Something that will always be important is your children’s well-being. How they see the world is going to be based on how they are raised and how they are taught. If you suffer from a mental illness, you might worry if you’re going to mess them up. Your mental health affects your parenting, because it is bound into how you see the world. However, having a mental illness does not mean you are bound to mess up your kids or send them off the deep end. Something I often worry about is them hating me when they get older because of my mental health issues. But that is so far off, they aren’t abused, and they are well taken care of.
Yet my anxiety gets to me and makes me feel the opposite of what is. An effect of my mental health on my parenting is overthinking whether or not I have overstepped a situation. I make myself rethink situations often to make sure I didn’t overreact about something. And honestly, I have overreacted and yelled when I shouldn’t have. Sometimes my mental health gets the better of me.
I apologize to them, and they are not in the dark. And sometimes, my kids are why my anxiety gets so bad, when they don't listen for example. If they have to be disciplined, I go into panic mode half the time for even just having to yell at them to stop doing or to do something. Honesty is such a crucial thing when you have a mental illness (even if you don’t honesty is crucial for anything) and there is no exception to your children. They may not understand mental illnesses, but kids are smart, and they’re sponges. The best thing you can do is be honest. I tell mine when I am having a bad day, I have explained to them the things I struggle with daily. Keeping this open communication with them helps me and them. When I was a kid, I often felt alone and misunderstood. I was treated like I wouldn’t understand anything. And my parents wouldn’t talk to me about things.
Of course, your children shouldn’t be burdened by issues, but that doesn’t mean keeping things from them is what you should do. Believe it or not but they actually get it. Not completely at their age, but they understand enough to know that I have some really bad days, and that it isn’t their fault. They know they are loved, and that I can tell them things. That I will tell them things. It’s just like any other relationship, communication!
How does your mental health affect your parenting?
Best,
~TKNott~
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