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Key points
- When parents provide support for emotional health, kids are less overwhelmed by life stress and less likely to think of suicide.
- Emphasizing openness about hard things and showing respect for kids' perspectives helps kids to keep talking.
- It's never too late to set a new tone in communication with teenagers.
My community is grieving. Everyone knows someone who has been affected by the suicides this past month in our local high schools. “That was the fifth suicide this month,” one distressed mother told me. “They were successful kids; some were top athletes. I worry for my kids. How can I keep them talking to me so this doesn’t happen to us?” Her kids were in elementary school.
Parents know that keeping our kids talking to us is one of the most important things we can do. But how can we make sure that happens? There are specific and actionable steps parents can take to create a culture of open communication in their families. If parents set the right tone, kids will keep talking. When parents provide support, they can make a huge difference in their child’s mental health.
Mental Health Crisis in Our Youth
Kids and adolescents have just faced more than a year and a half of intense pandemic stress at a vulnerable time in their development. They experienced social isolation, fear, and uncertainty, and unique educational challenges. Now, they are back in school with teachers who are under pressure to increase student workloads to make up for lost time — all while the pandemic smolders on.
The impact of sustained stress on these young brains has now materialized into a rapidly worsening mental health crisis. In my own pediatric practice, I have never seen anything like it. Both the number of kids and the severity of their mental health struggles have skyrocketed. Tragically, so have the suicide attempts by teens across the United States.
There are no guarantees, and terrible tragedies can and do happen to parents who are trying their very best. But parents do make a difference in preventing suicide. In one research study on middle schoolers, parent support was found to buffer the effect of life stress on the kids. Middle schoolers with supportive parents had notably lower rates of suicidal ideation — i.e., thoughts that they’d be better off dead or of harming themselves.
Creating a Culture of Communication
When kids are young, the goal is to create a family culture of openness and honesty about hard things. One of the first steps is to simply call things what they are. Either minimizing problems or blowing them out of proportion sends the message that we can’t really talk about things. But telling it like it is sets us free to grapple with challenges.
For example, when kids in my practice ask me, “Doctor, will the shot hurt?” I say, “Of course it will.” Because kids are used to adults soothing them with lies, my response surprises them, and they start listening. “Would you like to know what you can do to make it hurt less?” I ask them before telling them how.
Once you've told the truth about a situation, try to take a collaborative problem-solving approach with your kids. Instead of telling them what to do, express your faith in them by exploring the issue together. Listen to them without immediately trying to fix them. When your message is “We can figure this out together,” and you invite kids to work with you, it is amazing how often kids will simply tell you the solution. Practice with little things so you have the skills in place when the big problems come up.
Kids are more likely to engage in collaboration with us if we have sent a consistent message that their opinions matter. When they are young and are constantly telling you about what they notice, say, “That’s an interesting observation. Tell me more.” When they are sorting something out, ask, “What’s your perspective on that?” or “How are you thinking about that?” These questions send a message of respect for them and their abilities to figure things out.
Avoiding Shutting Kids Down
When taking steps to open communication, well-meaning parents often undermine themselves with two bad habits. Often, these mistakes happen when parents get worried about what they should say and forget to listen openly. But both of these habits shut down communication by sending the message that emotions are unacceptable.
The first and more obvious mistake is the old-school “tough it out” mentality. When parents tell their kids to “Suck it up, buttercup,” they may be sharing what their own parents told them as kids. But they are also sending a message that emotions or struggles are weak or shameful. Kids cannot work through problems if it is unacceptable to have those problems in the first place.
The second way parents shut down the conversation with kids is less obvious. Parents who are committed to being supportive may overdo it. They hover, helicopter-style, always monitoring their kids' feelings. Unfortunately, that level of attention sends the message that emotions are dangerous. Parents’ frantic attempts to comfort their children send the message that emotions are too much for the parent. Children learn that they cannot be trusted to handle their own emotions.
And because the hovering actually irritates kids, they may start to see themselves as irritable people. Kids with helicopter parents frequently learn to shut down their emotions if only to get some relief from their parents’ constant check-ins to “make sure they are OK.” In private, kids often tell me they have hidden their mental health struggles so their parents wouldn’t overreact. They only admit them to me once they've gotten severe.
Lastly, when tough-it-out parents get worried enough, they can confuse their children by suddenly acting like helicopter parents. They may even demand that their children share their vulnerable emotions. But if their kids do open up, it often backfires because such parents aren’t used to working with emotions and don’t have much to offer.
Setting a New Tone With Older Kids
What if your kids are older and the communication has not been open? It is definitely not too late. The key is to be frank with your kids. Have a family meeting and tell them that you recognize that conversation has not always been easy. Admit that knowing how to talk about emotions or mental health has been hard for you and that you might have sent a message encouraging kids to keep it to themselves. Invite them to join the conversation, but do not demand it.
Try something like this, “I have not always known how to handle this. I’ve also just learned that what I thought was helping might not have been helping. What’s your perspective? I want to be there for you; I love you. I was hoping we can figure this out together.”
If your teen is not ready to engage, open the door for an apology. Tell them you recognize your approach in the past might even have hurt them or made them feel shame. Invite them to share it with you and, without excuses, take responsibility and apologize. Share that you don’t always know how to communicate with them, but you want to learn, and you are ready to listen. Ask them to tell you when you are overbearing.
Sometimes, despite our best efforts, a teen is just not ready to talk. If you are concerned about their mental health, do not hesitate. Get them set up with a therapist or meet with your pediatrician.
Addressing Mental Health Directly
Initiating therapy right away when a child is struggling makes a tremendous difference. It's no different than going to the doctor while the infection is small instead of waiting until you might lose the leg, or getting a young child speech therapy before they fall too far behind in development.
All too often, parents delay treatment, hoping their child might be going through a “phase.” That's one word we need to stop using when it comes to emotional health. "It's a phase" is really just another way parents shut down the conversation. It's a way of saying, "If I ignore it, maybe it'll go away" — another way we tell our kids we don't want to deal with their emotions.
But when parents have the courage to call things what they are, they give their children the same courage. Dealing with emotional health struggles while the problems are small can not only prevent severe depression but also can give kids critical skills for life.
