Your Mental Health: Its Possible Impact on Your Childrenby Fran Hopkins | More from this Blogger 09 Apr 2006 09:26 PM Do you ever worry that your own problems with anxiety, depression, or other mental health issues may be affecting your children? If you do, you have good reason to. In 2004, a study was done of 822 children between the ages of three and 12 who lived with both parents. The researchers found that, when both parents reported symptoms of anxiety and depression, their children had more problems with behaviors like abrupt mood changes, cheating, lying, disobedience, bullying, stubbornness, impulsiveness and a bad temper. They also found that, if only the mother had anxiety and depression but the father didn't, then the children were significantly less likely to have behavior problems. It's easy to see what this means when there's only one parent in the home and that parent is dealing with mental health issues. A July 2004 report from the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), entitled "Children of Parents with Mental Illness," reaches similar conclusions. In addition, the AACAP notes that "The risk (that the child may develop mental illness) is particularly strong when a parent has one or more of the following: bipolar disorder; an anxiety disorder; ADHD; schizophrenia; alcoholism or other drug abuse; or depression." That's because there's generally believed to be a genetic component to these conditions - that is, they tend to run in families. Factors that can decrease the children's risk include things like a stable home environment, help and support from family members, positive self-esteem, and a strong relationship with a healthy adult: conditions that may be more difficult to achieve in a single parent home, especially if the single parent is suffering from mental illness. So if we're struggling with our own short- or long-term mental health challenges, what can we do to protect our kids from developing their own difficulties? The AACAP recommends that the mental health professionals from whom we're seeking treatment (this assumes that we're seeking treatment!) question us about our kids' mental health and emotional development. Family therapy may be a way to teach both parent and child(ren) ways to reduce the possible effects of the parent's illness on the child(ren). In conclusion, the AACAP states that "Unfortunately, families, professionals, and society often pay most attention to the mentally ill parent and ignore the children in the family. Providing more attention and support to the children of a psychiatrically ill parent is an important consideration when treating the parent." Here's the bottom line for single parents: if you're suffering from anxiety, depression and/or another mental health disorder, don't try to tough it out. Get help for yourself before your problems cause problems for your kids too. Learn more about Fran Hopkins  Fran Hopkins is a Baby Boomer who just turned 50 and is trying to adjust! Prematurely widowed at age 40, Fran is a single parent to her 16-year-old son. Relevantsingle parenting tags User Comments jude2004 (40) 13 Apr 2006 11:49 PMMy children benefit from my mental illnesses in some ways, and suffer in others. For example, because I have OCD, I am better able to handle my son's OCD. Since no one in my family aside from my college-aged daughter can afford treatment, this means that it's useful that I know that his illness must be both accommodated and challenged. If I didn't have it myself, I would have had a long learning curve to get to this point. My mother was suicidal, and I was given the job of talking her out of it four to six times a year from the time I was seven years old. I would never do that to my kids. I also don't try to make them take up the slack--too much--for me. All right, so I have agoraphobia, and I have trouble getting the mail, so I often ask them to do that when I should try to force myself to do it. And sometimes I send them to the grocery store because I can't face it (I haven't made it in over three weeks, and we do run out of food), but we talk about it in terms of each of us having problems which we need to work on. I exercise to keep my suicidal ideation in check. A few months ago, the four of us were sitting around watching t.v. and I said, "You know, we each have problems, but there's one thing we do have" and my youngest son instantly replied, "We have love." Which is exactly what I meant. Community Tags adhd, bipolar disorder, depression, mental health, single parenting Discuss this article
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