Destigmatizing the struggle
Islander shares how she addresses mental health with her kids
Mental health can be a tricky discussion with adults, let alone with children. Especially when concerns arise and it’s difficult to address them.
Erin Parkes is a mother of three and is well-acquainted with the mental health talk. Her three children, two biological ages 18 and 15, and one adopted, 15, all have their own mental health challenges.
“All three of my children have diagnosed mental health challenges. My 18-year-old has depression and anxiety, and he is also autistic. My 15-year-old has anxiety and suspected undiagnosed bipolar, and my other 15-year-old daughter has PTSD, reactive attachment disorder and dissociative disorder,” said Parkes.
Parkes also has her own mental health challenges that, as a mother, can be difficult to balance but ultimately allow her to understand and help her children more effectively, says the 44-year-old from French River, P.E.I.
“I have bipolar 1 disorder and an anxiety disorder. I also suffered from anorexia when I was a teenager and in my 20s. I was hospitalized several times for anorexia, suicide attempts and mood instability. It was not really accepted or viewed as a legitimate health concern in my home growing up, so I had to get myself treatment as a teenager,” Parkes said.
“I don’t want my kids to have that same experience of stigma and lack of acceptance within their home. Also, it took me years, decades even, to understand myself.
“When all we see is the behaviour, it can be quite frustrating, but if we look beneath the behaviour and see a child that’s struggling with their emotions, it can lead to a more caring response.” Erin Parkes
“I’m very open about my struggles with mental health and my specific experiences, like what I find challenging and strategies to overcome those challenges, in the hopes that my kids can learn from my experiences and learn to see mental health as health and not a defect or something to be stigmatized.”
Parkes has a PhD in music education with students with mental health challenges and disabilities. She is also a professor at the University of Ottawa and researches education for students with behaviour disorders, mood disorders and trauma.
With this educational background, Parkes sparked the conversation about mental health as soon as she could, especially with her children having mental health struggles as early as preschool.
“My oldest has really struggled with anxiety since he was a pre-schooler, and my 15-year-old son was not far behind. I really don’t feel like it’s something to be ignored until they turn to some magical age when it should be discussed. It needs to be a part of the conversation from the beginning, just done in ageappropriate ways,” she said.
“From early on, when we would see there was a struggle with an aspect of mental health, we would discuss it in that context and help to give them the language for what they were experiencing — ”I see that you feel anxious about this” or “sometimes people get frustrated and have a hard time managing that feeling, and that’s normal.” And from there, talking about strategies to manage those feelings.”
AN EXERCISE IN ADVOCATING
Parkes was quick to advocate for her children’s needs in environments outside of home.
“We were also very proactive in working with schools, with all three of my kids having IEPs specifically to address their mental health challenges. It included things like being able to go to a quiet space if needed, or being able to listen to music with headphones because it was calming,” said Parkes.
For other parents, Parkes has some mental health red flags to be on the look-out for. It’s also important to recognize that every child is different in what they struggle with and how they express it, she says.
“My oldest son mainly struggles with depression, so we can see that he’s really struggling when he sleeps all day and doesn’t want to eat. My middle child is highly anxious, so we watch for him catastrophizing things, viewing everything as a disaster. My youngest is mainly dealing with the effects of trauma, as she was adopted at age 9 after many years in foster care, so our main challenges with her are around emotional regulation and being overly reactive,” Parkes said.
“Thankfully, all three benefit from a very controlled sensory environment, and me too, and that makes such a huge difference. There isn’t always enough awareness of how the sensory environment impacts the nervous system, and thus mental health.”
Parkes emphasizes the importance of being curious about children’s behaviour, as it can help in helping them.
“When my middle child as younger, from about grades 2-6, he often engaged in something called “chandeliering,” which is to see everything as a catastrophe. But when there wasn’t a real situation happening to match the anxiety he was feeling, he would make one up. He would tell us nearly daily that there was a bully at school and recount all the things that were happening,” said Parkes.
“We would talk him through why he was doing it to help him to understand himself, try to communicate the possible consequences of this behaviour, and then go through things he can do at school if he’s having a hard time, since that was the root. We also started therapy and medication. This really helped a lot. Now, at 15, he still struggles with anxiety, but he has such incredible emotional intelligence and self-awareness.”
In addition to this curiosity, Parkes is also an advocate for children taking mental health days.
“Mental health is health. Needing a mental health day is no different from needing to take a day off because you have the flu. My only caveat to that is that if there’s something deeper going on and it’s leading to many days off, this may not be feasible and may lead to other problems if the child falls behind in school,” she said.
Parkes said she advocates an empathy-based approach, trying to connect with seeing the child or student as ‘in distress’ rather than ‘causing distress.’
“This is important because, with kids, their mental health struggles can often manifest as maladaptive behaviours, which can be challenging for teachers and caregivers,” she said. “When all we see is the behaviour, it can be quite frustrating, but if we look beneath the behaviour and see a child that’s struggling with their emotions, it can lead to a more caring response.”
AN ONGOING STRUGGLE
Mental health is always ongoing and struggling with it shouldn’t be shamed, said Parkes.
“It’s impossible to compartmentalize mental health. It impacts every aspect of functioning and learning. It changes the way your brain and body process information. I don’t think that’s widely understood … kids who struggle with mental health can struggle at school, struggle at home, struggle in activities,” she said.
“So often I hear teachers say, ‘they’re so bright, they should be doing really well,’ as if intelligence is the only thing at play when it comes to academic achievement. We need to consider the whole child, and if they’re struggling with mental health, that becomes part of the whole package. We need to accept and support all parts of that child, as a whole.”