Children's mental health awareness week

So, here we are again. Take 3 of our national lockdown and we're all stuck at home climbing the walls in frustration.

I know that other parts of the world are less stringent than us, but we are ALL facing unprecedented challenges that thankfully happen rarely.

We can all sit and make a joke about being driven to drink by homeschooling our children, we can clip them round the ear (jokingly) for making a silly mistake in their work, but do we REALLY take into account how this lockdown is affecting them? I'm not sure that I have taken it as seriously as maybe I should have.

We tend to assume that a child's world is uncomplicated, they don't have bills to pay, they aren't being driven made by a manager, director or CEO that demands more and more from us for the same money we've been on for years. We take it for granted that at the end of a day they close their eyes and dream away everything that has bothered them just a few hours previously, but why is that the case? Our children are simply smaller versions of us, and where as we've developed certain coping mechanisms they haven't had a chance.

We can meditate, we can crack open a bottle of wine or talk to our friends/partners about whatever is bothering us (some of us find this easy, other folk do not)  this option *might* well be available to our kids, but they don't know how to turn their concerns into a picture that we can see and help them understand.

Could you imagine being locked down at the age your child/younger sibling/nephew or niece currently are and being able to talk frankly, and then expect resolution of some form from talking to an older head?

Children today are in the middle of a another HUGE step along the mental evolutionary path of the human race, they are being confronted with things that we adults are only just ourselves learning to understand.

We didn't have 100 different genders to potentially identify as, that's a colossal subject right there. Being gay wasn't as open and accepted as it is today (sometimes) The world is generally more accommodating and that is a GREAT thing, the more we can educate ourselves the better, but it is also far more information than I certainly ever had to process as a child. As we embrace acceptance we also decrease secrecy and the feelings of shame that previous generations contended with, but we also increase the number of social influences that kids have to deal with. 

We are constantly ramming stranger danger warnings down their throats, not necessarily because things are a whole lot worse than when we were children, but back then unless we picked up a newspaper we didn't hear about things, whereas now almost everybody has access to news articles about people snatching kids from the streets on almost every media website. Tje very people they are supposed to be able to turn to are potential murderers or child abusers.

Growing up I had a routine, go to school, finish school, eat dinner, go out and play with my friends, wait for dark and then go home. 

Rinse. Repeat.

The journey from juvenile to adult has NEVER been more complex, and it falls upon us to spot the signs of potential mental health issues as they arise. So whay do we look out for? Well kist like adults there is no 'one size fits all approach to symptons and diagnosis, but be particularly mindful of the following.

- Sadness for a period of time.
- Withdrawing from social situations (after school    clubs, chatting to friends etc)
- Self harm or talking about the desire to do so.
- Talking about death or suicide
- Changes in mood or eating habits
- Weight loss
- Trouble sleeping
- Loss of academic performance and, or          
  concentration.

It doesn't mean that just because your child is experiencing these symptoms that they are mentally struggling, but they are important markers to look out for.

If anybody would like to talk about what I have written please drop me a message through this blog or Facebook.

If you think this would be useful for people you know then share the shit out of it, I'm not interested in fame or fortune, but the more people that recognise and deal with mental health issues, the better the world will be.

Much love,

Dave x

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