewed as misbehavior, in most cases students are simply too anxious to enter the school environment and, in the cases of some students, have trouble leaving their homes at all. Often, children with school refusal behaviors may complain of physical symptoms such as headaches or stomach aches before school, or repeatedly ask to visit the school nurse.

Sometimes children don’t outgrow fears that are typical in younger children like being apart from parents or extreme fears about specific things or situations like dogs or going to the doctor’s office. Sometimes fears or worries may interfere with home, school or play activities. Sometimes children may seem irritable and angry or experience physical symptoms like stomach aches, and still other kids turn their symptoms inward causing us to miss them. In any of these cases, your child may be experiencing anxiety and will benefit from focused support and sometimes professional services. As parents, we may sometimes be inclined to help in ways that actually make symptoms worse like allowing children to avoid certain situations or getting worried about our children’s worries.

Your child’s brain is in a process of intense physical, cognitive and social development. They are becoming more aware of themselves and forming identity. As their brain changes and struggles to adapt to their social environment, they may be vulnerable to depression. Risk factors for depression include depression in the family, psycho-social, and environmental stressors.

Bullying is a topic of concern in schools across the country. With convenient access to digital devices and social media, hurtful messages are easily spread. Adding to the distress, kids can post harmful messages with anonymity, ease and without a real-time reaction from the victim. In addition, children increasingly look to peers for direction including values, identity and codes of behavior.

Strong, positive parent-child relationships are the foundation of good mental health. This class will help you focus on practical strategies to build those relationships whether you grew up in families with those kinds of connections or not. After this class you will be able to:

• Recognize the connection between relationships and mental health
• Define attachment and recognize its importance for your child’s development
• Identify and apply 10 practical steps to build a strong positive relationship with your child

Parents play an important role in children’s psychotherapy. It is important that you share concerns with the therapist and with your child, participate in creating goals for treatment. Ideally child therapists work with parents to support their child’s healthy development and address symptoms in ways that help.