A Few Thoughts on Children’s Mental Health Week 2020
The 3rd of February to the 9th 2020 is Children’s Mental Health Week and the theme is Find Your Brave.
Bravery is a fascinating topic and one I’m glad has been chosen; it comes in many different shapes and sizes. It is acceptance, asking for help, doing something difficult and sometimes it is perseverance, endurance, survival and fighting for the change you need.
The danger is that being brave if presented wrongly can be damaging too. As a child, I feared a lot. This wasn’t my fault, there were many very valid reasons for this. Some message I frequently heard was “don’t be such a cry baby”, “be a man” and “be brave”. It is easy to see now how bad these were for me, the damage they had on my self-esteem. What this meant is that every time I was scared, and the world terrified me, I felt as though a failure. As though I’d done wrong and let people down. Of course, some of this is systematic of toxic masculinity; but also, I kind of feel like some adults believe that children can’t have worries or troubles and so are dismissed and told to get on with it.
The issues children face mentally are not less than those of adults; in fact, the lack of context and experience makes them more complicated, all the more likely to escalate. However, when it comes to being brave, I will be thinking on what it means to foster bravery without diminishing, hurting or turning the word into another toxic source of anxiety, stress and depression. I’ll be taking time to consider how I define bravery and strength to the children in my life.
Let’s leave old ideas in the past and do this right.
The Busy Papa
Also known as Aaron, The Busy Papa focuses on lifestyle, parenting and personal wellbeing content. He has two decades experience in creative writing (including several published poems) and strongly dislikes (though tolerates) tomatoes.
never be too scared to ask for help sometimes we need a helping hand to carry the weight of life x
Thanks for the information. I believe we all need to be more aware.Learning is Life Long. Intergenerational work, socialising can be beneficial :- To all. Education comes from experience /s. So it seems that we need good experiences.
It seems normal to worry or be anxious at times e.g. New experience, New situation, etc. A degree of uncertainty. Good experiences can help build our knowledge base, skills, confidence, etc.
Though somehow we need to learn to avoid dangers, keep ourself and others safe. How do we do this? Maybe that is where there is a lot of uncertainty.
Lots of information seems to come via the media, news reports, etc. Perhaps there is a great need to make media producers accountable. As surely news should be Factual. In order that we are accurately knowledgeable. In order that we can keep ourselves safe from known risks. Like when weather forecasts advise against in – necessary travel when weather is expected to be bad e.g. High Winds / Storm.