Promoting & supporting your child's mental health
Promoting and supporting your child’s mental health and wellbeing at home, particularly during the holidays
Positive mental health and wellbeing is important for your child or teen’s healthy development and learning. It supports them to manage the normal challenges of life. As parents and carers, you do so many things to support your child’s mental health and wellbeing.
During the break in routine during school holidays however, can make it challenging to continue to manage everyone’s health and wellbeing.
Some of the extra things we can do to support our children and young people at this time are:
- Exercise and eat healthily to boost mood
- Prioritise sleep to support mental and emotional wellbeing
- Explore relaxation techniques and coping strategies
- Stay in touch and catch up with friends and loved ones
- Make time to do things they enjoy
- Practice positive self-talk, and remind them they are not alone
- Engage in healthy online habits
- Seek professional help if needed
If you would like some wellbeing activities and conversation starters (that also support a lot of the learning that we do at school) the Education Department of Victoria has developed these engaging resources for parents and carers of primary school-aged children and secondary school-aged children. Grouped for different age groups, we encourage you to take a look.
Other Resources that may be of use include:
- The Raising Children Network - resources for every age and stage of a child’s life, supporting busy parents and carers with the latest evidence on child and adolescent health and wellbeing - children (5-8 years old), pre-teens (9-11 years) and teens (12-18 years).
- Online and phone support:
- Kids Helpline - parents provides written resources and advice on supporting your child’s mental health.
- ReachOut provides free 1:1 online parent coaching for parents of teens aged 12-18.
- Parenting Strategies provides practical guidance on how parents can support their child’s wellbeing.