Mental Health Awareness: The Signs You Should Look Out For

In honour of #BellLetsTalk which happened this past week; we decided that we wanted to help spread some mental health awareness as well. We understand that as parents, there are certain topics that can feel daunting and unapproachable. However, we are here to give you some tips and tricks on how to help spread mental health awareness, and how to recognize the “red flags” that a child or teen may show.

In last week’s blog post, we spoke about how A Picture of an Egg is Ruining Your Teen’s Life. In that post, we discussed the impact that social media has on teens. However, we feel that it is important to be able to recognize if your teen is struggling with their mental health. In order to promote mental health awareness, it is important to inform yourselves on various topics regarding mental health. The more informed we are on such issues, the less taboo there is revolving around mental health.

PROMOTE POSITIVE MENTAL HEALTH HABITS IN TECHNOLOGY

We briefly discussed healthy phone habits for your teen in our previous blog post, however, if you don’t want to head over there, we can provide an overview here. Essentially, phones have become an extension of your teens hand, but it shouldn’t be that way. Here’s how you can stop it:

1. No Cell Phones in the Bedroom

I’m certain that we can all remember a time where we used our landlines at an inappropriate time. Now, imagine having a device that gives you access to everything and anything at all hours of the night. There is no real reason for your teen to have their cell phones in their rooms. So eliminate it from the get-go by implementing this rule.

2. No Cell Phones during Family Time

Sometimes it’s good to disconnect from your devices and connect with real people. When I was a teen, we had a “charging station” at the entrance of our house; we walk in, drop our phones at the charging station, and leave it alone for the rest of the evening. But if you don’t want to have to sacrifice your phone for the whole night, you can always just implement it during certain times of the day.

3. Turn Off your Wi-Fi at Night

Your teen won’t appreciate this one, so don’t tell them we suggested this. But if all else fails – turn your wi-fi off. Most basic data plans have limits, and no teen wants to go over their data limit, which forces them to put the phone down. If they make the decision to go over their data limit, let them know that they will be paying for it.

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