Parenting a Child with a Mental Health Condition.

There is nothing that can mentally prepare a parent to receive the news of their child being diagnosed with a mental health condition.

Raising a child with a mental health condition can cause a lot of stress and even make a parent feel helpless.

Trying to deal with the unpredictability of your child and at the same time, ensure their safety and compliance with their medications can be a lot.

If you are a parent like so, who is parenting a child living with a mental health condition we want you to know that we see you and we applaud your strength and tenacity.

This blog post is for you and we hope that you can find some useful tips to help you out.

Here are four tips to cope when raising a child with a mental health condition:

Communicate: You want to show that you care for your child and have accepted them for who they are. Listen to them attentively and always ensure to let them know that they are far more than the diagnosis of their mental health condition.

Get support for your family: Believe or not, once a child has been diagnosed with a mental health condition, it aggregates the whole family and not you as the parents. If you have other kids, then getting support in the form of family therapy may be the best course of action.

Get support for yourself: You could choose to join a community of other parents in the same situation as you. Support groups may not be such a bad idea. Do whatever works for you but you have to first accept that you cannot do it all alone.

Self care: There may be times that you get too absorbed with taking care of your child and you forget all about yourself and your well-being. Taking care of yourself is also very important as taking care of yourself is also indirectly taking care of your child.

Be gentle with yourself and be patient with your child. We at EmpathySpace are here for you all ways. It is important to always remember that is not your fault.