Help Me To Parent

Allen will be joining the fantastic Andrea Gilligan in about 15 minutes on answering listeners questions on how parents can support their children taking exams. Hope you can tune in!

Minding Your Mental Health - Quick Tips

Many of the parenting articles we read give us lots of tips and techniques on how to take care of our children, but in this article, we want to help you take care of yourself a little bit better. As the saying goes, it’s essential to take care of your own mask first, in order to be able to take care of others as best as we can. Here are some simple tips and techniques that will help you maintain your own mental health.

What is mental illness?

Just like your physical health, your mental health can get damaged/hurt/sick. A mental illness is a medical condition that can stop a person from living a normal life where they aren’t able deal with everyday stresses in their life.

Serious mental illnesses include major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and borderline personality disorder. The good news about mental illness is that recovery is possible.

Mental illnesses can affect persons of any age, race, religion or income. Mental illnesses are not a sign of weakness. Mental illnesses are treatable.

Mental Health is a person’s ability to deal with the everyday stresses of life, like work, school and friendships.
Almost all mental health issues can be treated if diagnosed properly.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates up to 25% of people will experience some form of mental illness or disorder.
In Europe 20% will have mild or moderate disorders and 5% will have severe symptoms.

Only 20% of people who need help will look for it.

How To Maintain Positive Mental Health

Talk About Your Feelings
Talking about your feelings can help you stay in good mental health and deal with times when you feel troubled. It’s part of taking charge of your wellbeing and doing what you can to stay healthy.

Eat Well
There are strong links between what we eat and how we feel – for example, caffeine and sugar can have an immediate effect. But food can also have a long-lasting effect on your mental health.

Keep in Touch
Friends and family can make you feel included and cared for. They can offer different views from whatever’s going on inside your own head. They can help keep you active, keep you grounded and help you solve practical problems.

Take a Break
A change of scene or a change of pace is good for your mental health. It could be a five-minute pause from cleaning your kitchen, a half-hour lunch break at work or a weekend exploring somewhere new. A few minutes can be enough to de-stress you.

Accept Who You Are
Some of us make people laugh, some are good at maths, others cook fantastic meals. Some of us share our lifestyle with the people who live close to us, others live very differently. We’re all different.

Keep Active
Experts believe exercise releases chemicals in your brain that make you feel good. Regular exercise can boost your self-esteem and help you concentrate, sleep, look and feel better. Exercise also keeps the brain and your other vital organs healthy.

Drink Sensibly
We often drink alcohol to change our mood. Some people drink to deal with fear or loneliness, but the effect is only temporary.

Ask for Help
None of us are superhuman. We all sometimes get tired or overwhelmed by how we feel or when things go wrong. If things are getting too much for you and you feel you can’t cope, ask for help.

Do Something You’re Good At
What do you love doing? What activities can you lose yourself in? What did you love doing in the past? Enjoying yourself helps beat stress. Doing an activity you enjoy probably means you’re good at it and achieving something boosts your self-esteem.

Care for Others
Caring for others is often an important part of keeping up relationships with people close to you. It can even bring you closer together.

(adapted from http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/)

Teenage Behaviour & Rudeness

The teenage years can be very difficult as your child tries to navigate their way from childhood to becoming an independent adult. Throw into that the mix of hormones and physical changes and it is an explosive time!

So what level of moodiness and attitude should you be willing to accept as a parent? We recommend that a very basic and golden rule should be that your teenager communicates and behaves in a respectful manner towards you and other family members. Disrespect is not acceptable at any time. Of course there are times when the teenager will say something or do something that, while it is borderline on disrespect, it doesn’t actually bother you. In cases like that, trust your gut feeling – if you don’t feel disrespected then ignore the behaviour. Many times parents ask us what constitutes disrespect. Often, you may wonder if you are overreacting and perhaps you should be willing to ignore certain comments or actions by your teenager. The golden rule is that if you feel disrespected by your teenagers behaviour, then you are right to treat it as disrespectful and insist on your teenager changing this behaviour. Again, trust your gut feeling to decide if the behaviour is disrespectful or not. Continue reading here: https://helpme2parent.ie/articles/teenage-rudeness/

How to Manage Anxiety and Stress Before Exams

This is the time of year when our teenagers undergo most stress when preparing for Junior and Leaving cert exams. As a result we as parents often become stressed too, and so the stress spirals.

Here are eight ways which can help your children de-stress, which will then help them access the information they already know.

1: Prepare: write a list each day of the priorities for that day and tick each one off whenever complete. This gives a sense of control, which allows them to feel satisfaction at the end of each day.

2: Organise: clear the desk. Over the years, we have found that students who present with exam stress, often have a chaotic desk. This leads to difficulties in focussing on one thing at a time so tasks are left unfinished and stress builds up. To relieve this stress it is useful for the student to select the subject, take out the books required, do the study or work and return the books before taking out the next subject. This allows the brain to focus on one thing at a time.

3: Work Sensibly: it is sometimes felt that if the student is at their desk all evening, they are being productive. But the human brain can only stay focussed for limited periods of time. So build in breaks every 20-30 minutes during the study period, away from the desk. These breaks only need to be 5 minutes at a time. This helps clear the mind and allows the student to come back refreshed and therefore focus for longer. If the student learns by listening, have them speak out loud and have music playing, this will facilitate them activate their primary way of taking in information. If they move a lot, let them walk around while studying, if they are extroverted group study is useful, if introverted studying quietly in their room helps. Don’t assume that the way you studied will necessarily work for your child, find out the best way for them.

4: Elicit Support: if your student is under pressure, it is useful if they have someone to talk to. This may be someone who has gone through the experience of exams before and can normalise the worries. Every human needs validation and having someone on your side takes the sense of isolation and stress away.

5: Re-assess: write a list of what is within your control and what is outside your control. Then move through the list and see what actions you might take to work on what is within your control. Then examine what is outside your control and see if there is anything you can do about these issues. Do you need support, do you need to ask for help, do you need to let someone know about this issue? Often people leave issues too long before bringing them to the attention of someone who can actually do something about them. But remember even if something is outside your control, you still have control over how you let it affect you.

6: Finish what you start: finish each task as you go along. If we leave lots of tasks unfinished, they stay in our minds and then our focus is divided. So where feasible complete each task as quickly as possible and put it away.

7: Unload: this is a mental decision. Each evening find a physical spot where you can mentally leave the work sitting safely (this may be the garden, or a tree you can see from your window), you can pick it up next morning before school. This takes a little practice, but you will find after a few weeks you will do it automatically. This will give your head a rest from the stress and develop a very useful tool for the future in the workplace.

8: Live with balance: we work to live not live to work, so find some balance. Enjoy loved ones, they are the important people in your life. Take daily exercise, this keeps you fit and healthy and releases endorphins which help to de-stress. Eat well and often, we need nourishment to work to our best. Have fun, meet with friends, relax, listen to music, happy fulfilled people function much better in life and school.