I would say parents play a huge role in their child’s mental state, more so when they are younger. Children learn by observation, so one of the ways we influence their mental state is via the way we cope with hardships ourselves – a lot of how they handle negative events in their own life has to do with how they’ve seen their parents and family members coping. I’ll talk more about this in my suggestions.
Three changes that parents must make to assist in improving the child’s general wellbeing:
(1) Improve your relationship with your child. Whether you do this by having family time every weekend, or by going out for ice-cream individually, or even by having a short catch-up conversation at bedtime, it is vital that parents work on improving their relationship with their children. Nouman Ali Khan (CEO, Bayyinah) has spoken on this many times, where he has stressed the importance of parents taking out the time to listen and share with their kids. The way this plays into mental health wellbeing is that by having an established relationship with your child, he or she is more likely, even as a teenager, to confide in you about what some of their struggles are.
As parents, we must come to terms with the fact that despite all of our experience from our own teenage years, there are some things that teens deal with nowadays that we just did not go through ourselves. Thus, it is important to be a good listener, to ask questions about how our teen is thinking or feeling, and above all, not to make judgements or get defensive.
(2) Teach coping skills. Coping skills are tools or strategies that we use to deal with or handle any sort of negative emotion or situation. As parents, we should have developed good coping strategies for ourselves, so that we are not only able to handle negative situations and feelings ourselves, but also so that our kids learn about what good coping looks like and are able to employ similar strategies. We all know that children are keen observers, and they are more likely to learn what they see you doing versus what you tell them to do. Thus, having good coping skills ourselves shows them how to handle negative or unexpected situations in a rational and effective manner. Teaching younger children how to handle things the world throws at them better prepares them for when they are older and are more in control of their own mental health.
(3) Be a parent and set limits. Remember that at the end of the day, you are the parent. Your job is not to make your child approve of you; rather, it is to make sure that you are doing everything you can to ensure that you are keeping your child safe and healthy, whether it is physically, religiously, mentally, emotionally, or in any other way.
Set appropriate and reasonable rules and limits for your teens depending on your situation, and be consistent in them. If your rule is no sleepovers at Khala’s house, there should be no sleepovers at Khala’s house, no matter how many times they beg and scowl, and insist. If your rule is that their Kameez or shirt should be knee length, when they leave the house, that rule should stay the same whether it is Ayesha, Shanzay or Fatima. This is very important because by setting certain rules, as is appropriate for your situation, you solidify morals and values in their minds that, Insha’Allah, they will go back to, when you are not there to hold their hand anymore.
Top three changes that I recommend to the teens for leading a more fulfilling and meaningful life
(1) Learn to respect your elders. There are three reasons for why this is important. First, obviously, respecting your elders, especially your parents, is an important part of our Deen. Your parents’ Duas can get you to places you couldn’t even imagine. On the other hand, hurting or disrespecting your parents will most definitely come to haunt you in your life, not to mention be a liability for you in the hereafter.
Second, your parents know what is better for you. It is very hard to hear this, and as teens we often have this ego within us about knowing more or better than our parents, but even though they didn’t have Snapchat and Facebook in their days, they know a lot more about life and how to maneuver challenges than you do.
Third, respecting your parents means you will have a better relationship with them, which automatically will mean less stress in at least one area of your life.
(2) Minimize technology/ media usage including TV. I can’t stress this enough. Take time to disconnect from your phone at least for an hour every single day. We spend way too much time texting, snapchatting, facebooking and instagramming to actually foster deep and meaningful connections. In fact, some research has shown that individuals, who tend to spend more time on social media, experience lower levels of life satisfaction and higher levels of loneliness.
Disconnect from your phone and connect with people face-to-face. Try to turn off your phone an hour before bedtime, as it helps you sleep better. I’ve had a lot of clients, who complained about feeling depression or stress, and it turned out that lack of proper sleep was what was actually causing those symptoms.
Also, try not to watch so much TV. I know it is fun, distracting and exciting, but on a subconscious level, we tend to internalize what we see on TV and end up expecting that to play out in our own lives. For instance, some of the people I’ve worked with, who had difficulty maintaining friendships, had this problem because they were expecting their real life relationships to go the way they had seen on TV. Please, make it a habit to remind yourselves that most things on TV are not at all accurate depictions of reality.
(3) Choose your friends carefully. When making friends, consider two things:
(a) Are they going to be good for my Dunya? In other words, will they guide me in being a good person, or are they going to pull me towards unnecessary time-wasters that will be detrimental to my future? I’ve met a lot of people in my personal and professional life, who tear up in regret of the kind of people they identified with and called friends in their youth. Having a relationship when you’re 16 can be fun and exciting, because our parents don’t know about it and/or all the cool kids are doing it, but trust me, when I say that this will most definitely mess with your future at some level.
(b) Are they going to be good for my Akhirah? In other words, will they be the kind of friends, who will honestly tell me, if I’m doing something that I shouldn’t be doing, because they want what’s best for me? Are they going to remind me of Allah (swt), when I forgot or when I’ve lost faith in Him? The friends, who will stand by you through thick and thin, are the ones, who have a connection with Allah (swt) themselves.
At the end of the day, you just need to remember that your friends are a reflection of you. On the Day Of Judgement, we will be raised with those whom we considered friends. Are you comfortable with the idea of being grouped with your current friends on the Last Day?
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