Our Children are Battling Mental Health

Every night there are hundreds of thousands of Moms who go to bed praying, crying and extremely worried about their child who is going through hard times.

I know, because I’ve been one of them. 

In the days of the scriptures, we read about horrific battles that wiped out communities and destroyed families.

These soldiers were older, but many were younger... likely young adults and possibly even teens going to fight for good, for peace, for righteousness.

And these soldiers were all raised by moms who taught them to love the Lord, to trust in Him, and to face these battles with bravery and faith that the arm of the Lord will carry them through.

As mothers of this generation, we have different battles to prepare our children for… and one of the biggest battles that I’m seeing is the child’s own internal struggles.   Their confidence, anxiety, faith, depression, identity, and just being genuinely happy and full of Gods light is such a REAL challenge for our kiddos… 

THESE are our kids battles!  And many of them are already in it!

For the purposes of this article, I’ll be saying “mom”, but it also includes dads, grandmas, grandpas and if your a teen or younger child reading this, this is also relevant to the relationships you have with your family and friends. 

One thing that I’ve noticed through the years is that there is a gap.

The GAP is between what we want our children to do and to know and learn about Jesus Christ, and them actually learning and knowing about Jesus Christ for themselves.

With my older kids, I did all the things I was supposed to do.  I brought them to church, had scripture study in our home, fun family activities and regular family prayer. Yet some of them have struggled with their faith. 

Really struggled.

And we see it everywhere.   Great families, doing all the things the prophets have taught us to raise our families, but the kids are struggling.

I can’t answer for every single case, but I have noticed there’s one thing that I am shifting in a huge way as I raise my 2nd set of kids, and continue to parent my adult children to fill in that gap.  

And the moms I am working with are seeing massive change in their struggling kids as well.

And one thing is showing a massive increase of love and connection first.

You’re probably thinking, yah... yah... I've heard this a hundred times, and I already do love my kids.  And so did I.

But here me out.

At the core of every mental illness is the belief that “I am not enough”. 

So if this is the core of the problem, to reverse it would be just to help one see their value, right?  

Easier said than done.

When we parent or show up in any relationship in anger, frustration, irritation, worry or impatience, our children feel that and interpret your frustration with them as their fault, that they aren’t good enough. 

But when we show up in love first, we teach the child through how we feel about them, and in our words and body language that they are truly valued and so so important.

Matt 22: 37  teaches that The first and great commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind.

Love is the core of all behaviors, emotions, relationships, confidence levels, capabilities and more… it’s healing, it’s where and how we learn, and it’s empowering and enabling.

Loving and nurturing our kids is the way we can help them through their current battles.

Their relationship with us is the closest relationship they will have with God… so loving and connecting is vital in helping them love and connect with God.

When we show love and create connections with our kids first, they feel so good and are so much more open to feeling Gods love for themselves…

THEN they can learn.

Are we putting correction before loving?  Acting frustrated when our child didn’t do something they way we wanted?

Are we so focused on growing their character and skills that we’re not connecting?  Enrolling them in every sport and music lesson but not snuggling them and holding them tight?

Let me share three ways that I've learned to truly connect and love my kids that helped them through their battles of today (and how it's massively changing my client's children too).

First, the power of Acceptance as a form of love and how it has leads to change.

When our children make big mistakes, it’s common to feel disappointed and sad as the parent.   But accepting our children right where they are no matter what choices they are making is vital to them feeling loved and being able to feel God’s love for them.

I’ve seen so many parents stay in disappointment in their children for their choices for years and years.  And while it’s totally natural to have that reaction initially.   But if we stay in that state of being towards them, we put a wall between us and I believe it also affects their desire to find God. 

Faith leader,  Tamara Runia shared, "Our job is not to teach someone who’s going through a rough patch that they are bad or disappointing. On rare occasions we may feel prompted to correct, but most often let’s tell our loved ones 'You will be loved for the rest of your life—no matter what.'   That’s how we help them in their current battles!

People change when they feel good, not when they feel bad.

And I totally get it… I was there too… when my child went down a road that was not what we had planned for him or taught him, it was so painful.  I spent many sleepless nights in worry, stress, anxiety and all the negative emotions, feeling shame as a mother.

But when I started to let go and trust God, that maybe it was ok that his path was different than what I wanted or what I taught for now, it was then that the pain went away, and I felt more of Gods love for me and for him.

I was able to accept him right where he was, love him and even be genuinely proud of him for so many things in his life. 

Prov. 3:5  Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding.

The more we can trust God in our children’s battles, the more we can let go and love them.

Accepting him and his challenges also allowed the spirit to help me see so many things about my son that I couldn’t see before… I understood his path, and appreciated his choices in a new way.

Am we perfect at it?  Nope… but we’re getting better at it all the time.

The 2nd area I’d love to discuss is the power of managing our own emotions. 

I’ll admit, I’ve yelled at my kids out of exasperation to get them to do things probably hundreds of times over the 25+ years I've been parenting. 

But once I  learned what a tremendous negative affect our emotions have on our children in the battles that they have to face we decided to put a hard stop to all of that in our home. 

Religious leader Russel Nelson shares: “Anger never persuades.  Hostility builds no one. Contention never leads to inspired solutions.”  

The yelling isn’t working.  And they can’t learn when there’s contention or irritation. 

Let me share how this has changed our home. 

One of my little boys is not a morning person.  He’s very groggy and tired in the morning, and sometimes this means he’s late for school.  I get super frustrated when he’s not out the door on time, and I let my emotions get elevated.   Well, when I get elevated it only makes him elevated and then I get more elevated, and well, you can imagine. 

Last year, it was such a struggle for us, that he was late at least once or twice a week… by 2 hours or more. 

I thought it was a behavioral issue because he would get so mad so fast, so we tried seeing the nutritionist, doing different vitamins and other dietary changes like going off of gluten to see if we could stop the quick outbursts in anger.

I even had his brain tested and was about to do neurofeedback.

It was then that we tried to put a hard stop to all signs of anger in our home and that included no more whining, complaining, disrespecting, etc… 

And we also started showing loads and loads of more love.   Only this time in ways they could FEEL it!

It took a minute, but the whole home has changed… 

No more anger, yelling or irritation when communicating (for the most part).

Not only is he no longer 2 hours late for school, but we have more peace in our home, kids that are enjoying playing with each other more, and we are all happier more frequently. 

So the spirit is more present, and teaching about the Savior is just better!

THIS is how are helping our kids win their battle.

We as moms have a great ability to assist our children in their battles! 

The last value that I want to share about the amazing healing power of nurturing and connection.

We’ve been taught that the Lord has given us the primary responsibility to spiritually nourish our children. 

But as we do these things, it can be hard for our children to receive the spiritual nourishment if they are suffering emotionally.

One way that we can tell they are suffering emotionally is when they are either acting out, playing the victim, withdrawing or being clingy. 

Children are innately good.   They want to be good and do good.  They act out as a form of communicating that they are feeling empty inside.

It’s been my experience when we can connect to our children in a more physical and emotional way, their walls come down, their behavior dramatically improves, and they are much more mentally stable.   They also feel God's love more easily.

I know you’re doing all that you can to nurture your children through coming to church, family time, teaching responsibility, prayers and more.

And if it seems that it’s still a struggle, it might be that your child has a wall up.  Their feeling empty despite all of your grand efforts.

My client Glenda called me from Florida and told me all about her daughter Ava, whom she jokingly referred to as “Hurricane Ava”.   She was always grumpy, irritated, withdrawn, and pulling away and Glenda was terrified of what to do.

Glenda loved her daughter, no doubt, but like me, she wasn’t modeled or taught how to really connect with her.

I gave her specific ideas on how she could connect and nurture her better.

And when and how to communicate to her from love.

The shift in Ava was so quick, it surprised Glenda…. She started hanging around more, laughing at her moms jokes, opening up and talking, and being less grumpy.

Love heals.  And it HAS TO come first for us to be able to teach our children how to feel God’s love. 

It’s everything!

Our children are hungry for it, they're going down in battle when they don't have it, and they will be so much strengthened because of it.

And that's why LOVE is the FIRST commandment!