Young people’s mental health
Break through and be heard
We know it can be hard to talk to young people. It can be difficult to start the conversation and there are worries about saying the wrong thing.
But we want to give both parents and young people the tools to break through and be heard. That’s why we’ve partnered with JAAQ to answer your questions about spotting and treating the signs of poor mental health in children.
Hear from our experts and get insight, advice and guidance. Kickstart honest conversations about mental health at home and get the tools you need to support your family.
Sometimes we're on two completely different wavelengths.
I feel like I'm stuck in a bubble.
We're not as close.
She doesn't understand.
Like what I'm trying to say.
This is so frustrating.
I have a son that is 11 who's starting secondary school.
He's not really opening up to me.
He's starting to show that he wants a bit more independence.
When she tries to hold my hand in public, I don't want to because I feel like it's embarrassing.
I feel like she doesn't understand me as well.
Communication isn't the same anymore.
My mum worries about me all the time because she is protective over me and what I'm doing.
Sometimes you can clash a little bit because she doesn't really need much direction for me.
And attitude is just let me be.
I am worried about him going to secondary school.
I'm a bit worried, but I think my mom's more worried if he does have a problem and I'm worried that I won't be able to see it.
I'll miss that moment.
I'll miss that point of helping him.
He is less active and he is playing his game console more often.
We should always be active outside playing football.
It just feels a little bit less because I like to play games that little bit more with my friends.
You don't know who to talk into.
You don't know what they're talking about.
You don't know how long the play in it unless you're in the room with them.
Gaming in my time was going outside and kicking a football.
She's a nightmare on a phone.
She's. She's on a phone constantly.
Sometimes you argue about her.
You just concerned a lot of the time as to what they're watching.
And it influences around fashion.
Body images changes, things like that.
I worry about social media having an impact on her that I cannot filter.
He’s had issues at school with bullying.
I definitely don't enjoy school, but I have a few friends.
I'm worried that I am missing things I think the only kind of positive for me is that he does speak to mum more so than myself.
It's almost like he's put a brick wall in between me and him.
I can't seem to get through to him as much.
If you try and get serious with him, he shuts away.
He shuts down.
I don't like having big, serious talks with her because it just feels really awkward and embarrassing.
I just want him to listen to me.
Am I doing the right thing or am I doing the wrong thing?
I have to change then and I have to engage with a different way of speaking to her so that she's not thinking that, you know, you just want to ruin things and spoil things.
I want him to feel that he can talk to me.
I want him to feel like I'm listening to him a and that I'm hearing him.
Obviously I'll always keep trying, and I'm open to advice in terms of, how can do things better or differently.
Your questions answered: Young people’s mental health
Myleene Klass shares her experience of supporting her children’s mental health, and discusses how parents can approach their child about the topic.
Transcript
How would you describe yourself?
I would describe myself as a mum, first and foremost.
I'm also a broadcaster, a musician,
and I campaign for women's health rights
and children's education.
How many children do you have?
I have three children on Earth.
I have four children in heaven.
My children are 16 years old, 13 years old,
and 4, quite a spectrum of ages.
Have you had any struggles with your own mental health?
Have I struggled with my mental health?
So I would say that the main times that I've really been put
through the ringer would be, gosh, about
two decades ago when I was in the band, which
now when I look back at why that was so difficult,
it probably feels so weird to even comprehend
how hard it was in this day and age.
But the idea of how much you're dealing with,
it was just a massive overwhelm.
And also just having to look
like that
And I think the fact that
a lot of people, when they're struggling
with their mental health, you don't really
want to say what the problem is.
It doesn't feel like it's big enough.
You imagine that everyone else will just
say, just get on with it.
You're okay. But actually, the more that you try
and hide it, the harder it gets.
Sorry.
had a miscarriage, I'd say that
I don't think there's a harder time in your life.
I don't think it can get any harder.
I didn't lose one baby. I lost four.
And every time it got harder,
I got more desperate, and then I felt like I was going
to just fail.
And then I thought that I was going to lose my sanity,
and then I felt like I'd never be the same again.
And then I wondered if I'd ever be able to
go through life without being angry ever again.
I wondered if I'd be a good enough mom
to my kids without being angry all the time
that I'd lost four babies.
And if I could be a good partner without feeling resentment,
if I could walk past a pregnant woman without feeling
jealous or that I hadn't failed,
if I could stop being angry at my own body
for just letting me down.
And I wondered if I'd ever get over the grief.
And then people say things like, it's not meant
to be, it's just cells.
Be grateful for the children you have.
You are so lucky you can get pregnant, but you're not lucky.
You can't keep pregnancy.
So what's the point of getting pregnant in the first place?
I wondered why we have such amazing medical
staff who didn't have any answers.
I just felt like every day I got up
and I just burn some sunglasses
and everyone thought that I was okay and I wasn't okay.
And then the people around me who were trying to support me,
they weren't okay either, because it turns out
that everybody I know had a miscarriage
or knows someone that's had a miscarriage.
So mental health is
something that's highly underestimated,
but hugely important.
And I think you feel so much shame about it,
but actually I want to talk about it
because I didn't know how to heal it for a long time.
And the only way that I can get around it
or get through it is I suppose
to feel like I'm doing something to help my children,
their future selves, and to talk about it now.
Because there's a lot of women who feel the way I feel
and they don't talk about it.
And I didn't know this until way down the line,
until I was holding my own baby.
There's many who don't get to hold their babies.
Why are you so passionate about young people's mental health and family wellbeing?
I feel really passionate about young people's mental
health and family wellbeing,
because when I first became famous, I was 19, 20 years old.
And you'd think that
because you are an adult,
well then you should have all the answers.
I think any adult in their forties, fifties, sixties,
seventies, I'll tell you, they don't have all the answers.
Nobody has all the answers.
But at that age, you are made
to feel like you should have them.
And I think that there's
a huge responsibility on the part of, let's say the adults,
because we're always looking for the adults.
Even as an adult yourself, when are the adults going
to start adulting and fix things?
And you realise that no one's coming to fix anything.
You have to learn to, I suppose,
get the tools to help yourself.
And everyone needs different tools.
So for me, when I felt really vulnerable in the band, I felt
so vulnerable
because everybody was allowed
to say anything they wanted to.
Whether it was true, whether it was false,
whether it was just, I dunno, it was just an outright lie.
Or even the good stuff wasn't always real.
You never necessarily felt that you had a right to reply
because you should always feel lucky
to be in the position you are.
And actually, it just became really difficult
because then you continuously feel like you're living a lie.
And if you don't have the tools to get you through
to the next day, it could just start to build up.
And you either do one of two things.
You either crack under the pressure
or you push it down, you hide it away,
and then it just bubbles and it comes out in another place.
I'm a mum and I want my children first
and foremost to be able to recognise that if they need help,
they can come to me and they'll get it.
And even if they don't know that they need help,
if they have the conversation
and talk with me about it, then I can get them whatever kind
of help they might need.
What are your children like?
My children.
So if I had to describe what they're like first
and foremost, you hear mums say all the time,
it's one mum raising children in the same household,
and yet they're so different.
And I never really understood it as to why
until I had my own children,
because I'm very different from my siblings.
But you raise the same children, I suppose,
in the same house, but they're different children
because their own environments are different,
they've got different friendship groups. Just
by their ages alone
there's different influences culturally, what's going on
in music, in politics at that time.
Those few years can make such a huge difference.
And so my children as a result are very, very different.
My eldest Ava, who's coming up to 17, I mean teenagers,
nobody teaches you what you're meant to do with teenagers.
And it's great.
They want you to have all the answers
and in turn, they think they have all the answers
and seem, I say you don't have any of the answers,
but it's so lovely.
It's an honour. It's a privilege to be able to grow
with them and experience the world first
time through their eyes.
It really is exciting.
They definitely keep you young and old at the same time.
They can humble you in a second
and have you howling, have you laughing
with their own view on things.
My 13-year-old, Hero, she is very,
very empathetic to other people
and she can really read a room. So much so
that I think she could be a detective.
She sees the nuances in people
and she really feels big as well.
So again, very different characters.
And then there's my 4-year-old who we all call the baby
and I keep being told he's not a baby anymore
and I've become that mother.
I think I will be sleeping on the floor when he goes
to university because he's just always going to be my baby.
How do you adapt your approach in talking to each of your children?
I think when it comes to speaking to my children,
I really do try to listen
and I think actually that's a really hard thing
to break down because when I think of my own upbringing,
we were raised by boomers who basically would say,
I remember my dad actually saying this is not a critique,
it's just explained so much.
It was do, as I say, not as I do.
I cannot imagine saying that to my kids now,
and I can't even imagine the reaction I'd get
back if I did say it.
They're so informed, they say
that children nowadays are four years ahead of where we were
because of phones and information
and just how we as a generation raised
by the boomers are trying to tap in more so to
what our kids are feeling.
But I really do try to listen first and foremost,
and I also really try to say sorry.
I think there's that line, isn't it?
That you become the adult
that your child self needed or wanted.
And I think it's just really important to show
that you don't know all the answers.
You don't have them, but that's okay.
That's not there to destabilise your children or yourself,
but actually just to show that you are human
and that you're going to learn together.
Children now they speak a different language.
It reminds me of the time my dad said wicked,
and I just braced
because I was like, why is he saying these words?
And then I hear my daughter say, 'riz' now,
and I'm like, oh, I'm going to learn that
and I'm going to use it and we just shouldn't.
It's fine. It's just there's boundaries and there's limits
and that's good that boundaries and limits are good.
I don't want to be my daughter or my son's best friend.
That is not my role. That's their best friend's role.
My role is to be mum
and in so doing, they lean the heaviest on you often,
and you get the best of them as well.
But I think first
and foremost, like I said, with my children, I just want
to be there to listen.
How do your children of different ages communicate differently with you?
I've got a spectrum of ages.
My children are from teeny tiny
to teenagers, and they all communicate very differently.
And I think it's about recognising when they're
trying to communicate.
So a child won't necessarily come forward
and say, I have a problem,
or I've got some good news to share.
It's interesting. So for my youngest,
it's a little bit more obvious.
He'll say, oh, will you come and play with me?
And in so doing, you can just start a conversation
then. As children get older,
you have to recognise the signs a little bit better.
And look, you've got to not be so hard on yourself
because we're not psychologists and psychotherapists.
We don't know the answers.
And also it's an ever evolving challenge
because not only do we not know the answers to most
of the questions, we don't even recognise the questions.
We've got to guide children through a digital age.
We're not digital natives. We've got too much information.
So we as parents are even more terrified than our own
parents who just let us play out until the lights came on.
And on top of that, we're just expected
to look like we're handling everything.
And when I think about it, when I go to bed at night,
I don't go to bed at night, I lie in bed
and I start going through the
list of what I need tomorrow.
And then I go through the list of
what do my kids need tomorrow?
And then I sort of run everything through thinking,
going backwards again, thinking well,
and then we'll eat at this time,
and then I'll drop Ava at this time.
And then Hero needs her trumpet.
And then before I've even thought about sleeping,
I've done an hour of just mental load or mental overload.
And that's a lot for one person to take on board.
And then you've got to remember, and on top of all this,
I've got to communicate with my children,
make sure they've got everything they need.
So I think actually, whilst communication is key
and there's never been a stronger time
where communication is in front of us just from phones
and emails and every opportunity, it's very easy
to miss that communication.
And so I always try and just make sure it is so simple, but
I just try and make sure I have dinner
with my kids around the table.
And if anyone's got nuances
or grievances that they want to bring forward or just chat
or stories to share around the table.
And my kids, I'm sure probably find it really irritating.
They've got friends over, they want to go to their rooms
and chat their friends, and I still insist everyone
to the table come and eat together.
No phones, no gadgets, no toys.
Just eat at the table and it works. Or I think it does.
They might communicate something different one day.
I think that makes it work. All communication
around the table.
How have you noticed your children change as they have grown older?
Have I noticed my children change as they grow older?
I would say there's a real excitement about getting
to learn every single stage of your child.
It's almost like inviting different children into your
house, knowing them at one, knowing them at two, the foods
that they like, things that might trigger them,
things that will make them laugh.
Then you learn their personalities 4, 5, 6,
and how they change again, the fears that they overcome,
the talents that they start to adopt, the friends
that they bring in, the friends that they fall out with.
All of these children are still one child, but
because they're developing, you feel like you just get
to meet loads of different children.
And I definitely would say that, especially with my eldest
who is very much becoming a young lady now.
I feel like I say to her all the time,
and I'm sure it drives her mad,
but I know I'm going to know her longer
as an adult, please God.
But at the same time, I've really enjoyed every stage
of every child she's been.
And it's almost like a mourning thing as well.
You have to say goodbye to each child.
Suddenly you're like, oh God, you're not
into Paw Patrol anymore.
Or that time when you really loved fairies,
or at the time that we'd go down
and draw chalk drawings on the concrete, all these stages
that mean so much to you and have just gone.
And I think that's probably why I am the
way I'm with my son.
And I understand why mothers hold onto the youngest child
and baby them so much,
because you just know how quickly it goes.
All those cliches, every single one of them is true.
It goes so quickly. I blinked.
I blinked, and initially I knew all 70 dolphins of the pod
that were on Ava's bed.
And now I know where they're hidden.
They're still sort of around.
I'm not allowed to chuck them out just
yet, but they're gone.
They're not on display. And this is the same with Hero.
Hero and her unicorns.
I knew every single name,
and they're just not on the bed anymore.
And so I think those changes, you see the physical changes.
Both my daughters one's nearly taller than me.
One is taller than me, but also it's really exciting.
You get to hear their opinions. I relish that.
I really enjoy hearing their take on things
and they really surprise me.
My children will call me out on certain
things and I will listen.
It comes back to listening again,
because I think when you are younger yourself, you try
and really key into
what your parents made you feel good about
and the things that you would change yourself.
We don't get it right. We certainly don't.
But I want to make sure that they realise that I'm evolving
as they're evolving and changing as they're changing.
Because I've definitely changed.
I've definitely changed from the person that gave birth
to them, to the mum that I am now,
because I've got more information.
And I realised that I can't raise each child the same way.
What have been some of the challenges over the years as your children have grown?
There are so many challenges over the years
with your children, and I think the hardest ones are the
ones that you can't factor in,
and those are external challenges.
So in your household, and I always look at my household
as a sanctuary, I look at it as a place
where body positivity, you speak with kindness.
Everyone hears each other, ideally. Everyone listens
to each other, ideally,
but I always wanted to have a home like an Italian mama
where the kitchen was like the heart of the house,
and I always wanted to know like an open door policy
as well, where my friends would come in
and they'd bring food and then they'd go out
and they'd come back in and they'd slide down radiators
crying because they'd been dumped and they'd go back out.
It was that kind of feel I wanted,
and I have absolutely created that
and I'm really, really proud of that.
The thing that I've really struggled with
is external factors, things that are out of your control,
and that is not because I'm some control freak, far from it,
I can see that there's very little I can control
and you just can only maybe look
after your reactions to things.
But getting divorced, that's horrible
because you have to then start trying to handle
emotions and circumstances that you didn't put
into play, or maybe you didn't want things
that happen at school again.
So-and-so said this, so-and-so's parents did this,
and you then have to find a way to navigate
what other people are doing without them putting a judgement
on it because then that might get carried back.
Also, you want your children to learn from
how you model the behaviour to circumstances,
people going through hardships around you, families,
all those external influences that do come into the house
and do affect your children and do affect you.
I think that that can be a lot to deal with,
and when you are processing it and understanding it
and trying to learn how to deal with it, you still need
to be on point to help your children through it,
and that's hard.
How do you support your children through changes in their lives?
I think when it comes to life changing events,
everybody needs support, of course,
but it's really hard to know what that support looks like.
And I think that all you can do is try
and build your village, that village
that everyone says it takes a village to raise a family.
And then you think, well, where's the village?
Where is everybody? Because it's never like you imagine it
to be. Maybe family members
that you thought would be there aren't,
or friends that you think could help you, but
then they don't have the capacity to do so
because they're trying to keep their own heads above water.
It doesn't come from a place of judgement .
If anything, as an adult, you suddenly realise
that no one's got all the answers.
Where are the adults? And I think the only thing
that you can do when there comes to big changes,
and it can be things that are huge to your child, which
for you, you can almost dismiss.
But it can be a friendship group changing
or it can be situations at school,
or it can be really big moments of separation,
death, financial,
I think the only thing that you can do is just keep your
ears open and not project
how your children should be acting.
I think that that's a really easy thing to say
and a really hard thing to do.
You should feel so lucky
because at least you've got a roof
over your head and all that.
Those things that were said to us.
And I realise it just comes down to that graph
that we've always shown at school that a lot of the time,
the boomers, again, and I go back to the boomers,
but the boomers, they put a lot into us.
They poured so much into us
and a lot of the boomers were just in fight or flight.
They were just trying to put a roof over our heads.
Many of the boomers were from immigrant families like my
own, who were trying to build something
or get a foothold in this country for their families.
A lot had been raised by families
who didn't have anything to give them.
So their way of showing love was purely a physical
provide, if you like, the roof,
the meals, the school uniform.
I took you to where you needed to go.
But with the nuances that we are learning about now,
we are looking at emotional health.
Are you okay? What else is it you need?
Do you need to talk about this?
Do you need to talk to someone about this?
Do you want me just to sit with you?
I didn't even realise the power of just
sitting with somebody.
It's in your most vulnerable times that you feel so alone.
There's no words that can maybe help you,
but just having somebody sit with you, it can do a lot.
And so my daughter calls it body doubling.
That's what they teach the kids at school now.
And she said it to me the first
time, will you come and body double?
I didn't even know what it meant, but I said, sure.
And I said to her, what do I do?
And she said, oh, you just have to sit there.
And that was it. She would do her homework.
She was feeling massively overwhelmed
and they teach body doubling.
They just teach that the presence of somebody else:
It can either help elevate your production
because you just know you've got to get it done.
So stop you like, I dunno, doom scrolling on your phone
or mindlessly going off and making a cup of tea,
or you just don't feel alone.
I'm telling you, this generation are teaching us so much.
If we just take those lessons on board.
Is it OK to get things wrong as a parent?
The importance of being able to say, I got it wrong
is so important.
When I look at how I was raised, if I had
to say, when have your parents ever said, sorry,
I don't know if I can remember a time,
and I know you've never met my parents,
and I don't want you to judge them.
There's probably a lot of judgement there already,
but I now have gone out of my way
to say sorry to my children
I can't even tell you how many times,
and my children will be the first
to say she never apologises
because they know it's a trigger for me.
It's so funny how your children know your triggers
and they can either use them against you
because that's what they're supposed to do.
They're like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park them
and sort of test the fence, find the weaknesses,
and then just go in for the jugular.
Or they'll actually realise, actually,
my mum modelled this behaviour
and it's okay to show a weakness because
actually it becomes a strength or it's okay to just say,
look, I got it wrong, because then you can take
control of the situation.
I've said to my kids, if you get it wrong, be the first
to say, oh, sorry, jump in there.
Because you get the control of the situation again, you get
to reset, you get to press the reset button.
And for so many people, saying sorry is a weakness,
actually they feel like they lose footing of power,
or they lose status
and actually they gain elevation from it.
And it was so silly last night,
I got something wrong with regards to just a tiny piece
of information that was needed for school,
but I made the biggest point of saying sorry to the point
that my daughter was like, honestly, it's okay,
I've got the message. And I almost wanted
to bore her into submission with my sorry
so she knows that God, when my mum got it wrong,
she didn't half go on about getting it wrong because
I want it to just be embedded in them that
I would say sorry, and that I could show them
that they could then say sorry.
What events in your family led you to have difficult conversations with your children?
There have been so many huge events that have happened in
my family's life.
Like everybody, you have death
and divorce, we've had miscarriage.
You have things that might impact you,
that you try
and think that you might be hiding from your children
and you realise you're not.
And you have to have very honest conversations.
It's the only way I think children are very, very quick
to detect when you are hiding something
or that you're not giving the information that they want.
And if you don't give it to them, they'll go somewhere else.
And I've always been as open
as I possibly can about every single subject, drugs, sex,
money, not from a financial situation that you have
to divulge absolutely everything,
but just explain to them how the world works.
And I've actually,
because we've been through really testing situations like a
separation, for example, you don't want anyone
to get into a, he said, she said situation.
But what I have said to my children, if you feel
that you are uncomfortable saying something to me,
or you think it might upset me,
because children do try to protect you as well.
They might hide something because they don't want
you to get upset.
I've told them the whole list of aunties,
these are the aunties that you can go to.
These are the people that you can speak to.
There's no judgement . They won't necessarily tell me.
They'll just say that you came and spoke.
We've not had that situation yet.
But I think the fact that I've muted it,
and the same goes for their friends.
They've had their friends come and speak to me about things.
And I think it's just really important to have
that open dialogue in the household.
I just wanted an open household.
I didn't want a household of whispers and secrets.
Did you notice any changes in your children's emotions or behaviour during challenging times?
Have I noticed changes in my children's behaviour when
we've gone through challenging times.
I think that irrespective of how well you try
and hide something, I think children
will always pick up on it.
I made the decision when I was going
through my miscarriages,
when my children are a little older,
I did have the conversation with them as to
what was going on, and it wasn't an easy conversation.
And I did have to remember that they're children
and do it child friendly, do it as in
a child-friendly way as possible,
but give them some answers.
There's so many people that will say,
let children be children.
Yes, correct. But
that doesn't mean they have to be ignorant.
Children are really smart and they're intuitive.
They're empathetic to situations,
and it doesn't mean that you have to offload your trauma
or your emotion on them.
You still have to find a way to keep control of your own
and give them the information that they need.
But yeah, I think it actually helped everybody.
You've got women who are painting nurseries
and getting ready for the arrival
of a child only to lose that child.
You've got to explain to your children what's happened.
Otherwise, there are enough families.
I've got enough of my own friends
and colleagues who talk about how much was hidden from them
or kept from them, and they had to then dig through
the debris of whatever was left of the family afterwards.
I don't want that for my children.
I would like to have as open a conversation
and dialogue as possible
so I can then help them manage their feelings.
It's that kind of idea, isn't it,
about modelling all the time.
So I recently was given this information,
I thought it's a really good tactic of,
oh, I spilt something.
You talk it out loud, you show them the thought process.
Oh, oops, silly mama. Doesn't matter. We could clear it up.
I find myself go through this whole charade,
like acting it out,
but I'm trying to just show my youngest son
what the thought process is to what has happened.
So I spilt it. Oh, I acknowledged it
and I cleared it up and everything's okay.
And it's the same with these big emotions.
I feel really sad. I think I should talk
to somebody about it.
I think I should share my worries.
I think I should go for a walk and get out
and get some fresh air.
I think I should just be sad
because it is really sad,
and I've gone through those experiences
and I've had older family members go,
you shouldn't be saying that to your children,
but when I lost my babies, you couldn't hide it.
You couldn't hide it. We had a nursery
and it was really hard to hear my youngest at the time,
so the angel babies, but my angel brothers and sisters.
But it helped.
How do you teach and support children about making mistakes?
How do you teach your children about making mistakes?
So my children will tell you this, I do this all the time.
I will not let them speak badly about themselves.
So if they spill something
and they go, I'm so stupid, I will absolutely not let
that continue.
So we'll put a stop on that. And I was like, oh.
And it's become a joke now.
And even my daughter,
she had a friend over who said something.
They were dismissing an action they'd done
and she said, stop,
my mum's going to have a word with you about that.
You are casting a spell, you're making magic.
And I say your words, your body will hear you.
And that's what they quote at me all the time.
Your body will hear you.
And I'm like, your body will hear you.
Because in as much as you can manifest the good things
to happen, the first thing we say is,
please, please let me win the lottery.
Or please, please, please let me pass this exam,
or please let him be the one.
All of these things we throw out
and we throw these things out to the universe,
but then actually
by saying these negative things about yourself,
you are doing the exact same thing.
You are throwing it out there and your body's listening
and it will become your reality.
I'm so stupid. You'll start believing it.
And I will not have them speak that way about themselves,
especially when I think they're a piece of magic.
Your body will hear you.
What are some signs that might indicate your children may be struggling with something?
Signs that your child might be struggling.
There are loads of these signs
and so it's tricky to navigate
because they might seem fine, but that could be
because really good at masking.
I think you have to show that you are strong enough
to take it, whatever it is that they're going through,
because there's a lot of children out there
that will try and protect you.
They don't think you've got enough on your plate.
I see how hard my mum works, or my mum's tired,
or you can see that side.
Some real empath
babies out there. Also lashing out,
anger, being a perfectionist,
being really, really hard on themselves.
Just all the things that we're hard on us, think of
how you manifest it.
I think that's the problem. Here we go.
I try and model again that you can make mistakes
and that not to be so hard on yourself,
but then at the same time, you want
to get it right for your family.
It's for your kids, it's for you.
So it's a really hard line
because I'm really trying to model the mistake when I make
the mistake and the process of the mistake now,
and that it's never the end of the world.
You can sort of deal with everything,
but I think the world is very quick
to critique at the moment and more so with phones
and everything looking perfect and being efficient and fast.
It's really hard to make mistakes
and to not feel overwhelmed
and not to feel that there's a judgement there.
And so for our children who don't have age on their side
and that experience, they don't necessarily know how to deal
with all these really huge feelings.
And a child having a tantrum, telling them just
to stop having the tantrums, is not going to stop the problem.
It might just mask the problem.
They'll just know that you're finding
their reaction to the problem, inconvenient or embarrassing,
and I think you've just got
to actually just really get over yourself if that's
how you feel, and just let them have whatever it is they're
feeling and dive into it.
I think they call it leaning into it.
Just lean into what the problem is.
That's what I try and do.
So whatever the reaction is in front of me,
if they're being hard on themselves,
they're staying up all night and they're practising,
they're rehearsing, they're reading,
they're doing their studies
or over what you might think is overreacting in a way.
You lean into it, lean in further.
You must be really struggling.
Why don't you tell me a little bit more about that.
Or, gosh, I dunno how you are doing this.
I dunno if I could do this. I always present everything
with a question so they can answer the question for me.
I wonder if they'll get to the adult age
and be like, my mum just questioned everything
out loud to herself.
I'm just always asking questions.
I wonder how you feel about that.
Or I wonder what so-and-so would make about that
so they can in turn answer the question for me. I just try
and present it in a way that
they can answer the questions for themselves.
Gosh, if I had that bigger workload,
I wonder how I would feel.
Oh, well, I'm feeling really tired.
I'm feeling really worried. I'm feeling really stressed.
I think my teacher's going to tell me off.
Gosh, I wonder if my friends had
said something like that to me.
How would I react to it? Would I feel sad?
Oh, I felt really sad in the moment.
Or, I dunno how I feel about it.
It's just presenting a conversation
and sometimes it's just sitting there
and not trying to fix things.
I'm from the generation that fixes things.
In fact, it's something I pride myself on
and I've had to unlearn that
because some things can't be fixed, and that's okay.
How do you encourage your children to feel like they can talk to you about anything?
How do I encourage my children to talk about anything?
It's an interesting one
because we all want to feel that we're some kind
of open book and our children can come to us,
but then when they do come with a problem
or a mistake, which can often be triggering,
especially if you want to say, I told you so,
or why did you do this?
That's the test. That's your test.
They're testing you and it's how you react
and you can get it wrong sometimes.
We all get it wrong. We're all human
and no one's taught us how to do this.
But I'd say the key is
when they do come to you and it's a really tough thing
and they've made a mistake, you have to just
absolutely hold whatever it is you want to say
and give them the space to make that mistake
and actually show you make mistakes too.
Because the amount of times that I've said
to my children, everyone makes a mistake.
Everybody gets knocked down.
I've had my fair share of being knocked down.
The difference is not everyone can get back up again.
And you could say to someone, get back up.
You can G them up. But how does somebody get back up?
That's where you come in. That's where you support them.
That's where you give them the tools.
You give them the drive to get up.
You give them the incentive, the will,
and show them how to do that.
And I think that it can be really hard.
There's some really difficult subjects out there,
and you're not going to know all the answers.
Nobody knows all the answers and talking about drugs
and sexuality and sex and finance
and death and divorce
and all these really difficult subjects, it's vital.
They're the things that we have to talk about
and all the things that get swept under the carpet
because they make the adults feel uncomfortable.
And it's not about your discomfort.
We've got this thing in our house where I make a point
of talking about anatomy.
I make sure that my children use the right
labels, the right names, the anatomical biological terms
for everything, and they remove the embarrassment.
So they see that if I'm not embarrassed,
then they can't be embarrassed.
They don't need to be embarrassed.
I really love the idea of owning their own body
and that autonomy and that understanding, that self-belief.
I think it's really empowering,
but the only way that they can experience
that is if I do it for myself.
Even from when my children were very young, I made a point
of looking at myself in the mirror a certain way.
I was very aware as raising girls,
we are projected by society.
It's shown to us how we should look at ourselves.
So I look at myself in the mirror
and I go, gosh, I look strong today.
Oh, I'm feeling a bit tired,
but I'm going to be kind to myself.
And I just start having these conversations
with myself in the mirror.
But it really does set you up in a way.
It's like you're cheering yourself on, being your own
cheerleader rather than, oh, I don't like how I look.
Or pointing out all the bits about you that you don't like.
You teach them to then highlight those bits.
It's really hard. We are all human.
We all have those insecurities,
but you have to remember, there's little eyes watching you
and they're learning the lesson of just that flip.
How to see yourself. And you know what? Here's the thing.
You might look absolutely exhausted
and your hair's not brushed and you feel like an absolute
failure, and you're not on top of that list of to-do's.
And there's all these things that are just falling down,
but those little eyes, they worship you, they idolise you,
and you just have to remind them how to look at themselves.
When do you find your children open up to you most easily?
When it is bedtime, what happens at bedtime?
Suddenly everyone wants to just chat and chat,
and then suddenly as a mom, you think, well,
oh god, I've been waiting for this moment.
I've been waiting for you to open up all this time,
and now it's bedtime and now I'm stressed.
I want to get you to bed because I know you're going
to be tired in the morning and it's going to
have a roll on effect.
But at the same time, that's suddenly, especially
with young teens, that's when they suddenly come alive
with the day and they want to chat.
And it's not their fault, it's biological, it's just the way
that they are genuine night owls.
And also they must be in their
head prepping for the next day.
And so I don't think
that sort of -we call it "larking about" in our household -
I don't think it is just pure larking at bedtime.
I think it's just suddenly the realisation of that's it.
I'm up in the morning. This is what I've got
to face tomorrow, whether it's teachers or friends
or worries or whatever else.
It all just suddenly can't start spilling through
and they want to talk about it at bedtime.
But I guess that's when you have to embrace it
or you can compartmentalise it
and say, right, this is a really big subject
and I want to give it my all.
I really want you to know I'm listening to you
and I want to make sure that we don't hurry through it.
Let's put some aside, some time aside tomorrow,
and let's address this properly.
So that's what I'll do if it's a really big subject.
And then sometimes I'm sure they just play me
and they just realise that that's when they've got me
and I'll just cave.
How do you have open, honest conversations with your children about their mental health?
I try and have open conversations about
my children's mental health and my own, only
because I feel that these are conversations
that are being had hopefully at school,
but that are very much prevalent.
And I think that we are marked out as a generation
that didn't have those conversations.
It's even just the term mental health.
I think a lot of people look at it with disdain
from other generations.
There was a lot of, we just got on with it, we just cracked on,
there was none of this mental health nonsense
and so on and so on.
And so doing it burdens us.
It makes us feel that we shouldn't feel the way we feel.
And I think of the times in my life when I haven't
had the tools, I don't even know if I still have the tools
because I dunno what those tools look like.
I dunno if just walking around outside is enough for me
or calling a friend is enough
because I dunno if I'd know what to say
and I dunno if my friend would know what to say
because we're all still that generation.
Oh, you should go and speak to somebody
and then you don't know who to speak to.
And so I do what most people in my generation do
and I get on with, it crack on.
And it's almost to the point that I pride myself on it.
Is that right? I don't know. I dunno.
But I do try
and make sure that my children will say, look,
I had a bad day and this is why.
And I really, really sit on my hands
and I really bite my tongue and try not to fix it.
So that's my first go-to, I'm like,
oh well maybe they didn't mean it like
that, or have you tried doing this?
Or I'd stay away from them
and I start coming out with all of these, either platitudes
or just, I don't know, just trying to find ways
to fix a situation.
And I actually think talking it through,
sitting in the sadness, sitting in the situation,
replaying it out, letting them come to the recognition of,
do I want to be treated like that?
Why do I feel this way?
Could I have done things differently?
Should I do things differently?
It's I suppose helping them navigate
what's going on in their thoughts
and just by voicing those thoughts
or just saying how they're feeling,
it helps them just get through that maze.
And I think we could learn a lot from that.
This is where generationally,
they're further ahead than us and we mustn't get in the way.
And I think sometimes I get in the way, you'll be okay.
You'll be fine. Why will they be okay?
Because I said it because? Because I hexed them
and I think actually just to say
that's awful, I'm really sorry.
And trying to understand if it's a vent
or they want the solution, do they want to just vent
or do they want you to help fix it?
And sometimes, yeah, you've got to figure out
that actually this looks a
little bit more serious.
Maybe there should be an intervention of sorts.
And other times you just have to sit back
and let them sit in their sadness,
process it and then come through it.
But I think this is something we have to almost do in tandem
and I really feel sorry for our kids.
We didn't have it. So we are kind of exploring it with them.
What are some things you do as a parent to help your children deal with difficult emotions?
When it comes to dealing with difficult situations
and experiences as a family, I really do try
and model what I think is the right behaviour in
that situation and show my vulnerability
because I think so many times we're taught to suppress
and hide away that everything's okay
and paint this mask on our faces.
And I'm sure children just the thing that we are frightened
of with children, what is it they say?
Drunk people, leggings and children don't lie.
And then we get older and then we all start putting on this
mask and lying to ourselves
and lying to everybody else, lying to the world.
And kids see right through it.
And so recently somebody that we're close to,
they lost their mum
and I would just go around there with food
and drop off flowers
and I would make sure my children would see me do that.
They'd be sitting in the car
and I'd just put it on the doorstep and I'd take a photo
and send it to my friend and just say, it's there for you.
Because then my children are seeing the process modelled
as opposed to me just saying it is really sad.
And just letting them be and just how you can support
and be a friend in that way.
When it comes to something happening in our house, again,
I try and model it by us talking about things at the table
to the point, I mean our tables become like this.
I dunno, it's a conference table, it's a dining table, it's
a share your thoughts and feelings table.
I'm sure it drives them mad,
but it is the engine room, the kitchen,
and that table is the engine room of our house.
It's like the heart of our house
and you can see the eye roll.
Oh, we've got another family meeting, another chat.
Mum's going to talk about our feelings
and how everyone's doing and tell everybody what's going on.
But I do think that there is a lot of power in dealing
with things as a family and not hiding things away.
I just try and hit things as head on as I possibly can.
I think secrets destroy families.
There's no other way of putting it.
And with all of us have been on the receiving end of secrets
that have been either hidden for our own good or not,
but they all come out in the wash anyway,
and then nobody knows what to do with them
or who to speak to or what to say or how.
I think the best way is just to model that behaviour.
Again, keep talking about modelling, but I suppose it's
because that's the only way.
It's 90% of what they see,
10% of what we say.
So I just try and show it all the time.
I'm feeling sad today, let's talk about it.
Or I've got this really good news.
It doesn't have to be bad. I've got this really good news.
I want to share it with everybody.
I don't want to hide it away
and make other people feel bad with my good news.
You want to show that you celebrate people's good news too,
that ultimately we are just finding our way,
but ultimately find it together.
How do you promote good mental wellbeing in your family?
Promoting good mental wellbeing In my family,
it's not always easy because in order to look
after your mind, it's like looking after anything else.
It does take time and effort and
because you can't see it, often
you just think you don't need to deal with it.
But it's again, the difference of getting off the sofa
and getting outside and going, oh, do you know?
I feel a lot better now
that I've just changed my surroundings
or I've just got some fresh air, or I've just gone out
and seen friends.
I think it's just that idea of changing gears.
You can all just get caught in a rut.
I am totally guilty of it myself.
Working, getting on that hamster wheel
and not being able to get off it.
Then it's almost a flex, isn't it? Oh, I did a six day week.
I did a seven day week. I haven't slept for 24 hours.
It just becomes this weird flex
and actually there's nothing to flex about it.
We should be sleeping well, we should be getting outside.
We should be doing things we love,
should be working towards family time,
and it is all the wrong way round.
We've got it all the way wrong way round.
I see my holiday as a luxury, whereas that time
with my family, when I'm lying on my death bed,
I will not be thanking myself for working so hard.
And yet, of course, you can't have the life
that your family need unless you do work and we just can't
and get caught in this dichotomy and it is.
It's conflicting, but I know what I should be doing.
I just don't always find the time to do it,
and I have to try and make that time
because I want my children to make that time for themselves.
If I don't get off the sofa
or give myself the right amount of sleep or look
after myself, then they're not going to do it either,
but it's easier said than done.
I'm definitely not here to put more pressure on you
because I could, most definitely, I could deal
with somebody giving me a few more hours sleep
and a few more answers too.
It's not easy, but it's important.
It's important to show it.
How do you communicate with your children if you're struggling with something personally?
How do I communicate with my children
if I've got personal things going on?
It's a very, very good question,
and I've done it in multiple ways.
So I've done the, I'll hide it.
I remember when I lost my first child,
I was on holiday and it was my birthday,
and so kids were making me birthday cards and I was crying,
and I was just like, I'm so moved.
These are the most beautiful cards.
I just didn't think this is the time or place to do this.
But then I look back and then they've put the pieces
together and they just remember that I just sat by the pool.
When I'd gone back, I had to go
and have my DNC, which was hideous,
and then I just didn't want to sit at home on my own.
I wanted to be with my family. So went back
and sat by the pool, just my glasses on crying.
And you think you are hiding things from your children.
You're not. They see it.
They just can't in the time, put it together.
Later as they're a little bit older, as
this is through a four year process,
I explained things to them,
but then you are mopping up their grief too,
as well as your own.
So then you want to show your children, I am here for you.
You are my priority, and I'm big enough to take your pain.
I'm big enough and strong enough to take your pain.
But in so doing, you're actually just taking on more pain,
and you have to then find your own outlet.
So look, there's no right or wrong answer
because everybody's got something to deal with.
It can be extreme pressures at work or in your relationship.
It can be the death of a loved one or a baby.
There's so many awful things happening,
and I think ultimately it's about,
it's an awful thing, isn't it?
Putting your oxygen mask on first
and going, right, I'm going to take my breath here.
I sometimes take myself out of the room, out
of the situation and just tell
you, I'm just going to need a minute.
I'm just dealing with something. I promise
I will explain it to you.
It's nothing you've said or done.
It's nothing that you can fix. It's not for you to fix.
It's for the adults to deal with,
but you still have to put it into context for them.
But I don't hide it anymore.
Thinking about your family life, what have been some of your proudest moments?
If I had to name the proudest moments in my family
life, I'm so proud.
I cry about my proud and my family. I
can't believe I've got my children, I can't believe,
can't believe how amazing every day that I get
to be their mum is.
It's not just I'm so proud of my children.
I'm just so proud to get to be their mum.
I know every mum will say that,
and I know that when we are tired, can you tell I'm tired.
I'm so tired. I think that
just when you see them overcome things
that they might find hard
or that they were worried about.Things
that you wouldn't dare do yourself,
and you think, God, that's my daughter.
She's just said that, or she's just stopped that.
Something that I wouldn't have been ballsy enough
or gutsy enough to stand up for.
I've seen my children stand up for things
that I just can't believe it, that it is just so brave.
I've seen them do things
that adults wouldn't be brave enough to do,
and I just think, God, that's awesome.
I'm sure that people see me as some Asian tiger mum,
and I'll think it'll all come down to
they played a piano piece, which yeah, I'm proud of.
Don't get me wrong. I know what goes into it,
but actually I'm proud of the people they are
because I've made these little resilient, strong kind beings
when they're strong and it is back at me.
I actually secretly think, God good.
You won't be a pushover.
You'll be able to use that in the real world,
and you'll be able to stand up for things that are amazing
and you'll be able to stand up for yourself,
and those are attributes that I really admire
that I know they're going to need,
but they're kind, they're kind little people,
and as my son, well, I just can't believe we have him.
So there's this thing, so
when you lose a child, the cells are in you,
but they also go into the child that you subsequently,
if you're lucky enough, go on to have.
So when I think when I hug him, I hug six other people.
No, that's wrong. That's wrong math.
When I hug him, I put my partner in there as well.
Well, I suppose, yeah, I do.
I hug my partner as well, so
four babies and three children.
You do the maths when you hug one child, there's
all his siblings and his older sisters are there as well.
It's just mad.
What have you learnt from your daughters that you will apply to your younger son as he grows up?
What have I learned from my elder daughters that I apply
to my son as he grows?
I would say that first
and foremost, their voices are paramount.
And I think that it goes without saying that everybody wants
to be heard, but very often children's voices
we're not in that generation of children,
to be seen and not heard.
But I think we don't necessarily practice it
just because we're not saying it.
You don't know best, you're an adult, but you don't know best.
And my children surprise me all the time.
They're in it, they're hearing things all the time,
and they're communicators.
They want to communicate.
And I think you've just got to be as open to that
as you possibly can be.
It's almost like breaking down the patterns that we have.
I always say to my children that whatever happens,
no matter what, come home,
if it all goes wrong, come home.
If you need help with bills,
if your relationship breaks down, if your job goes to wreck
and ruin, come home.
And in the same breath,
if something amazing happens, come home.
I want to celebrate with you.
I don't want to always just be doom and gloom.
I want you to know that I'm forever there for you
to celebrate the wins too.
So I've drummed this into my kids.
If you ask any of them, they'll say, I have roots,
but I want them to have branches.
So I want them to have those foundations,
those roots at home.
But the branches have got to reach out to whoever they want
to go in their work, and their lives, in their relationships.
And my daughter recognises it as a Virginia Wolf quote,
I'm rooted, but yet I flow.
It's so important because it's that idea
that you can't ever miss home until you've gone.
You don't know anything different.
And so you do have to go out and see the world.
You do need to go and find out what's there for you,
but within the same breath,
you need to know where your sanctuary is.
You need to know your safe places.
And hopefully as their mum, I'm that safe place.
You are the one that gets the glory.
You're the one that gets the good times with them,
and you're the one that gets the hardest times as well
because that's the person they know unequivocally.
No matter what happens, you'll never stop loving them.
It's unconditional whatever they throw at you,
and they can throw everything.
And I've said that to them, you are their safe space.
And I think it's important that you voice that
and that you practice that
and that you see that. I've got three children, very,
very different, all raised by the same mum,
but in different times, different situations,
different experiences.
And that's got to really be taken into account
because you can't look at one child
and say, well, that worked with you, because it most
definitely isn't going to work with your other children because they are
just in different places.
How do you build connection with you children?
How do you build connection with your children?
I would say first and foremost, it is down to communication,
of course, but you have two ears.
In the world of music, we say you have two ears
for listening, one mouth for speaking.
So you have to do double the listening.
And often a child doesn't know how to
verbalise that they need help. I mean, I know
a lot of adults that don't know how to ask
for help, myself included.
But
a child might hint to you, it could just be a tantrum.
You might think that they might be
playing up for whatever reason.
They're just tired, they're just hungry.
As mums, we say it all the time,
you'll feel better when you've slept
and the child does not want to sleep.
But ultimately it's their way of asking for help.
They're just overwhelmed. But connection for me
and my family, it's key. I think
because of the experiences that we've been through
and because for a long time it was me and my daughters.
We used to call ourselves just the Klass girls.
We were a triangle. The three of
us, the magic number, three is the magic number
because I raised my children as a single mum,
and for a long time it was just
us three.
And then my partner came along
and then my son came along. And
within that, a family's always growing.
It's always reconfiguring. It is always changing shape.
Not to be frightened of that because it's hard.
When something feels good, you want to keep it the same. I
would've hung onto the Klass girls
For forever, but they grow, and your family changes.
But within that time, I lost four children
and there's something called microchimerism.
And if I'd have known about that, it would've been so much
more helpful for me for a long time.
And it's definitely something I talk about a lot. I think
It helps a lot of women I know especially,
but when you have a baby,
you have an exchange of cells.
So your baby that you carry,
it's almost like bolstering each other.
It's like you recalibrate, the bodies talk to each other,
and your baby sends cells to bolster up your brain,
your liver your kidneys, your heart, any
of the vital major organs and vice versa.
That's probably why they say you're glowing in pregnancy.
But it's a way of just reconfiguring, recalibrating
and looking after each other.
And those cells are really powerful.
And when you give birth to your child,
they carry your cells and vice versa.
But what they discovered is when you lose a child,
you still carry their cells.
And then when you then go on to have
hopefully another child,
that child in turn
carries the cells of their brother
or their sibling or their sister.
So by the time you work your way down,
by the time you hug my son, we call him Snoopy, Apollo.
I'm hugging all seven of my children.
That's a connection like no other.
What are some of the challenges young people face that might impact their mental health?
What are some of the challenges that young people face
that might impact their mental health?
I mean, the list is extensive
and it's not all down to the child.
It can be environmental factors, it can be breakups
in the family, and having your sanctuary
or your foundations really shaken. Social media
and tech plays a huge part - that incessant scrolling,
being presented with the perfect shiny world,
filtered, fomo, tricky -
you can see that the world is having a great time without
you there, and boredom.
You don't get the chance to be bored,
so you are just forever entertained, so you don't go out
and look for something new for yourself.
As they say, necessity is a mother of all invention,
but you are not going to go
and create anything if everything's just handed to you.
And it's really frustrating
for both parents and for children
alike. Body changes, puberty, it's a lot of pressure,
hormones, friendships.
I think navigating all of that is hard enough
and we've been through it.
However, navigating it in
a realm where it's so visual
where everyone can see what you're experiencing
and comment upon it.
It's a lot of pressure. You can't make a mistake.
What impact could technology have on impacting a young's persons mental health?
What are some of the challenges that young people face
that might impact their mental health?
Well, first and foremost, for me it's social media, tech.
It's brilliant that we're so plugged into the main vein,
24/7 information, everything so accessible just
by picking up your phone
and clicking on a screen that's just all there
and that's also conversely the problem.
It's just all there. You can never switch off from it.
You can never stop comparing.
You can never stop seeing 24/7 information. It's exhausting.
And also you're never looking for it.
So if you're not actively looking for that information
that you seek and it's just always presented to you,
then it's almost just too easy.
And I just think that most of the best things are born out
of boredom or necessity as they say that
necessity is the mother of invention.
So if you're never bored and it's just presented to you,
you don't know how to look for things.
So I do really feel for kids.
I'm sure they feel for us because, oh my God,
you never had the wifi or the internet,
or you never had any of these passwords.
My kids can't get their head around it.
They think I watched
everything in black and white basically.
So whilst that's not entirely true,
I get how that might feel.
My kids have got DVDs on the wall
because they're nostalgic and retro.
I cannot get my head around that.
And that's the thing, it's a huge generational gap
and we're trying to reach across that gulf.
But in so doing, what does that do
to your mental health when you are being literally bombarded
with information and imagery and comparisons?
It's a lot. And also
everyone's life just always looks better and perfect
and shinier and flawless and filtered.
What does that do to a child?
And you just have to take a step back
because we are guilty of it too.
Everyone applies a filter to their life,
to their information that's going on.
Everybody wants to present the shiniest version of themself,
and so, well, why wouldn't a child then replicate that?
In order to break it, you've got to be really brave yourself
and show yourself what's and all.
And no one else does that because then you'll look like
you're discombobulating and your life's falling apart
and that's it.
We get caught up in this cycle.
It's really hard,
but we need to remember that, understand it and regulate it.
Put the screens down.
How can I support a young people with challenges they might be facing?
How can you convince a child that
you can guide them along a path that you've not walked,
I suppose is the tricky bit.
Because we all know what it's like to feel insecure, to go
through those hormones, although
that was like a hundred years ago.
And friendships, changes in environment.
We've experienced them,
but we experienced them in a different time.
And I think you have to remember that.
The world is such a different shape,
and to a degree you always have to let your child guide you.
We are seeing images like a bombardment of images
all day long, and we don't know where to put all
that information. At the same time
we're too worried about anything that we say.
It'll be there forever. There's digital footprints.
There's things that people can repeat,
they can pass information on about you.
Again, you have to remember
that peer group pressure is so huge.
You've gone from being the most important person in your
child's life to being relegated right to the back
because there's popular kids in town now,
and there's just a lot of pressure that comes with that.
Plus, there's school pressure,
there's pressures about getting a good job.
Now everybody wants to make the money to keep up
with the lifestyles that they see in front of them.
And everything's been even out slightly now.
Before it would just be pure hard work
would get you to where you want to go.
But now the doors have been opened by football, sport,
being a musician, it's more
of a level playing field because everyone can touch it
now. You don't need to have sort
of this incredible education that means
anyone can hopefully have a go.
But in so doing, everyone's having a go,
everyone's either going for a talent show
or everyone's a singer now, or everyone's a footballer.
It just feels so competitive and overwhelming.
If you think about something called Maslow's Hierarchy
of Needs, it's a triangle.
It's like a graph. And if you work your way up from
that triangle, it's really interesting to see.
It just shows what the essential needs are for a child.
And when I look at that graph, I think, well, my mum
and dad, they definitely catered for the bottom rung
and then the rest felt like a luxury.
So if you think the bottom rung is having a roof over your
head and clothes and food and education,
and that for them was what love looked like.
It was their love language for me.
But for me now, I want to build on that
and say, well, is your mental health okay?
And your aspirations?
And in so doing, you get to the next rung
because then if you feel safe in your wants and needs
are met, then can you build on your self-esteem?
And then if your self-esteem is where it should be,
then can you be the actual pinnacle of who you want to be,
which is your choice.
Can you fulfil who you are meant to be?
But it takes a long time
and a lot of things going in the right direction
to fulfil that graph.
And it's not even a graph that we were ever presented with.
This is something my children brought to me
that they learned at school.
And it's just I learn as much from them
as hopefully they learn from me.
What are some signs that a young person may be struggling with their mental health?
Signs that a young person might be
struggling with their mental health.
So there's many and there's few,
and this is where you almost have to,
I suppose, unlearn any habits that you've got.
A child might not be able to come
to you and say, I've got a problem.
I'm struggling. Because they might
not be able to vocalise it.
They might not have the vocabulary
or even be able to recognise it for themselves.
So if you think, oh, this child's so good,
they're getting on with their work,
they do everything they're meant to do, they're compliant,
they don't challenge me, it's still worth looking at
what might be going on.
Because often the child that seems
to be doing really well could be about
to break under the pressure, could be crying silent tears
into their pillow at night.
Friendships can have a huge impact on mental health.
In fact, friendships and peer pressure
And that acceptance within the group is paramount
for this age group, fitting in, it's tricky.
You're expected to discover who you are as a person
and have that autonomy,
but at the same time, make sure you fit into the group.
And that brings so much pressure
and that can present itself in so different ways.
Lashing out, being angry, being curt, being short.
I think from a physical perspective, there are signs
that you should always look out for.
They're not so obvious.
There's actually some very serious signs.
There's self harmers who often cover up their arms
and wear baggier clothes.
They might be struggling with their physicality,
with their self-esteem, with body image,
and again, either squirrelling away food, hiding it away,
eating in a different food pattern, or not eating at all.
And that is really quite challenging to deal with.
And definitely if you can, it does require extra help,
but embarrassing somebody into it, goading them into it,
bribing them into eating
or looking at their body a different way.
I think you look lovely. It's not enough.
It's not enough from a mental capacity.
That's what you need to unlock.
And that comes from a conversation
and that comes from somebody very deeply wounding them.
It won't necessarily
be something that happened in your house.
It can be something that happened at school, something,
a visual image that they have seen
that's gone straight into their mind.
It doesn't even necessarily come into
having power over their body.
It's about having power over their mind
and just wanting to regain some kind of control.
And when we are out of control, when we are tail spinning,
we all react in different ways.
So think about how maybe you react. Do you lash out?
Do you close in? And modelling that behaviour again
and asking those questions out loud:
"I wonder, you've got a lot on it at school at the moment,
and wonder how that must feel.
I dunno how I would feel about that.
It must be really heart-breaking for you to lose
that friendship and see your friends go off".
Even the clothing at the minute, keeping up with
what everyone else is wearing and the pressure that brings,
or how people are wearing it.
Can they afford those clothes?
Do they look the same as the people they're modelling
themselves on those clothes?
And what does that then begin to unlock?
It's just about having those conversations
and understanding where your young person is at in
that journey.
How can I speak to my child if I think they might be having thoughts of self harm or suicide?
How can you speak to a child if you think they might have
suicidal thoughts or be a self harmer?
Okay, so this is very tricky
because your interpretation will often be, I
don't want you to feel this way.
You don't need to feel this way.
You've got so much to live for.
You don't need to do this to yourself,
and what the child is experiencing is shame.
So how can you be strong enough
and how can you show
that you are not frightened of their feelings?
And that's what it comes down to.
You cannot be frightened of their feelings.
They're not actually saying, I want to die.
They're actually trying to say, I want
to stop feeling like this.
That's what they're trying to say,
and it's almost that you have to be able to
find the space to let them say the scariest things
and let them
find a way to come to that conclusion.
I know it's probably absolutely terrifying,
but they don't want to kill themself.
They just want the pain of their experience to end.
They just want to be able to speak about it, not be judged,
not have that feeling diluted as "you'll be fine, it'll pass,
Its okay". Also, with self-harm,
it's extremely complicated.
It's complex because again,
it's all shrouded in shame
and the clothes that they wear, the way
that they hide the cuts
and the pain, they'll often be told
you're doing it for attention.
Ultimately, whatever reasons they're doing it
for the, last will be for attention.
Again, it is that cry for help,
and it is that way of trying to find a release,
and you've got to somehow find the strength yourself
to not put your feelings onto them, just to let them
communicate what they are experiencing
and not try and fix it.
Just listen to it and hear it,
and just let that uncomfortable, awful pain sit in the room.
It's the reason that children ring helplines.
It's the reason that children go looking
for the answers in the wrong places.
They just need somebody to tell them something
that makes a little bit of sense,
and that somebody needs to be you so they don't go somewhere
and get the wrong information.
There are sites that parents think, "well,
they haven't looked at anything under self-harm"
because they're not going to look for something under
self-harm, or they're not going to look
for something under eating disorder.
Children hide things so brilliantly.
Think of when you were a kid, how easy it was
to hide things from your parents.
Most kids are looking for, their searches are under Mia
or Anna for bulimia, for anorexia.
If the word is dying on, say, a social media website,
they'll use the term unalived or they'll use a symbol.
It's hidden. It's hidden in plain sight, but it's hidden
and it can't be hidden from you.
I think my child is neurodiverse, what should I do?
If you think your child is neurodiverse, first
and foremost, if you can get a professional diagnosis,
it'll be essential when it comes
to helping you and your child.
Everyone needs someone's hand to hold,
especially if you are traversing a path
that you have never walked yourself.
Also, the way that many adolescents present when it comes
to neurodiversity, it can be really quite tricky just
to pick out what might be hormonal
and what is actually ADHD or autism.
So maybe your child is really overwhelmed
and struggling with timekeeping.
Maybe they're very deep feeling children,
and those feelings present larger and larger.
Or again, are they hormones?
This is where it's essential just to get some kind of
diagnosis, because later down the line,
you often hear about people who found out
that they were ADHD later in life,
and all of the challenges that they faced, whereby had it
happened a little sooner when they were younger,
they would've been able to have the tools to deal with it.
Ultimately, if you do have a child that is neurodiverse,
you almost have to present yourself
in an opposite sense of how you are feeling.
So if they're telling you to go away,
and this actually works for most adolescents
anyway, they mean the opposite.
Lean in. If they're having the worst day ever
and they want to push you away, lean in.
You probably have to give them a little bit of space,
then you need to come back together
and give them the biggest hug because they need the most
kindness, the most patience shown to them.
There's so many people that will dismiss ADHD
as something that everyone's got a little bit of ADHD
until you actually have it
or until you know somebody who has it,
and then you will very much realise that it's not something
that everybody has, on the contrary.
They need more love, more kindness, more patience than ever
before.
How do I support someone a young person that is neurodiverse?
How to support a young person that is neurodiverse.
Firstly, you've got to get your strength up
because it takes a lot of patience, a lot
of understanding, and it can really put a pressure on your
own relationship on the household,
because the person who has ADHD or autism
or any kind of neurodiversity, can put a lot of pressure,
through no fault of their own,
onto the family unit and themselves.
You've got to imagine having a neurodiversity
as if you had a broken arm.
Everybody else would be able to see it immediately
and take that cue and understand how to treat you, look
after you, be that little bit more kind.
But when it's something that's invisible,
people can't see it.
So they just think that maybe you're acting up
or maybe you're being unreasonable,
or maybe it's just hormones
or everyone's got a little bit of neurodiversity these days
and they can be extremely unkind
to say the least. First
and foremost, you just need to get support.
You need to get as much support as you can from friends,
from family, and for the person that's going through
the neurodiversity and trying to learn to live their life
with it, and what that means for them,
it really isn't the end of the world.
They can do the most incredible things. They really can.
I have a friend who said to me that
after he was diagnosed, he believes
that it was almost like natural selection.
He's a scientist, that this is how he speaks about it.
And while you've got the, let's call them the normal thinkers
who do things one way
and go through the schooling system this way,
and they understand that this is
where they fit in, the neurodiverse people -
like Einstein who came up with the idea
of the light bulb, it all came from being ADHD.
I mean, the sign for thinking is a light bulb.
This is all because of Einstein, who was ADHD,
and so maybe they just look at the world a little bit
differently and they have their role in it as well.
So it shouldn't be one size fits all.
Everyone has to fit into this one way
of learning and presenting.
They are their own little piece of magic,
but it is extremely frustrating.
So if you have someone who is neurodiverse,
they need more love, more kindness,
more understanding than ever
before, as does the person who is providing that support.
And also the way that it can present can be very,
very challenging because ADHD is,
and people with autism, they're huge feelers,
they have huge feelings.
So when something is wonderful, they're ecstatic.
And when something is sad, they are mortally depressed.
That's another thing that is worth looking at.
If someone is going through a deep depression,
try not to be frightened of it.
Hit it head on. Talk to them about their sadness.
Don't try and happy them out of it. Jolly them out of it.
That's not going to work.
They'll just be masking, hiding how they feel
to make you feel better,
and ultimately we're trying to help them feel better.
What sort of language do you use when talking to young people about mental health?
The sort of language that I use talking
to children about mental health is first
and foremost, don't make a joke about it.
I know it's nice to keep things light,
but mental health, you wouldn't joke about any other part
of your body if there was something that was wrong
or that you felt frustrated with
or you needed someone to really take issue -
your issue seriously.
So you're trying to sound really struggling.
My mind's in a really bad place.
And then most people try to get jollied out of it.
You'll be okay. We'll have bad days, you'll be fine.
Just cheer up. Can't be that bad.
And all you are doing is making it about you again.
So you're saying, I'm really uncomfortable.
I actually feel quite threatened about what you're saying
and I'm going to try and put a smile on your face.
Whereby actually, if someone is really struggling
with their mental health, it's something
you've got to take really seriously.
If you cannot get your head around it, the best thing
to do is imagine they're sitting in front
of you with a broken leg.
You would not say, just have a little walk around.
You'll feel fine. You would say, right,
let's get you the help you need.
Where does it hurt? How's it presenting?
The most obvious questions, but
because it's invisible, well then it almost becomes the
symptoms that are invisible too.
And then you just push the whole thing underground.
What are the signs to look out for with neurodiversity in young people?
Signs to look out for
when it comes to neurodiversity in young people,
there are numerous signs, and it can be quite complex
because you could almost argue that some
of the signs feel like personality traits, for example,
over talkativeness, just talking, talking, talking, talking,
but to the point, they burn themselves out.
Hyper-focus again, they can lock themselves in a room
for six hours, seven hours reading one book
or numerous hobbies, not being able to maybe stick
with one thing, just chopping and changing all the time.
Extreme highs,
and I'm not just talking about really being happy,
but I'm talking being ecstatic.
And then extreme lows as well.
Not just very, very sad,
but extreme depression, being the life
and soul of the party, not being able to read social cues.
The Neurodiverse community are extremely fun as a result
of this because they're the first
to try anything because they feel fearless.
But in so doing, they're the first to break something,
usually a bone or a table or whatever else.
It's just so many of these cues,
and this is just the top line when it comes to trying
to fit somebody into the schooling system
that is neurodiverse,
and at the moment they think it's 1 in 20,
but that's what we know of.
From the clear diagnosis of people, there are many
who are undiagnosed.
Not everyone can learn the same way, so
that brings its own frustrations.
Even as something as simple as holding a pencil,
somebody who's neurodiverse might find that actually painful
and there is help out there.
There are ways that you can get pauses
in exams now, so you can pause
and get that extra time and that extra help.
So getting a diagnosis or getting that support is key.
Speaking to the school, speaking to teachers,
getting advice from them, looking out for those signs,
and hopefully they'll be looking out for them as well.
But some of these signs can also just be hormonal,
extra sleep, just needing that extra sleep.
Or a child that doesn't sleep. That's also another key.
What might be some signs that a young person may need support with their mental health?
Being a young person is so tricky.
Going into teens, being a tween, that entire hormonal
overwhelm that you feel.
It is tough at the best of times,
and everybody gets anxious.
However, there is a point where it then feels like it's out
of control or it feels that it's unmanageable,
and that is where you need help.
So you've got an exam.
We all feel anxious, we all feel a bit of fear,
but that's there to keep us safe,
and it's there to make sure we do the work,
and it's there to make sure we prepare for it
and show that we care about it.
I always say this to my kids, it shows that you care,
but then when you feel debilitated by it, when you feel
absolutely paralysed with fear
and you don't even try at all, don't even get out the bed.
It's not that you're lazy, it's that you are paralysed with
that fear or complete blank cannot even
begin to get yourself out of any kind of trouble.
That's a very clear sign that you might need some help
or assistance along the way.
Ultimately, a lot of these overwhelming feelings,
they happen when hormones hit, as we all remember.
But I think something that does sort of dissipate
or dilute down in time is how we dealt with it.
We got on with it. We just assumed
that our kids will just get on with it,
and it's just a different landscape
now. The lines of communication are key
and you will mess up.
We all mess up, but that's okay.
You just go back, say I'm so sorry. I misread that sign.
I didn't hear what you said.
I always say to my children, please make sure I hear you.
Sometimes I might've misread it, misheard it,
misinterpreted it, come back again.
Make me hear you.
Who do you mentor and what do you mentor them about?
So I'm a mentor for some children in Norfolk
where I grew up and also in London.
And it's actually something I really enjoy.
It's not something I ever really anticipated
that I would be doing,
but I got a call from an old headmaster who said,
would I come in and help?
There were some children
that really needed some guidance who'd lost their way,
and I got the call.
It's not completely fish out of water territory
because I used to be a teacher, a music teacher.
So I used to spend a lot of my time trying to control a lot
of children with a lot of instruments,
which is no mean feat.
And also I'm a mom.
So you just put those two powers together
and I really care about my community.
I want to show my children by example,
that you don't pull the ladder up behind you.
If you've got a voice and you are in a position
to do something about it, extend the ladder.
What made you want to become a young person's mentor?
I do a lot of work with a lot of charities
and I travel around the world
and see a lot of situations that are unimaginable
and you can feel often very helpless,
but you do the best you can. When you become a mentor
and it becomes one-on-one mentoring, you can very quickly
see the effects
and I think it just helps so many people.
Those ripple effects, they are huge.
They help the child, they help the family,
they help the school, they help the community.
Some of the kids that I've mentored, they've gone on
to do the most incredible things,
and it's just really exciting, especially when you step in
and there's children who've just lost their way.
There's no child that's bad,
but the circumstances that you can find yourself in,
it is just luck of the draw.
Sometimes you don't where you're going to be born,
but you have to make the best of what you've got,
the best of your situation.
But what do you do if you haven't got enough money
to be able to feed yourself?
What happens if you go to school hungry?
What happens if you haven't got the chance to learn
To the extent that you are capable of? These are the things
that as a mentor, you try and pull out of your child
and present new alternatives
and just, I guess there's a lot to be said
for having someone that believes in you, someone
that's monitoring you.
It is like just being a mom to more children.
I have report cards on my phone,
so my own children's schools ding up on my phone
and then my mentors reports ding up,
and if they get detention, I make a call,
and if they get a commendation, I make another call.
It's very fulfilling and they're very sweet.
Many of them have said that
they get a lot from it, but I get just as much back.
It definitely makes you see the world in a totally different
way.
What sort of topics come up when you mentor young people?
So as a mentor, you think that -
or I thought that I was going to go in
and speak about opportunities,
job opportunities, and create those opportunities
and skillsets and open up those kind of dialogues.
And instead, you just go back to grassroots.
You go back to explaining how you show up for people,
how you present yourself about continually showing up.
It can't just be something that happens one day or the next.
That continuity is key.
Being reliable, having that belief in yourself, there's
so many other things that come into play
before even addressing education
or addressing a career path.
And I think that in a time where
so many people are results driven
or are looking at timetables
or tally tables for grades and universities
and all of those things that are just miles away for many,
miles away, because often it's just about trying
to put yourself together in the morning, trying
to put your pencil case together,
not even necessarily having the equipment
that you need or the choices.
There's so much that comes into play for being a mentor
and about, I guess having to read the situation
and seeing what that person might need.
And it's hard. Sometimes you have to be softly, softly
and other times you have to do the mom stare,
oh that's come out a few times.
Yeah, it's been a road
that I never imagined I'd be walking on
and I'm really grateful for it
actually, I'll tell you what has been quite
interesting as a mentor.
It's meant that I've actually bought the biggest rounds
of ice creams I've ever bought in my entire life as a treat
for the school that I was teaching at.
I said I'd buy them all an ice cream,
but I didn't realise that was 1300 ice creams.
It's quite a lot.
How do you support your mentees with any issues they might be facing?
The main way that I support my mentees is the same way
that I support my children.
I show up. Because that's the key thing, just
that continuity of showing up.
And when I say showing up,
I've been from every corner of the globe.
I've been on jobs abroad
and I've still called in,
in different time zones when I've been about to walk on stage
or when I'm about to go on air with my work.
And I've actually used it as a teaching tool just to show
that there's a different world out there.
And that actually most of the work that I do,
if not all of the work that I do is team-based.
So knowing how to work with people,
I've often had people jump on the call
and explain the work that they're doing that day,
so they again can get an introduction to different jobs
or what a different skillset might look like.
And it's just been really powerful.
I think that often you just need someone to present,
not just the opportunities, but if you
can't see it, you can't be it.
I grew up a mixed race girl in Norfolk.
I didn't know what I was going to do because
I didn't see anybody that looked like me
and I had to create my own career path.
And a lot of people say that for granted
now because you can just go online and there's different jobs
and different opportunities seemingly,
but if you can't see those, you can't be them.
What have you learnt from being a mentor?
The main lesson I've learned from being a mentor,
keep showing up. In the same way
that I want continuity from my mentee,
they need it from you. So
everybody in life just needs a cheerleader.
Could be a best mate, could be a mom, it could be a teacher.
But everyone just needs that one person that's like,
get up there, go on, keep going.
Don't quit. Don't quit, don't quit.
And not everyone has that.
And it's something you can often take for granted,
especially if you're the kind of person that thinks, well,
I'm always there, there for my child,
or I want 'em to always know that.
But knowing it
and seeing it, it's like you often just have to show it.
So I realise that
just being a presence,
it's made all the difference. It really has done,
even when they know that I'm most
disappointed with you today.
Do you think you should have gone to class
or do you think you should have put a tie on?
Do you think you should have? You can start with that,
but if you start with you being on time for them,
I made sure I was always on time, I didn't mind.
I didn't mind if I was waiting for them,
but I wanted them to know that I was ready
and that I was going to do what I said I was going to do.
So I start all my mentees off with a contract.
I explain that if you shake my hand,
that is a legal binding contract with me.
And we kind of go through this whole role play,
but it's a contract.
I'll show up, you show up, I will present, you present.
And it's been really powerful.
And I go back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
You can have your baseline of things, your house,
your foods, your clothing, which not everyone gets,
but that's the baseline.
Then you go to the next line.
And if you're in that position where you are safe
and you've got those basic needs,
you've got a chance of being able to learn.
And then if you can learn, you get your confidence.
And if you get your confidence, you get your self-belief.
And if you get your self-belief, then you can be anything.
But not many people reach the top of that triangle.
Not many adults I know reach the top of that triangle.
And a lot of those things are actually, they're a luxury.
They take money, they take time, they take guidance.
And I think as a mentor, I try
and always visualise that triangle.
I try and visualise it
and think, what does my mentee need today?
And sometimes they just need someone just to go "well done".
I know that you didn't want to go to that class.
I know that you find it hard to
get out of bed in the morning.
I know that you're struggling today, but you did it.
How is mentoring other young people different to your own children?
Mentoring children that are not
mine is very different. It's very different.
It's interesting because there's a
constant in anybody's house.
Everyone's got a rhythm. They all know how everybody works.
But when you come into a completely new person,
I mean, they're a stranger to you and you to them.
When you come into a whole rhythm that neither
of you recognise, it's like you have to sort of
get accustomed to each other.
And I'm sure that I must seem like a giant nag sometimes
or quite interfering at other times.
And other times I just think, well,
why is she cheering on the mundane?
All I did was hold a door open for somebody.
But those things can make a big difference to someone,
especially if then you find out that they got a commendation
for being polite and then led the rest of the class
and being polite and they suddenly realise,
oh, I've got a bit of power here.
I can, I use these forces for good.
So sometimes it's just the really small things
that make a huge difference.
And it's funny
because my children are accustomed to how I work
and the language that I have, and I'm just mom.
In fact, that's it. I am just mom.
I'm expected to show up
and just do the mom jobs around the house.
But it's funny because my own children have taken a lot from
watching me be a mentor.
In fact, they ask about all of my mentees by name
and they see how they're doing.
They see how excited I get when they're going to prom
because they've done so well at school
and they see how disappointed I get if they
didn't show up for a meeting.
And it is brilliant
because everyone gets an understanding of a wider community.
No one is that island, as we say.
And it's just brilliant that both sides can see how it runs.
How do you feel about being a mentor?
I love being a mentor.
I never thought it would be something I'd be doing at this
stage because I didn't think it was something
that would be available to me,
I suppose. I've got my work and I've got my family,
and I can't lie.
I don't even have enough time for
the things I should have time for.
And I certainly don't know where I fit into all of that,
but I guess that's what you do, isn't it?
As a mom, you just create extra hours in the day somehow.
And being a mentor
and knowing that my children, that I've got lots
of little eyes watching what I'm doing
because it is the case of 10% what you say, 90%
what you do, they just see the nuances of what you're doing.
My children saw me print off my mentee's name
on a jersey and present it to them as a prize for
how well they'd done, and they were all cheering as well.
And it was so nice
because the only person I guess they
all had in common was me.
But I guess they all had to either suffer the consequences
of "have you done your homework?", all
the way through to have me cheering
And they all know what those things feel like.
So again, it just widens that community
and it's brilliant.
It's brilliant. I've had
to almost figure out my problem solving skills
and finesse them as well
because there's no one child the same.
So I might have little things that I've learned as a mom
that I can apply to my mentors lessons if you like.
And at the same time, they might teach me something new
that then I can apply at home
or just a different way of thinking
or a different thought process.
And also, it's not just the mentees I deal with.
I deal with their families, I deal with their schools.
So that community just keeps on widening
and you really feel like you're part of something huge.
Those ripples, they just keep on growing and growing.
At one point at prom, when I spoke to my mentee,
they brought all their friends in
and they all just started cheering.
And honestly, I was just grinning, grinning down this phone.
It's always lovely, because I have to always have a chaperone as
so I should, but I should always have a chaperone there
so any conversation is monitored as so it should be.
And the headmaster was standing there
and we were just all cheering.
Anybody would walk past,
but I wondered what on earth was going on.
But to have that respect with that age group
and to have gotten that child across the line,
if you like, to the next stage of their life
and their education, what a feeling that was.
And the cutest, cutest, cutest thing happened.
So I drove to go and surprise my mentee.
And again, I had a chaperone.
They sat in the back of my car
and the deal was with my mentee, you get through this year,
you can sit in my car and you can hook up your Bluetooth
and play any track you like
and will drive around the block and you can change the
lights in my little fantasy swish car.
And that was the deal. So there was me, my mentee,
and this teacher driving around to J-Hus
as we went around the block, I don't know how many times,
honestly, it was amazing.
And we were so renegade.
We got told off by the teachers, we were told
to turn down the tunes.
So I felt like, I was like, yeah,
we were like rebels for the day.
There were people having classes
and we were told to turn down the music.
But you can imagine that just
breaks up the day for everyone.
And it was all taken in good humour, but it felt brilliant.
What is the impact of mentoring on young people?
I think the impact is the same as anybody showing up
for you in life.
Being a mentor and showing up for somebody
and saying, look, I believe in you
and I'm giving you my time,
which is the most precious commodity.
And just having a cheerleader in life. Life's hard enough,
whether you do well at work
or whether you do well at school,
or whether you've got good news to share
or bad news to share.
You just want somebody, an ally just who either goes, oh,
I get it, or have you tried it this way?
Or just to listen while you rant or vent.
And I just think that as a mentor, it's highly fulfilling.
It's made me problem solve to another level just
to keep figuring out how to get through to somebody
or just to find that spark to ignite that
then that's it, you're off. It's all it takes.
It's almost just like problem solving,
and that's what us moms do.
So it's just like mom-ing,
but it's just called mentoring, which is essentially
what we're doing to our kids anyway, so
it is a brilliant thing to be a part of,
and now I couldn't imagine not doing it.
I actually feel really sad when my mentors
qualify, if you like, which means that I've done my job
and it means that I cared as well.
So they get that.
I did mom cry, mom cried when they
finished their exams because that's often
the biggest challenge of all, showing up.
As a parent, how do you know if you're doing things 'right or wrong'?
It's really hard to know if you're doing things right
or wrong as a parent,
and it can often feel that you're doing them wrong,
It's like the laundry. No one ever notices
that you've done it until you haven't done it or
unless you've done it incorrectly.
And it's just one of those things that you've got
to just not be so hard on yourself.
And sometimes that's impossible,
and that's where you need your friends just to turn
around and go, are you doing okay?
Just keep on going. And also, you need to educate yourself
that just because you've been a teenage girl
or you've been a young tween,
doesn't mean that their experience is anything
like your experience.
The world is such a different shape now, and just
because you reacted one way doesn't mean
that your children are going to react the same way.
And what I've really had to educate myself
to is understanding what the 4 year old's mind is doing
and what the 13 year old's mind is doing
and the 16 year old's mind is doing,
and what the language is around them now.
And just having an understanding of their world
and what that shape of that world is like,
because we're a whole generation away from them.
And if I had my dad telling me now,
which he sometimes does, what I should be doing,
It wouldn't fit. It just wouldn't fit into my world.
And that's exactly what we are doing.
But ultimately, look, we've got the best
of intentions and that's all you can do.
Just try your best. That's all you can do.
There's, I think, a very famous psychologist
who said, "good enough".
And that's the benchmark for all therapists
and psychologists and psychiatrists.
Is it good enough? Now for somebody like me,
I always think I want it to be the best,
though I don't want to do it to be good enough.
But actually, apparently, if you're parenting
and it's good enough, apparently that's good.
So the fact that we all just want to
do the best we possibly can,
I'm going to pat you on the shoulder.
I'm going to pat you on the back and just say, well done,
because maybe no one's done that for you today,
but you are more than good enough.
What advice would you give to parents to help them talk to their children about their mental health?
I think ultimately when it comes to mental health,
have the conversation.
Don't wait until something gets derailed.
So I guess getting yourself out
and about going for walks, spending time with friends,
getting off phones, just all of that kind of modelling
starts a good, healthy setup.
But I think also just making sure your children know
that you are open to the difficult conversations.
There's no point in saying you can always come to me.
And then when they mess up, you go from naught to a hundred
and then they think, well, actually I didn't go very well.
I'm actually not going to come to you again.
I'll go to somebody else. And that's really hard to do
because if it is a mistake that you think, well, you have
to, I guess, have a way to regulate yourself first.
I think also no one really gives tips to parents.
We're the first generation where
we're really looking at mental health very seriously
and taking it as seriously as it deserves to be.
And I think there are some tips that parents just need,
like don't they take everything personally?
It's so easy to say that,
but it's so easy to take everything personally.
Everything's an attack at you or a shot at you,
or the hormones are directed at you.
But then conversely, that's because you are the safe space.
So if your child can't take the mask off
after a hard day at school with you,
or if they can't speak
to you about when things have got really, really tough
or about a really tricky subject
or something that's been broached
or a question, then who else are they going to go to?
And that's the question then, who are you lining them up
to then speak to if it's not you?
So just showing that you take their mental health
as seriously as you take their physical health.
It's all very well good saying, make sure you get some sleep
and make sure you eat properly.
But there's more to it than that.
And it is just making sure that all bases are covered.
And also for yourself really.
When and where should I have conversations about mental health?
I think the best place
to have any conversation about mental health is in the car
or somewhere where you are not face-to-face, somewhere
where you are side by side.
So it's like a dance, isn't it?
It's next to each other as partners going
through it together at the same pace, rather than just
directing instructions that the person in front of you
or making them feel like they should feel ashamed or judged.
It's just about how you set out your
body language first and foremost
and anywhere that there can just be a calm,
kind conversation, you're onto a win already.
The fact that you don't need to be some trained psychologist
or psychiatrist or all the other -ists, as a mom,
you've got the champion role as a carer
to these little people
with these big feelings, you've got the most important role,
and with that comes a lot of pressure.
I understand that heavy's the head that wears the crown,
but at the same time, when you crack it
and when you connect, it's pretty powerful.
Is it OK to ask for help when supporting my child with their mental health?
So I fully appreciate
that not everybody has a sounding board.
Not everybody has a partner.
And I think when it comes to finding somebody to
just share the day with, it doesn't have
to always be your partner.
If you have that, that's brilliant.
But I do think it's important to just have somebody
that you feel is on your team as well.
And that could be a friend, it could be another carer,
it could be a family member, it could be a mom at school.
Just make sure you find somebody that you're not going
through this alone and share the load.
I think a lot of people forget just
how heavy that load is.
The mental load of a mom,
just speaking from experience, is infinite.
I'm sure dads will come forward
and carers will come forward and say the same thing.
But speaking from my own experience,
I don't think my brain is ever silent
because I'm always making lists.
I've even got a list for the list
because I think I have to make sure I've done the list
for the school stuff and now I've got
to make sure I've done the list for the work things.
And then each of the children, what they require.
And then you feel like a PA and then you feel bad
because you think, oh, I don't want
to seem like I'm complaining.
It's such a privilege to be their mom.
It's a real honour to be their mom.
I just want to be the best mom that I can possibly be
and dropping the ball sometimes, or when one child feels ill
and you have to rearrange everything, when the wheels start
coming off, they come off in the most almighty fashion.
There's no sort of like a gentle break.
It's just like a skid and halting stop.
So I think it's just about
being a little bit kinder to yourself as well.
So not just even worrying about who you're working with,
but working with yourself.
I just have to remember, actually,
I'm just doing the best I can.
And those lists, I'll get through them,
but ultimately just being a bit kinder to yourself too.
Do you and your husband play different roles when it comes to parenting?
Sim and I play very, very different roles
when it comes to parenting.
There's no traditional roles in that way.
We don't sort of fit into the trad mom - trad dad
roles, and I really like that, actually.
Listen, if he didn't do the cooking,
then we would all just be eating rice
because I'm really good at making rice
and Turan, which is a Filipino dish made
with bananas, and that would be it.
So he's like some Michelin chef,
and he does inject a lot of fun into the house.
For me, it's quite different from a practical consideration.
I like doing all the practical things around the house,
and I do something called Mama School.
So Mama school has been rolling on since my children.
Were about three years old,
and every Saturday morning I sit with my children
and I'll teach them something
that I think they need from life.
So it's something I really love doing, so much though
I wrote a book about it. But how to change light bulbs,
how to change a tyre, how to do their accounts, how to
manage a contract, like really practical considerations,
biology, questions that might come up
that really might stump them
that they might not necessarily learn at school.
It is really important. I think it's really
important that we roll that out.
That mama school keeps going, basic finance.
Those are things that we're never necessarily taught.
And I think all of those things come into play
because then if you have that basic knowledge,
you can become empowered by it.
You feel capable. You don't feel so helpless.
There's nothing worse in the world to feel then helpless.
So our parenting skills are very different,
but between the two of us, between me with my mom at school
and the practical considerations,
and hopefully all the hugs,
I would hug my children all day long.
I draw hearts on my son.
Actually, this has been a really nice thing.
I draw a heart and he gets a heart,
and anytime we're missing each other,
we press it and we zing.
So he'll feel it at school
and I'll feel it at work until we get home again.
And we just always make sure we've got a heart if
we're ever apart from each other.
So that's either a psychological thing
that I make sure I impart
or a very physical
capable skillset kind of thing.
But between the two of us, we muddle through like everyone.
As busy working parents, how do you ensure you have quality time together as a family?
Okay, so as busy parents,
I think anyone will appreciate, it's very difficult to get
quality time together.
In fact, it's difficult to get any kind of time together,
and I have to be careful that we don't fall into the trap
of just sort barking timetables at each other.
You take the baby to football, I'll take Ava to cello,
you take her to, and you start just
crossing each other with schedules.
But Sim's the romantic.
He's more romantic than me, so he does the big gestures.
I'm all sort of the practical consideration, but it works.
I'll tell you what it does. It did come together very well
from a Navy background on my dad's part, and Sim's a sailor.
So we first bonded over our love of Knots and Star Wars.
So I think that sounds like an absolute
nightmare for most people.
But when I met him,
he had two lightsabers and I only had one.
So between us, we've got the collection now.
Well now there's new episodes, so we've got more to collect,
but he definitely broke the mould.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
My advice that I would give
to my younger self is the advice I give to my children now,
which is, listen to your gut.
Your instinct is some prehistoric,
but very important part of your body that you probably just,
you don't even realise that it's working.
And as you get older, I've said this
to my children countless times, as adults, we stop listening.
We just stop listening to that inner voice,
and it's what keeps us safe.
There's that instinct that we get
as women about walking down a road at night
thinking, should I be doing this?
Should I be here? It just keeps us safe.
And I have often neglected just listening to
that inner voice, just my gut instinct.
And on the times I neglected that
and on the times I overrode that voice,
that was when I got myself into trouble.
I got myself into situations
that I just shouldn't have been in.
And that's why I say now to my kids, if your gut is no,
that person's not right for me, that job's not right for me,
this environment doesn't feel safe.
Listen to that voice, because that voice is your instinct
and it's absolutely there to keep you safe.
Trust it.
How do you look after your own mental health?
That's a good question.
Looking after my own mental health is ever evolving
and I find that some people need
to take a break away, pamper themselves.
I see a lot of my friends do that,
just take that time out. For me,
I like to feel that things are just in order,
then I feel that my mental health is strongest.
So I guess it's not a case
of just getting myself organised,
but getting myself informed.
I like information.
I really react well to getting information.
I actively seek it out.
I'm forever trying to go on a new information and new ideals
and learn as much as I possibly can.
I like learning new skill sets
and when I feel capable is when I feel strong
and when I feel strong is when I feel - it's not a
control thing far from it -
it's actually just being able to look after myself
and my family within whatever situation I'm in.
So again, it just keeps coming back
to a very practical consideration for me.
If my surroundings feel secure, then my head feels secure.
So that's what I probably spend most
of my time just trying to secure.
What are the signs of good mental health in young people?
When it comes to good mental health,
it doesn't mean you've got a smile on your face.
It actually means that when you're sad, you can all
actually acknowledge that you are sad as well
and deal with those emotions.
So being able to process all emotions in a healthy way,
that's a good sign of mental health.
If you've just got a child that is eternally happy,
like a sunbeam, by the way, that's nothing to be sort
of hitting the emergency alarm about either.
But it's not about always being happy.
It's actually being able to feel content or safe
or stable in your own surroundings.
If you're about to go and do a skydive out of a plane, then
it's going to be a mixture of yes, anxiety and happiness,
but an exhilaration and all of those other things.
So it is not a case of being frightened
of big emotions like fear and anger and anxiety and sadness,
all of those emotions are very normal.
If somebody close to your children dies, then
you are obviously naturally going to be worried
for your child and manage those huge feelings.
Or if you go through a separation, if you go
through heart-breaking experiences,
but ultimately, it all comes down
to if your child has got the tools.
Has your child got the tool set, the emotional tools,
to be able to cope with the situation they're in.
And that is good mental health.
It's not about them always having a smile on their face,
because often they can be masking.
They could be putting that smile on their face
to keep you happy, and that's ultimate people pleasing.
And in so doing that leads to really unhealthy relationships
and actually a lot of coercive behaviour.
So that's the last thing you actually want.
What you do want for your child is to be able
to have normal, standard run of the mill conversations
where they are dealing with things on a daily basis.
But the essential word there is dealing with,
they're dealing with what's being thrown at them rather than
just perpetual happiness, because nothing lasts forever.
Whether you are sad
or happy, neither of those feelings are perpetual.
But just having the toolkit to be able to deal
with them well, that's endurance.
Hear from mental health experts
Young people and anxiety
Dr. Michele McKenner talks about the different types of anxiety, how it affects young people and what you can do to help.
Dealing with depression
Hear from psychotherapist, Carly Francis as she guides you through how depression can start and affect young people.
Advice on eating disorders
Psychiatrist Dasha Nicholls explains different types of eating disorders, how they can start and how to encourage healthy eating habits at home.
Mental health support for families
Hear from professional coaches Helen Sachdev and Alison Green, who explain the support available to working parents and their families.
Useful information
From spotting the early signs to engaging and supporting young people with their mental health.
Signs of poor mental health
We explain the potential signs of poor mental health to look out for in your child and suggest ways you can manage it.
Start healthy conversations
Advice and activities you can do with young people to help start healthy conversations about their emotions.
Make a comfort kit
Find out how children can make their own ‘comfort kit’. This is a collection of special and favourite items that they can use whenever they feel upset.
Mental health resources
Parent’s guide to children's mental health
A parent’s guide to helping your child feel heard about their mental health.
Toolkit for caregivers
Our toolkit contains help and advice for caregivers supporting those with mental health conditions.
Get Bupa support at home and at work
Family health insurance
Look after your family and cover all your children for the price of one, with Bupa Family+ health insurance.
Support for businesses and people managers
Get resources to help support your team’s health and wellbeing.
Mental health information
Further support for understanding mental health conditions and protecting yourself and those around you.
Get help with your family’s mental health
We can help you whether you have Bupa insurance or not.
If you’re a Bupa health insurance customer
For specialist mental health support, call the Family Mental HealthLine on 0345 2667 938^. You can speak trained advisers and mental health nurses.
You can also speak to a nurse 24/7 on the Anytime HealthLine by calling 0345 601 3216.^
If you don’t have health insurance with us
No problem. We can still help you on a pay-as-you-go basis. Just pay for the treatment you need when you need it.
Children aged between 1 and 18 can have a remote or face-to-face GP appointment. To book, call 0330 822 3072.^
Worried about a child’s health? Never hesitate to seek advice
If you’re worried about a child’s symptoms but it’s not an emergency, you can call the non-emergency NHS helpline on 111.
In an emergency call 999 for urgent medical help.
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