What To Do About Children Of Parents With Mental Illness Disorders

By Rebecca Kelly


Children need to feel as if they are loved and cared for. Most parents make sure that they are in the most suitable environment where they can have a healthy childhood. However, children of parents with mental illness really struggle in a number of different areas, and need to reach out to someone for support.

It can be difficult for a child to take responsibility for some of these problems on their own. They often have to play the role of the parent. Many parents have serious problems where they are not able to cope. Depression, for example can cause people to basically sleep all day and it makes children feel as if they are neglected and abandoned.

The spouse of the person with this sort of illness may be at work or have a lifestyle which has become stressful. They often don't know how to cope in a situation like this. They are not responsible themselves and will simply head off to the pub with a couple of friends in order to get away from it all.

Children start to withdraw from other family members because of the situation. They usually don't have friends and become isolated. This can cause other disorders and issues to develop in their adult lives. Some of these memories will be repressed until much later in their life. However, it is something that they have to deal with.

The spouse may send the children to another relative or a grandparent when the situation becomes worse. This is not always the best thing because children are aware of what is going on. Parents try and hide this, and children will then have issues with trust, especially with authority figures which can play a part in their adult lives.

Family therapy is a good option because everyone will be able to find out more about the mental illness and how they can deal with it. The other parent should learn to spend more time with the child. One should also be able to find someone to help take care of the parent who is suffering from the mental disorder so that the child is not struggling as much.

On top of this, children may be faced with a lot of other issues in their life. Parents who have certain mental illnesses can become aggressive and abusive. They will let this out on their kids. Young ones will live in fear. Parents can be loving the one minute and the next minute they will become enraged. This develops an ambivalence in the relationship.

They can start to become anxious and depressed, not knowing what to do or where to turn. Panic disorders can develop later on in life and this is why it is so important that children are able to talk about these problems. The spouse should help their child in this regard, otherwise they are not going to enjoy a healthy childhood.




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