this is parenting for the everyday a podcast dedicated to meeting parents in the trenches of Parenthood we explore how our faith fits into our parenting with the help of our guests we are seeking practical tips on how the gospel can speak into our day-to-day parenting from the easy stuff to the hard stuff we want to talk about it all this is parenting for the every day I'm Becca Alvarez and I'm holiday krew and today we have in our studio Christina helera uh to talk about just such an important
topic as we enter a season that is busy and getting busier it's so easy to get wrapped up in stressed and anxiety and um just something that we really wanted to check in was a mental health episode to talk through how can we recognize it in our kids how can we recognize it in ourselves and how can we really create a sense of resilience in the family unit um so let's go ahead and kick it off dive in yeah and dive in you probably recognize Christina we've had her on
before we're so thankful that you keep coming back and we haven't scared you away um but Christina will you just real quick um for those of us who don't know you will you just do a little intro of who you are what you do and why this kind of matters to you a little bit mental health in general yeah yeah for sure um I'm Christina howarda I um am a uh lisw which is a licens independent social worker um I am a clinical counselor So currently in practice I um counsel children here at CCC uh children
adolescence and young adults um I am also a wife and a mother my husband Mike howarda is a pastor here uh three kids brayden's eight K is three and baa is one can't believe it um yeah great we're we're just we're so excited to have you on here and I was saying before we started uh rolling I think we sit we talk about leav really big mental health issues like let's talk about anxiety let's talk about depression and those are all conversations we want to have
but there's also a conversation to have of just like what is just normal healthy mental health what does that look like how do we keep a pulse on that in our kids how do we encourage that are there things we're doing that could hinder that um so maybe let's just start with like the basic what role does mental health even play in a child overw well over overall well-being yeah yeah yeah so I think like a basic definition of mental is a state of mental well-being
um that the World Health Organization says enables us to cope with the stressors of Life realize our abilities learn well and work well and contribute to our society so it has a large scope but also I think mental health is not only about feeling good or about feeling happy or relaxed or at ease all the time um mental health is about having feelings that make sense in their context and then handling those feelings well so for good right there that's good that's good already so for example if
your kid's best friend moves away and they feel deeply upset about that that's actually evidence of their mental health it's appropriate yeah and I think that's an important definition and distinction because oftentimes we equate distress with the mental health concern and I just don't think that's an accurate equation like we don't want an underreaction and we don't want an overreaction what we want is feelings to make sense in their context and honestly this is biblical too right like we see a
wide range of emotions from Jesus we see um weeping in grief when his son Lazarus dies we see anger when the temple is used inappropriately um we see Jesus on the cross crying out in distress my God my God why have you forsaken me um and we know that Jesus's emotional expression is always done imperfection like think about that like he never had an inappropriate emotional response to something yeah this is why Christina is often on this podcast because she's
amazing so I think like we see how Jesus does that and how we are to mimic that so the first part is having emotions that match the context and then the next piece of that is handling those emotions well so um and I think two for how long so do your kids do they cry do they go for a run um thinking back to the example are they going to talk about how they're going to miss their friend do they go to Jesus with their sadness or are they withdrawing and isolating for
extended periods of time um are they irritable and mean day after day are they turning it inward on themselves um it's that divide that actually alerts us to whether there's a mental health concern or an appropriate response to a really hard life situation so we want emotions that match the context handling those emotions well and then a gospel Godly framework in which to process hard life things yeah I'm I'm just so glad we're talking about this that I think of
like you know I take my kids to the pediatrician for their well checks like for their body well checks um but am I spending enough time talking about these things or even looking and watching and saying like okay wait where are are our emotions in check are you responding appropriately are we talking about it and so I'm I'm just excited for yeah and I love the way that you just described that because the symptomology that you just described you can see in all
different ages of kids it doesn't often when I think of mental health I think of something that I don't really have to deal with for a long time because my kids are three in one uh but the truth is that they are expressing their emotions all the time if not in excess in their in their young age right now so building healthy ability to express emotion now you can kind of build on as they get older um which I haven't always thought of that in the same category as mental
health but it really is yeah um so okay I'm trying to think you said a lot so I'm trying to think where we should should we diving next um so I guess should we start with maybe even like what are some mental health myths I mean you already said one right off the bat that this is like you are sad or you know that that is a myth in of s that you're not happy all the time are there some other myths that we could just debunk yeah yeah I thought of a few um and any that you guys also think of I'd
love to hear as well but um I think one is kind of going along with that that it all looks the same right which I is just not true um sometimes it is like the overreaction or the anger the visible anxiety but sometimes it's not um and so to be mindful of that um I think another one is that hard emotions just need a boost of positivity um um or that um you shouldn't talk about the hard stuff because you just draw attention to it and that's just not true um I think another one is that emotionally
struggling is um an indictment on the strength of your faith or that you should just like trust God more yeah um and I think that just you know oversimplifies it obviously and also is not what we're seeing in scripture over and over again so um those are three kind of bigger ones or more common ones that I kind of thought of I don't think that this is necessarily A but I think that's something that parents can struggle with often is if if my toddler is having a hard time I almost
overcompensate with my own emotions to try to shut down his you know instead of kind of just giving him space to feel what he's feeling there's uh I have an instinct to go it's okay you're okay you're okay it's fine it's fine we're going to kind of put that off and make you feel better so that I can feel better because your discomfort is making me uncomfortable you know and um and if you put that in the context of even that mental health definition that we just talked about you want kids to feel
appropriate emotions so if you can enter into even your toddler's world and see like oh it's appropriate for you to feel mad that you have to share this toy you love with your brother like I get that doesn't mean that you're now responding to it appropriately there's something else we can address but hey it's okay that you feel mad about that yeah and that probably I mean it starts as a toddler but that's got to go all the way I mean into adulthood we should still be
like kind of recognizing that so what what are some ways as parents that we could help Foster some of that open um communication or even identifying those those emotions like what what are things that we could be doing um I don't know to do it to do it well yeah yeah to like build communication with your kids around emotion yes um honestly there's a lot you can do um I think first it starts with us as parents right like you guys are always saying more is caught
than talk we got to stop saying that because everybody keep bring it back we can make it a tagline hell yeah yeah um um but I think if you as a parent aren't comfortable talking about your own emotions personally it's going to be really hard for you to do that well in parenting so if that's the case for you I think like dig into that a little bit like figure out where that comes from or why that is and maybe even seek your own help or counsel in that um and then I
would give you three strategies uh first this might seem obvious but in order to talk about emotions you have to have a robust emotion vocabulary um and it's never too early to start that you know you can start really young um um with young kids I think it looks like you know getting books that talk about emotions or that have a lot of emotional expression and so you can pause and look at the pictures with your kids and point them out and ask your kids like what do
you think they might be feeling here um different shows like Daniel Tiger be love we always make sure it's like part of our show rotation um but this can also age with your kids right like obviously the content will change but these are still strategies that you can continue to use as your kids get older um I also like to observe kids emotions like to kids like I'll say like oh boy it looks like you're sad why are you feeling sad or like back to that other example like I it is hard to share your
toys and that makes you mad I get that and then you can go on to like redirect or handle the situation however you're going to um with kids in my office I'll say things like what I think I'm hearing you say is that this this situation felt really isolating um or whatever word fits and sometimes I might be wrong but just offering that observation invites them to kind of correct me or or help them reflect on what they might be feeling in that moment um and then you
can pull in resources you know like feelings charts or feelings wheel which we're all a big fan of um but I think it also helps with kids who tend to be internalizers um because it helps them learn how to actually uh Express those emotions and you can also do it like first in their situation so if you're you have a kid who's an internalizers you can um anticipate or notice what you think they might be feeling and say like hey it makes me really sad that your friend treated you that way I can
understand if it would make you feel sad too right so it's like you're modeling it and you're almost taking that first step in vulnerability for them so um that can be really helpful the second I would say it's important to think about the environment or reaction you give when your kids do share their feelings um vulnerability is hard and so validation is really really important um and in almost any context I would say to start with with validation and then move
on to whatever is next because your kids need to feel seen and safe in sharing their emotions um I think sometimes parents can move past that way too quickly and jump right to problem solving um or they're resistant to validate because either they um feel like the emotion's too big or honestly maybe it is maybe the emotion is a little dramatic um or they don't understand the emotion um so you're like how can I validate it if I don't get it um even well let me like cuz even in my
case it would be sometimes um someone will share an emotion and I um I could see like where my kid might have caught like done something to add to it and so I'm like if I validate that am I saying then like you handled the situation correctly yeah right does that make sense so it's like yeah but I don't know so I think for me it's what you're saying is like are you validating it does that doesn't necessarily mean that you're saying hey everything that happened is great and I'm just saying
like what you feel right now I'm acknowledging it correct totally absolutely um and I think in situations like that like you can use language like I see that you're feeling really right so it's like you're just like noticing the emotion so it's like you're building this connection with your kids like I like invalidation to boo boo kisses when kids are little cuz like if my son scrapes his knee and runs to me like my kiss doesn't heal his scrape right but it's just about feeling seen and cared
for it builds connections with your kids um and I think when done well validation can actually diffuse an emotion um because if I feel like my frustration is seen I don't have to overstate my frustration in order for it to be responded to so it doesn't mean that you're validating how they're handling everything but you're just seeing where your your kid is and you can even experience this as an adult right like when you're talking with a friend or your partner or whatever you know what
it's like when you feel like you're not actually seen for how it's hitting you even if it's not healthy or Justified and how it's hitting you yeah no that's that's helpful man oh sorry go ahead I was just going to say this is so good for so many different reasons but one of them being a lot of times that I see big emotions it's when we're in a hurry it's when we're in a public place it's when we're already over tired and over stimulated and so while you're talking
it's just convicting me so much of just P just take a pause take a minute decompress with them validate their emotion um don't always be in such a rush because when I'm rushing I make them small you know like let's tuck it away put it in your pocket and let's let's go um where that's not that's not helpful for them it's it's important to slow down as parents be secure in our own parenting don't take things as a reflection of you and just focus focus on them well sometimes it can actually
be more productive yeah oh yeah it yeah it would help the emotion so much better than than trying to extinguish it yeah and I want to I I want to jump to problem solve so I want to jump to like okay we've had a problem how how can we solve it how can we you know and there's damage in that and not sitting in like okay let me just make sure you know in this house you are seen you know and I see you and whatever emotion that you've brought in right yeah so then I would
just give two practical tips one would be um to pay attention to when your kids naturally share um and try to intentionally build that into to your life so for example I had a mom who said that she noticed her daughter would share a lot when they were driving together and then once she got her license she noticed that she wasn't hearing from her daughter as much anymore so she had to be intentional about you know if I tell her we can grab Starbucks on the way to run an erand
together she'd come with me and then we're talking more so just kind of being mindful of those things and being intentional about building that in um the other thing I would say is to have it be a part of your family worship time like notice like when Jesus has emotions or God has them and in response to what um or all the ways the Bible shows us that like the Lord invites us to him in our emotions um or even the Psalms like just the fact that like the lord gave us
an entire book of the Bible all about like deep emotional expression um but showing us how to do it in a way that like honors and glorifies the Lord so you're using the Bible to normalize emotions and talking about them yeah I have a question that is going to be off off topic a little bit not off topic but off of our our pre- questions um how do you bring your spouse into it because I think that as women I'm more comfortable talking about emotions than my male
spouse and I would assume that there are a lot of dads out dads out there that maybe don't feel as comfortable talking about emotion How would how would you guys bring your spouses into it well I think one you could maybe have a conversation with your spouse like between the two of you like initially kind of address it like um between the two of you and talk about like why that's important or even like we kind of talked about initially like if that is uncomfortable like kind of figure out
why that is and um how to work through that a little bit um I think another practical tip that can make it easier is like if you have it be a part of like dinner time or whenever you have your family time together um if you were to do like a high and a low or if you have a feelings chart that you have like on your dinner table or um you go around and you say like okay what's one H happy or positive emotion you felt today what's one hard emotion you felt today
and how did you deal with it so I think like you know it can be powerful for kids to hear their dad say like yeah I had this presentation today and I felt really anxious about it and so you know I took a couple minutes I prayed I tried to take some deep breaths and then I went reminded myself like the Lord has like gifted me in this and I walked into it right and so it's like you can even ease into how do you talk about emotions in a way that feels like more empowering
for you that then hopefully you just keep learning to do it together we've talked a lot about um just communication and obviously that being really really important between your your spouse with your kids with their siblings um but what are some other prct iCal I don't know if coping mechanisms is the right word but tools maybe Tools in our toolbox um to help have just healthy mental health States in our house or to encourage um healthy mental living that's I think I just made that phrase
up but I think you know what I mean I do um when someone comes in my office we talk about like three different areas we talk about healthy habits healthy coping and healthy processing okay um so I think healthy habits are ways you support your mental health or set yourself up well in order to have your healthiest stress response um so three big ones are sleep exercise and nutrition um sleep is an active time for your brain it's when it cleans out toxins from the day and research has
shown that your amydala the Emergency Response Center in your brain that activates your fight flight or freeze is most impacted by inadequate sleep than any other part of your brain oh boy which is crazy unfortunate news yeah um exercise or physical activity it offsets symptoms of an activ ated amydala it burns off excess adrenaline it's known to promote growth in brain cells and the release of dopamine the happy hormone um and it doesn't always have to be intense like going for a walk
is really good for your mental health um there's actually research that shows if you walk outside your eyes naturally shift from right to left as you're taking in what you're seeing which is essentially creating neurop Pathways from your right brain to your left brain connecting logic to emotion um so actually the trauma therapy EMDR was developed out of that research that's so that God would create your your brain to do that that's so cool yes um nutrition
eating nutritious foods but also eating consistently like not skipping meals because a drop in blood sugar can mimic feelings of anxiety um another interesting fact is that 95% of Serotonin receptors are found in the lining of your gut so what you eat can actually impact your mood um so much there's so much mind is taking so much in but it I I mean all these are so good for like you know I'm thinking but this is also like for grownups like am I doing these things
are my kids watching me do these things so that they then recognize like oh she makes it a priority like we go for a walk you know we go you know are we doing these things am I encouraging my kids to like hey no no put that down have an apple instead you know type thing and that's just like those are just healthy habits right like that's not even specifically about coping so then coping is how you handle or deal with your emotions or channeling that emotion into something constructive
instead of destructive um um so we can talk about clinical ones like breathing techniques or grounding skills or mindfulness but then it's also just things like journaling or listening to music or um do like taking quiet calm space for a little bit or um doing something creative like drawing or coloring or painting um and then physical activity can also be a coping skill right like going for a walk going for a run especially for boys there's definitely a physicality to emotions so
doing something physical can help release that emotion while whether it's like kicking a soccer ball against the basement wall or punching bag Sprints jumping jacks like anything physical um yeah are we yeah again just as a parent am I creating space for those things to happen I even think like if if our day is so uh full you know I haven't created space for my kids to have these Outlets you know that could be a disservice so you know I'm just I'm taking it all in yeah yeah and I think like it's
important for parents to model these things um healthy habits but also healthy coping like I you don't have to hide the fact that you have an emotional reaction I think it's probably even better for your kids to see that and then see what you do to handle that well or how to cope with that emotion or if you mess it up then you go back and you apologize you acknowledge that you messed it up and then you try again or you know like I'll talk to parents sometimes of adolescence and say like if
you're in a conversation with your teen and you're starting to get really frustrated like you can say that like you know what I'm feeling really frustrated in this moment I just need to take a couple deep breaths let's pause the conversation like why don't we do it together and then you continue on right so modeling it is good um don't feel like you can't have the emotion as the parent yeah that's good did you have a third you have a third okay oh well healthy processing
which I think we've kind of talked about and I think we're going to go into talking about a little bit more um question we're talking about mental health and the importance of it and the importance to create space for it is there ever a time that it can be over emphasized and like almost give people an excuse I think it's a good I mean culture right now yeah like mental health like I can't cuz of my anxiety my mental health you hear that a lot or not good for my mental health MH so what is
a where do we find the balance between overemphasizing and maybe crippling I use that lightly um and then the other side of giving space and building resilience MH yeah I think we're going to head into resilience a little bit which we can kind of um walk into that in a minute as well but I also think like there is a cultural trendiness of it um that I think is important to be aware of um the Fuller youth Institute came out with a book recently or maybe actually a couple
years ago based on research study um it's called the three big questions that change every teenager and it talks about how every teenager is looking for belonging identity and purpose and so um I think at times it's possible for like a elevated mental health struggle to come out of like a desire for belonging or a group of friends who find their identity in that um which doesn't make it any less delicate but it just informs kind of how you respond um I also think
like this is kind of what you asked maybe in a different light um you know we talked about building an intentional time to talk with your kids I think sometimes bedtime can be a good time because things are quieting down sometimes it can be the worst time because if your kids are extra tired and now you're giving attention to something in an emotional space you're creating a bigger problem out of something when you're actually not in the right head space to process through it so I do
think you're mindful of how you bring attention to it or how you respond to it um I think if you know kind of going into that resilience conversation like there is ways to build resilience or to help your kids work on just because something's hard doesn't mean I don't do it um so I think you know we do need to let our kids struggle um in small ways and then sometimes like in real big ways um and I don't it doesn't mean that we do it from afar we just push them into it right like we
draw near like the Lord draws near to us as well um we prepare them for it we talk through it um we help them anticipate what is maybe to come and so that they feel empowered and ready to walk into that situation um but I think our kids need to know that they are capable and that we believe that they are capable right um I actually had a one of my son's teachers call me out on this one time because he was struggling with something and I just swooped into to do it for him um and he was like he
can do it and I was like okay but I was actually really appreciative because it's true like I need my son to have the experience of like this is hard and I might struggle through it but I can still do it and I can't just give up and I can work my way through it um and I think that's true in big and in small ways um and I think honestly like it builds a resilience in our faith as well like Romans 5 tells us suffering produces perseverance perseverance character and character hope um and we
as adults like know that to be true like we can point to experiences in our life where we see like well struggle was hard like this is how I came to know the Lord as healer or or my dependence on him um so you know there's ways you do it where you're leading your children to Jesus in it or you're empowering them in it um but it doesn't mean that you you scoop them from the struggle yeah from doing the hard thing which is hard it's hard it's so hard so hard yeah it's even hard in the
in my very small context of it of seeing Ezekiel my three-year-old get frustrated with small tasks you know and I'll and I'll let him do it for a little little bit and then want to want to fix it or help them or put a shoe on for him you know like little little things I can't imagine as it gets bigger and there are things that you can probably fix for your kids but it's just better to let them do it on their own yeah I'll just I'll just tell you it's hard okay I'll
speak from that experience um I think another way you build resilience in your kids is with like empowerment and building like a healthy confidence and identity right because it's hard for you to think oh I can't do this hard thing if you don't think good things about yourself so like I encourage parents to not let a day go by where you're not speaking some kind of goodness or positive reinforcement over your kids um and I like to frame it in like I love that God made you and then picking out
unique qualities about them like you're creative you're thoughtful you're curious so that way you're anchoring it in the ways that the Lord intentionally designed them um or you know I notice things that your kids are doing like I'll say to my son like I can I tell you something I noticed today I noticed that you are courageous because even though you felt nervous you still did this um and it reminds me of that verse in Joshua God tells us be strong and courageous for I'm with you wherever you
go so you're you're anchoring it all in this is your worth that the Lord has given you and and you're enabling it with the power of the of the word yeah I love that while we're on that topic if you're starting to notice that your child is kind of name calling themselves and having pretty negative selft talk uh what's a good intervention with that CU I feel like my instinct would be like don't say that about yourself but that doesn't really fix it that just yeah I think um personally how I
would respond to that is I would say like oh it makes me really sad to hear you say that about yourself I don't think those things of you I know the Lord doesn't think those things of you either like where' that come from where do you think that came from and what do you think the Lord would speak to to you over that um what are some truth statements that we can say in response to that um things like that yeah I feel like we could keep going on and on and on but we
are running out of time so um I just want to uh kind of end it with one last question of you know all of these things um we've talked about are kind of like normal walks through mental health that we would expect our kids to have seasons where they struggle and don't struggle and we can walk them through but let's just maybe create a a line that says hey at what point would we maybe need to seek some help or recognize like hey this is outside a normal mental health
check and this is outside a normal problem we probably need a professional to come in and give us some guidance here um maybe just speak to that and then we'll we'll just wrap it up yeah I think um you know if we're talking about anything clinical the things that we tend to look at is how much it's impairing functioning so like how much it's getting inter it's interfering with their ability to do day-to-day things um the the duration of it so if it's like an intense emotion for an extended
period of time that's always something that would raise alarms um I think any drastic change is something to be mindful of um sleep changes big change in academic performance things like that um I also think like it doesn't have to be drastic to seek help right like I don't it's never bad to invite other voices into your kids lives um especially there's going to come a time where your teenager is just not going to hear your voice for a little while and that happens for everybody and having a
different adult say the exact same thing that you're saying they're going to hear it differently so um there are times where it's like yes you need to seek help and then there's other times where it might be like hey why don't why don't we just seek help it's not like a emergent situation but it's not going to be a negative thing or even asking your child like would you be interested in this I I love that you said that CU even that habit of into an adulthood of like
hey this let's normalize this let's normalize other voices and you having a space that you can process um because you know life changes and knowing like oh this is a normal thing I'm an adult now this is something that I could do to get some so I love that you said that um this has been like a wealth of knowledge I just I personally am so grateful just this is good for me to have this check-in and this um just reminders of things to be doing at home and so I'm
I'm really grateful for you yeah thank you Christina thank you for bringing just your wisdom and your knowledge and you're just amazing um that's all the time that we have unfortunately but thank you guys so much for tuning in please tune in next time this has been parenting for the everyday