While mental illnesses are more common than you think, raising a child while dealing with a mental illness can pose quite a few challenges. Many adults are impacted by mental illness, but that doesn’t necessarily mean their children will have negative effects. This blog will share how untreated parental mental health can negatively impact children, how to help yourself and your children cope with mental diagnoses, how parenting styles impact childhood mental health, and more.
Most Common Mental Illnesses
Anxiety and depression are common mental illnesses in adults. While many parents may deal with these, they can be managed more easily and limit the effects on children. However, untreated mental illness can impact family members significantly.
More severe mental illnesses like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD, and anger can have physical and mental impacts on children. Coping with a mental illness can be challenging as an adult, but children who have to deal with an unstable adult and navigate the complexity of an illness they know nothing about can feel impossible. Parental mental health is about more than just stress on the child, it can impact decision making an other adult responsibilities.
Even a parent with a minor mental illness can cause children a moderate amount of stress. Having anxiety about situations can lead your kids to feel anxious about them too.
What Studies Have Found About Childhood Impact
Researchers have looked at children with one parent impacted by mental illness, children with both, and children without mental illness in their families. While every family will be different and external factors can also play a role, those children with one or both parents having a mental illness had higher levels of distress.
The American Journal of Psychiatry followed children of depressed parents for 20 years. They found that these children were three times more likely to develop a mental illness or struggle with substance abuse.
PLOS One found that those who struggled with coping, rumination, and blame also were more likely to struggle with mental health problems. Children who didn’t blame themselves or others for their negative experiences had better outcomes.
Additional findings concluded that parental mental health may cause children to:
- Develop a lack of coping skills
- Be at a higher risk of developing behavioral issues
- Face social deprivation
- Develop abusive tendencies
- Have trouble bonding with a mentally ill parent
- Have trauma due to parental suicide attempts, hospitalization, institutionalization, overreactions, or volatile parents.
Parenting Styles And Their Impact On Mental Health
There are multiple types of parenting and your style can change as you and your children grow and learn. Looking at the common parenting styles can help us understand a little more about how they impact the future emotional and mental health of children.
Repeatedly protecting children or limiting their opportunities can cause them to develop high anxiety. In certain situations, some children may do the opposite and develop a sense of over-independence. Critical and dismissive parenting may increase the risk of depression. Judging children on their physical appearance, emotional regulation, and learning abilities can affect their development.
Of the four parenting styles, Authoritarian and Permissive have been linked to higher rates of anxiety and depression.
Uninvolved parents put the most risk on the mental health of children. These children could struggle with emotional regulation, anxiety, depression, or trauma.
Authoritative parents are the most likely to maintain a good relationship with their children. Because they set clear boundaries but are willing to communicate with their children, they help them develop emotional regulation.
Authoritative parenting is different from the authoritarian parenting style, which is a strict style of parenting where one or both parents place unrealistic and/or extreme expectations on children, often without communicating at all. This does not lead to healthy emotional development for the child.
When Are Children Most Vulnerable?
Child development research shows that from newborn to five years old is the most crucial period for brain development. Children can be vulnerable into their teenage years, but especially in their younger years, parental mental health challenges can impact them the most.
Especially the physical manifestations of mental health (withdrawal, emotional unavailability, lack of emotion, abuse, forgetfulness, or hospitalization) will change a child’s development. Even if you have a mental illness, managing your symptoms will limit the effects on young children.
Should Psychological Support Be Sought For Parents or Children?
Both parents and children should seek help to navigate the emotions of mental illness. Parents should seek to improve their symptoms and healthily manage their stress instead of allowing their children to be their therapists. Children can benefit from working with a therapist to help them understand new emotions and why their parents may struggle to be parents to them.
Therapy techniques can help children who may have developed a mental illness due to their parents. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, relaxation, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, talk therapy, art expression, and mindfulness can all help with mental illness.
Parenting With A Mental Illness
Taking preventative interventions will reduce the risk of children developing mental illnesses. Addressing risk factors like poverty, abusive tendencies, poor communication, or hostile behavior, is the best way to keep your child resilient.
Resilient children should understand that they are not responsible for their parent’s difficulties. Working on themselves and moving forward in their own experiences will reduce the risk of mental illness. Some other protective factors you can follow include:
- Show love to your child
- Help them develop good coping skills
- Foster positive peer relationships
- Seek family and friend support
- Articulate your feelings and help children do the same
- Do your best to limit financial or relationship stress from reaching your children
- Foster positive self-esteem
Red Willow Counseling
Our practice offers therapy for all ages. No matter your mental illness or current state in life, our therapists are here for you. Using evidence-based practice and a high sense of compassion, you can better handle life’s challenges. Reach out to schedule an appointment in Salt Lake or Park City today.
