How To Support Adult Children Struggling With Mental Health? (Complete Guide)
It goes without saying that many young adults are suffering from different mental illnesses, and they feel helpless about it. They could be a student, a neighbor, a relative, or your own child. Sometimes, it gets overwhelming to see them in this situation, and you feel to give them support, right?
But how to support adult children struggling with mental health? You can simply talk to them when they need someone to talk to, be their support system and encourage them to move on. These little steps would uplift them more than you think.
When they are in the dark phase, it gets much more difficult for them to control themselves. They can’t single-handedly handle themselves. So, it would mean the world if you could be a support system to them. Below we will discuss how you can give them the best support. Please keep reading till the end.
How To Support Adult Children Struggling With Mental Health?
The age of adult children is a phase when they hardly share their feelings or emotions with people. So it would be difficult for you to communicate with them at first, but don’t get worried. You can solve this problem quickly.
When you make them believe that you truly want better for them and that you are a friend but not an enemy, they will start to open up eventually. So you have to push some efforts so that later it gets easier for them to communicate with you and share their thoughts or feelings with you.
Similarly, you have to show empathy to them and start developing trust. When you succeed in doing that, follow the steps written further in this article.
- Give The Child Emotional Support
It means a lot in this simple sentence. Giving the child emotional support means listening to them. Listen to their thoughts and what thing is bothering them. If they need a call, call them. If they need a hug, hug them. Be there whenever they need you.
Most importantly, make them feel that they are loved. Depression is one of the worst mental illnesses. It can happen for various reasons. When there is something that makes them feel they are unloved, they go on a vicious cycle. They keep feeling unwanted, unappreciated, and unloved.
And later, this leads to a bad outcome. In this case, they have to feel that they are loved. Not only this, many of them think that they are unworthy. They are unworthy of living life, achieving success, being liked, etc. Thus, this hateful cycle does not let them live in peace.
In this scenario, you have to make them feel loved and teach them to love themselves. And this can only happen by showing extreme compassion for themselves. Teach them to be compassionate to themselves.
- Take Them Out
Usually, a person suffering from mental health issues doesn’t like to go out. Mainly, if the person is suffering from anxiety or depression, it feels like a burden to talk with people. However, this does not give us any solution. Instead, it provides water for the problem to grow worst.
Taking out for movies, eating at a restaurant, and roaming to a park could be ideas to implement. These steps can make their mind refresh and enjoy the day without fighting with their thoughts in mind.
Apart from this, it is good to take the fresh air outside. Walking or jogging in the morning is enough to give them a rush of good chemicals in their mind. So take them for a morning walk every day.
- Encourage Them To Move
As I mentioned earlier, mental health sufferers don’t want to move. They don’t fulfill their daily tasks properly. Additionally, they do not live consciously and they think that their life has no meaning. Well, they won’t feel empowered by themselves in this condition.
So you need to get them to do their daily tasks, which will help them return to their life. We have written a list of tasks that you need to get done by them. So, please read it below -
- Exercise - Workout
- Self-care
- Health care
- Mindfulness
- Prayers
- Exercise-Workout
By doing exercise/workout, one can gain a healthy body and healthy mind. If the body is in good condition, the brain works fine and sound. Reportedly, exercise also helps you to improve your mood and negative thought patterns. So, encourage them to do exercise/workout every day.
- Self-care
The person living with mental illness won’t take good care of themself. So encourage them to take self-care. Here what I mean by self-care is taking a bath every day, which can even include cutting nails and brushing teeth promptly.
That is because these simple yet essential tasks seem unimportant to them. Doing the tasks every day will make it a habit, so they would start taking steps to the daily tasks of their life. These tasks will improve their quality of life and help them have a fresh mind.
- Health Care
Taking health care means looking after the health. Mental health sufferers don’t take care of their health properly. They don’t take food on time, have a disoriented routine, and neglect their health. In other words, health care means take enough water daily, having healthy foods, and sleeping on time.
Likewise, taking food on time and sleeping on time highly improves one’s mental health. The sufferer won’t be following any of it properly. You have to make it come into the practice of the sufferer.
By following these, the child can start feeling better, and later, you won’t even have to force your child to do the tasks. Your child will begin to do it on his own.
- Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a powerful way to calm one’s mind. A person with anxiety can do this every day to get relief from everyday stress and worries. One can practice mindfulness in various ways.
They could be cleaning the house, praying, organizing clothes, etc. This mindfulness simply means to do a task mindfully.
Furthermore, one could even practice mindfulness by staying in the present moment and enjoying it thoroughly without racing thoughts. So you have to make the sufferer practice mindfulness.
However, the task should be something the person living with a mental illness wants, or else they won’t be able to practice mindfulness out of boredom.
- Prayers
Prayers give one mental peace. As I mentioned earlier, one can do mindfulness by doing prayers too. When you ask something from the almighty sincerely, he provides you with that. If not now, then later.
The sufferers could be suffering from any of the mental illnesses. They could ask the almighty to improve them and solve their problems. Not only that, even you can pray for your dears to make them better. So encourage the child to do the prayers and pray for the child's betterment.
Tell The Child To Start A Hobby
We all have one or two hobbies. We love our hobbies, and doing the hobby daily makes our minds jolly. But surprisingly, many people don’t have hobbies. They don’t keep any task separate, which could improve their mental health.
If your child has a hobby, it is evident that mental illness won’t let him do it daily. Moreover, a person who has a mental illness won’t get interested in doing any of his hobbies like earlier he used to get.
But over time, your child will start enjoying the hobby again. This hobby will help him to stay happy and enjoy every day immensely.
Conclusion
In the above article, we have discussed some great ideas for supporting adult children struggling with mental health. You can keep the adult child the best by encouraging the child to do all these and showing compassion.
They could be shy about sharing their feelings or hesitate to open up with you. In this case, it would be a plus point when it is your own child. Your child won’t think you are an enemy.
However, this doesn't matter too much if it is someone else. As adult children need to talk with someone, they will get close to you when you build trust. So, be a sound support system for them following our mentioned tips.