Kids Discussing Mental Health – Children of The Mind Store Doctors Share Their Voices

Since this is our first blog post, we would like to introduce ourselves. This blog will be written by a 9^th grader, a 7^th grader, and a 4^th grader, who is also our youngest writer.  We are siblings who have two board-certified psychiatrists as parents.  

To start off with our oldest writer’s opinion:

I wanted to write this blog because so many kids that I go to school with have depression, anxiety, or ADHD and they don’t know how to talk about it with their parents.  Instead of going to adults, they go to their friends who also don’t know how to deal with it.  Many of my friends also come to me for help as they mostly have depression and do things like self-harm and don’t want to talk with anyone because it will become “too much of a big deal.”  So with this blog I hope to not only help my friends but many other teens and children who have trouble with their mental health.

The view of the youngest:

I wanted to help with this blog because I have anxiety and it becomes really bad when I go to bed at night.  I have fears of being hurt at night and even fears of people judging what I wrote in this blog.  I couldn’t talk about my anxiety with my friends or parents because my anxiety told me that If I told my friends I would be dragging them with me into anxiety.  I told myself that my parents wouldn’t listen or care if I told them about my anxiety.  I have a little depression and I just hated having feelings because I never knew how to talk about my feelings or being asked if I was ok.   I would cry.

Lastly, a middle child’s opinion:

I wanted to contribute to this blog considering I am a child that has problems with anxiety and depression daily and how much of a struggle it is. Many of my friends struggle with anxiety and other issues in their families. Despite the problems of mental illness, hearing about my parents’ work with patients gives me a different feeling about mental wellness. With more kids and adults with mental sickness it is nice to see that there are psychiatrists willing to treat these illnesses.