As a parent or practitioner, you may wonder if talking to young children about parental mental health difficulties is in their best interest. You might be worried it will unnecessarily upset them, or you may have doubts about whether young children will understand.

Research and the lived experiences of parents and children show, however, that having age-appropriate conversations about parental mental health difficulties is beneficial for children and parents alike.

Starting these conversations can be daunting, but understanding more about what children notice and comprehend, and having the right tools and support for talking with them about mental health difficulties, can help.

This article explores what to consider in these conversations and provides resources that offer further support.

In the second episode of this two-part series, clinical psychologist Penny Sih expands upon her description of the ‘best life’ approach: a way of engaging positively with children by discussing the relationships, routines and activities that sustain and energise them.

In this episode, Penny applies her ‘best life’ approach to Zoe – a fictional eight-year-old girl who has been referred to a psychologist because of her school refusal. Zoe appears in the Emerging Minds e-learning course, Practice strategies for assessment and engagement.

Listen now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and on our website.

‘Children’s wellbeing is everyone’s business’ is a common mantra in health and social services. Most practitioners in adult-focused services recognise the need to identify the effects of adult adversity on children, particularly where there are immediate threats to health and safety. Despite this, many adult practitioners are challenged to ask questions about children because of time, priorities and confidence (Emerging Minds Needs Assessment, 2017).

If children’s safety and care is truly to become everyone’s business, organisational mechanisms which plan, monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of child-focused practice are essential. Without these processes, services may continue to leave child-aware practice to chance.

This paper provides examples of the system used in adult-focused organisations to plan, monitor and evaluate child-focused practice.