MindManage
How to help others...
If you are looking for advice on how to approach other people with supporting their mental health, you've come to the right page! Sometimes, learning to recognise other people's moods and even just doing something to make them smile or be a listening ear can really change someone's day.
If you are also a child or teenager, even a young adult, do not feel as if it is your responsibility to help support a child's mental health. Yes, your actions may help influence them but overall remember that the child's mental health is primarily the parent or caregiver's responsibility. If you find yourself concerned over a child's behaviour or emotional state, be sure to try and tell your feelings to the child's parent or caregiver.
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As a parent and caregiver, you should be ensuring your child receives the best environment to grow up in. While you should be honest with your children, remember that, sometimes, it is better to keep the more adult, serious matters private. Furthermore, we would advise that you remember to always prioritise the child's safety and happiness.
If a child is in an uncomfortable situation and they become upset, here are the steps we recommend taking to reassure the child and teach them emotional maturity for the future:
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Get down onto the child's level - this is so you won't be perceived as threatening and the child is more likely to feel safer.
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Acknowledge the situation and name the emotion - by letting the child know the name to how they are feeling and reassuring that you are here for them will help them in the future.
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Offer a solution - try giving them options to how they can proceed to either fix the situation or ways to calm them down e.g going on a walk, removing themselves from the situation, going to talk to a friend.
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Make amends on both sides - apologise to the child for how they are feeling and try to get them to say sorry, this teaches them to learn both sides.
Sometimes helping your family can be a hard thing. Some families might not be close or are close but don't talk about things such as their mental health and how they are feeling. This can be especially difficult for the older generations, such as your grandparents. This is because as the world is changing discussing emotions and mental health is more normal as back in their day it would be more taboo to discuss.
A different way of helping is to try and gage their mood and try to help by the following:
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Ask them how their day went - sometimes by getting them to talk about their activities will get them to express how they felt about the situation, talking about stress or anger can alleviate the feeling while talking about happiness can raise their overall mood
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Tell them how your life is going - keep them updated in your life and what you are doing, this makes them feel important and reassures that you care about them to want them in your life
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Offer to go and do activities with them - by including them or going out of your way in your free time to spend time with them and relax and bond together will improve their emotional and mental state even just by leaving the house together
How to help children...
How to help family...
Looking for more information?
Looking for more information?
Here are some more websites with more information on how to help family members:
For Friends and Family Members | MentalHealth.gov
​Supporting a family member with serious mental illness (apa.org)
A good friend would always be there for their friend. For a friend who is suffering with their mental health, this is even more important. You will have to be very patient and forgiving as sometimes they may block you out of your life when they don't mean to. As their friend, we would recommend trying to be there for them when you can and sometimes giving them the space they need. Trying to get them to talk about how they are feeling is a big help for them to let out any pent up emotions. Another way you could help is trying to help them take their mind off the subject, you could plan activities together or meet up and just have some fun together. Hopefully, this will help improve their mood and forget about the bad situation which ruined their day and made them feel bad.
If the friend is a friend who you won't see everyday, remember to try and text them every so often to ask after them and check up to see how they are doing and what they have been up to. This will reassure them that you care about them and that they are not alone because you are here to help support them in anything and everything you can. Sometimes you cannot help the situation if the friend cannot communicate clearly what happened or they might not want to. Don't force your friend to talk and instead just move on to another topic. However, sometimes sharing some of your struggles with them can show that life isn't always easy and that it is normal to have bad days and experiences. The difference is however not to give them all your struggles when they are struggling too, show them different options and how you resolved them to give them hope too.
How to help friends...
Looking for more information?
Here are some more websites with information on how to help your fiends if you want to research further:
https://au.reachout.com/articles/6-ways-to-help-a-friend-with-depression
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Hopefully this page gave you some more guidance!
If not, here are some other websites we recommend: