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The speaker discusses youth mental health and the influence of parents on their child's mental well-being. They mention that mental health includes emotional, psychological, and social aspects and affects how we think, feel, and act. They highlight that globally, one in seven 10 to 19-year-olds experience mental health conditions, but many go untreated. The speaker explains that parents can positively or negatively influence their child's mental health through the environment they create. They discuss symptoms of mental health issues and emphasize the importance of support and understanding from parents. The speaker suggests observing and listening to your child, educating yourself on mental health, and seeking professional help if needed. They mention that challenges faced by children, such as family turmoil or trauma, can impact their mental health and future well-being. The speaker also notes that mental health can affect a child's academic success and relationships with adults. The Hello, my name is Shaden Tilbur and today we are going to be talking about youth mental health, but primarily focusing on how parents affect their child's mental health and I understand there's a lot of stigma, there's different opinions, different views, but I would love to just talk about how it affects children, how it affects different youth, along with I will be including my mother's perspective from a parent's side, but first what we can talk about is what is mental health and according to substanceabuseandmentalhealthservices.org, mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, how we feel, act, and helps determine how we handle stress related to others and making choices. Mental health is something that doesn't just affect you, it affects everyone, no matter the age, no matter anything, but primarily it focuses on children, children, youth, pre-teens, it affects every, it can affect every child, but first I would like to share a stat that is from the World Health Organization. It says that globally it is estimated that one in seven 10 to 19 year olds experience mental health conditions and that's also 14% of kids that experience mental health issues and this is just kids that have been to therapy, have been diagnosed, but yet these largely remain untreated and unrecognized, but I would love to go into how parents, how you parents influence your child's mental health. Parents can influence their child's mental health in many ways. If that is based on the environment that they have for your child, it can either be positive or negative inflammations on the child's mental health, but how can you see mental health? How can you see mental health in your child? How do you know your child is not suffering? But sometimes your child or an individual can just suffer in silence. There is many symptoms that are not only physical, they're emotional, but physically they can get stomach aches or other pains. They can have insomnia, withdrawals, even if you see your child eating at dinner and they're just picking at your food, that could be something. Parents mainly, you guys could just see it as purely physical, but maybe they just, you could think maybe they just need more rest, more sleep, more food, maybe a physical activity and they need to go out, stop being on their electronics. Believe me, I've heard that plenty of times from my mom, but while these are all helpful contributors to your well-being, this could not help with depression or anxiety disorders and it can't just be simply resolved. These suggestions, matter of fact, could result in a sense of loneliness for your child or your teen. But even with that, I would love to share some tips. You can observe, watch your child, watch your own internal dialogue about mental health stigma, because even if you're biased or I understand that mental health may have not been something that you talked about in your family, maybe this is time for you to step up and talk about it to your child and just see that your child is suffering and being there and showing your support for your child is super, super important to their mental health and shows that you care and shows that you want them to get better, that you want better for them. Or you can learn, you can educate yourself on mental health, what it looks like, how it feels. Listen, take time to listen to your son or daughter and share their feelings of distress or physical implements. It could be anxiety, talk about anxiety or depressive thoughts. It's important to allow them a chance to voice how they feel instead of you pressuring into them and just give them the space or time to share. Show them, like I said, show them your support. There's different phrases you can even say, I hear you saying this, blank, we're here for you. Show them that it's okay to not feel okay. Show them that their feelings are valid, that you understand their feelings. Watch out for, even if something may not seem like judgmental, they may take it as that way. Help them get professional help they may need. Try and stay more involved, keep up to date with them, see how they're feeling. My mom would always ask, how are you doing today? How was school? Just saying that is super important, makes them feel heard, but if there's something that all parents can agree on is wanting to see your child succeed and live a happy, long, healthy life, but along with that, life comes with challenges though, and even though many can be uncontrollable, others are a result of actions or experiences your child may be facing, and it could be in your household, it could be a divorce, it could be anything, but each time a child faces a difficult challenge, whether it's a family turmoil or emotional distress, it takes a toll on them. According to ngross.com, many of these situations can be a child of violence, abuse or neglect at home, mental health problems, having parents who are separated or divorced, because one in three children under the age of 18 deal with at least one adverse childhood experience, which are the ones that I just listed, while the other 14% experience two or more, and this can guarantee future problems, and it heightens a child's future risk of mental health problems. It can also enhance injury, risk behavior, infection or chronic disease. It also states that one in three children under the age of 18 deal with at least one of these, if it's the parent's divorce or being a victim of violence, substance abuse, a household member who's incarcerated, a quarter of the time it's divorce or separations are responsible for these. Notably, it can increase a risk of depression, anxiety, suicide and PTSD, and according to this article, it estimates that as many as 21 million cases of depression could have been potentially avoided by shielding children from these experiences. Not to mention, it can affect your child's ability to succeed in school. For example, my mother experienced dealing with me when I had suicidal thoughts, depression and anxiety my senior year of high school, and she is also a teacher, and this is a short little passage that I would love to read that she wrote to me. She states that strong mental health is essential for students to find success both inside and outside of the classroom. First, if children do not develop a strong relationship with their teachers, they are not able to manage their trauma, stress and emotions, and then I feel success will not happen in the classroom. As a mother and teacher, we know that success builds success. When students find success, then that is what they strive for. However, if students are incapable of exercising self-management, which includes discipline and believing in themselves, academic success will not happen. Thus, students must feel noticed as individuals and trust their teachers. If students do not have adults in their life where this positive relationship thrives, students will not learn and grow in their academic school years. It is through relationships that students lower their anxiety and stress. She also states that I heard a superintendent speak two years ago that kindergarten through twelfth graders have about 100 teachers in their school years, yet there are only one or three teachers that made a difference in their school years, which is so sad. Every child has a story to tell, and he or she must feel school is a safe place to share their story and be heard. One caring adult in their lives can make a difference. Positive relationships are key to fostering strong mental health, which turns and enhances learning and meeting grade-level standards. Thank you to my wonderful mother for writing that, but as you can see, your child's mental health can affect in school, which can also affect the ability to make other relationships with an adult, because they may not trust the adult because they may not trust you. But I'm not trying to downgrade parenting, your parenting skills, because what works for you might work for them, or whatever may be the case. But just know no matter how or where mental health starts, nobody is to blame. Mental health is something that happens, but even though nobody's there to blame, you can make a very, very strong impact on your child's mental health by showing your support, being there for them, like I said. But no matter what, thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a great rest of your day. Thank you.