Share your stories with MyFampal of how you deal with behavioural/mental health issues with your DCs – £300 voucher to be won NOW CLOSED

[EmmaMumsnet]

To coincide with the launch of the MyFampal new app called MyFampal Parent, they have asked us to find out how you deal with behavioural and mental health issues with your children - whatever their age. The new app is designed to help parents to check, monitor and help take control of their family’s emotional wellbeing - by enabling families to identify, monitor and pre-empt issues before they take root.

Here’s what the team at MyFampal have to say: “Whether their children’s behaviour is considered ‘normal’ or healthy is a concern for all parents. Behavioural, emotional and mental health issues affect many families and vary hugely in form, often making them difficult to spot. It’s difficult to know for sure whether children are just going through a rough patch or struggling with something more concerning. MyFampal Parent is an easy-to-use app that helps you monitor how well your family functions as a unit and then lets you compare your results against others. In the same way that we take exercise and manage what we eat to maintain fitness, MyFampal Parent is here to help you with your families’ emotional wellbeing. Do download the app, try it for yourselves, and let us know what you think.”

MyFampal would love to hear your views on their App, but also how you have dealt with any potential behavioral, emotional or mental health issues your children have struggled with. At what age or development stage caused you the most concern? Do you have
an approach or method that allowed you to remember the key issues as they happen and keep dialogue open with your children so that they can communicate their emotions to you? Or do you have any techniques for how best to handle continued behavioural issues?

Please share your stories below of how you discovered and got through any tough times with your children - from toddlers to teens or even older adult children. Whether you have helpful feedback on the app or stories of how you got through it all to the other side, or if you are only just beginning to understand whether your DCs behaviour is healthy/’normal’ or they are struggling, MyFampal want to hear your thoughts.

Everyone who posts below will be entered into a prize draw where one Mumsnetter will win a £300 voucher of their choice (from a list).

Thank you and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

My eldest daughter is 14 and was under CAMHS when she was in primary school for border line OCD had particular routines she had to stick to every night etc. Everything been fine until past few months and now she claims she is 'mentally ill'!! Constantly shaking her hands been to doctors who are referring to CAMHS again! I think technology and social media has a lot to answer for!!

One of my DD was diagnosed with ADHD when she was about 7 - evidently it is less common in girls and more difficult to diagnose. She is now 17 and suffers from anxiety, particularly when having to deal with new situations or people. One of the problems for her is that, after her GCSE's, in which she did well, she decided to go to college rather than stay at school. That has left her in no-man's land - as she is no longer at school, she doesn't come under the children's team but has not received any appointments or help from the adult team either. She was having six-monthly reviews and is on medication but has now not been seen for 14 months, something which we are currently chasing. One of the hardest things is to make sure that the whole family do make allowances for her - her brain is wired differently to other peoples. When at school, if a teacher singled her out for a question, she would go bright red and start to well up - not because she didn't know the answer but because she struggled to have the attention pointed at her. Due to her anxiety, she rarely goes out in her spare time - she will only go into a supermarket if she can use a self-service checkout and not have to speak to anyone and, although she has made a nice group of friends at college, she doesn't tend to join in with their meet-ups. One of her friends is having a party in a couple of weeks and for the first time ever, DD has said she will go - already the anxiety has started as she isn't into drinking alcohol and, although she has friends who are male, she hasn't had a relationship and feels uncomfortable when others around her are kissing etc. The party is about 30 minutes away from us and we are taking and picking her up. She has already said she wants to be picked up at 10.30pm (party finishes about 1am) and so, in order to provide her with more reassurance, we have said that we will drop her off and then go to a local pub for a drink, so that if she suddenly feels she wants to leave, we are on hand to collect her. I think the main thing with having a child with mental health issues is to encourage independence, support them and try to ensure that siblings and the wider family group are aware of the problem but don't keep on about it.

My DD1 has very obvious behavioural issues (constant meltdowns and very emotional, ticks, anxious behaviour etc) and the main concern I have is the school never seem to really want to do anything to help. I often try to discuss with her teachers and the senco staff but I feel like they often fob me off. I think it would help if there was more support in getting a diagnosis in schools as my feelings are the schools don't want to lose any of they're budget to this. I think we have a long road ahead of us when it comes to diagnosing the behavioural problems so for now I try to :

Speak clearly but calmly
Try to remind her that we love her and give lots of hugs
Try to do lots of sensory play
Being firm and not giving in so that boundaries are set - it's taken me a long time to realise that being soft does not help her behavioural issues

It's all a learning curve at the end of the day. I do get upset by her behaviour and I used to think it was my fault somehow but I have learnt not to let it upset me so much and concentrate on the positive.

My youngest son has just started school and up till last week he'd barely arrived at school happy. He's run out of the door, he's flung his arms around which has resulted in hitting me and he's had the tears and being pulled off me. Last week I tried something totally new to us and presented him with a pebble to keep in his pocket (he adores having things in his pockets!) I'd drawn a happy face on one side and a cross (a kiss) on the other. The drawn face was to be something positive for him to see and in a way can remind him he can be happy at school, Mummy wants him to be happy. And the kiss on the other side I kiss every morning before I leave him so he has my kiss with him all day. He seems to like this idea and it's been so much easier to leave him and I've even had a wave from him!

Good timing since it's world mental health day on Monday.
I think anything that gets people talking about mh is a good thing.
1 of my children has severe depression and it's incredibly hard to find anyone to talk to that actually understands and doesn't judge.
Yes lots of love and reassurance can help fend off mild depression or anxiety but all the love I have hasn't helped my child, he's even had to be sectioned. Try explaining that one to people.

My daughter became quiet and withdrawn age 12, I knew something was wrong but could not put my finger on it, she was bullied at school had little confidence. I spoke to head of year and head teacher, we read build your self confidence books, and i started her karate lessons. nothing worked. we tried talking to her, saying she can tell us anything at all, we were quite young and open minded parents so nothing would shock us. by 16 she was wearing black all the time, drinking, smoking, we just could not reach her, she started bunking off college, coming home drunk. my mum offered to look after her for a while, she lives in a different town so we thought a change of scene would help. she met a guy selling the big issue and ran away from home to live with him, he was a well known drug seller, so she started drugs. we finally got her away from him and helped her set up her own home a rented room which she wanted her own independance. she started to self harm and was now under a pyschiatric team who diagnosed bi-polar. I wished i took her to Dr earlier but i thought it was just teenage angst. Over the yrs the diagnosis changed to psychophrenic bipolar and she started hearing voices telling her to kill herself. I felt helpless as a parent, with a broken arm you can fix it, but a broken mind, I didnt know what to do? M.I.N.D. were very supportive. We discovered she had been abused by her uncle but would not talk about it. Her mental health went downhill and another diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, they just continued to pump her full of drugs, and want to do electro therapy which I was not happy about. She finally went on quetiapine a very strong drug and two weeks later she died aged just 30 years. I believe this was Neuroleptic malignant syndrome an adverse reaction to anti-pyschotic drugs but of course I cannot prove it, so her death certificate says sudden adult death. Mental health issues are so difficult for everyone involved, I lost my child because of it, I feel guilty everyday as a mother as I was unable to help her, heal her. I dont know what the answer was or how would have been best to cure her. I will never know. Mental health affects one in four of us, its about time we had a better understanding of how it affects our lives.

When my son was struggling with his new sixth form- not breaking into established friendship groups, travelling miles on trains and buses to get there and back, and having three hour gaps to fill between lectures, it drove him mad! He threw himself on the bed one evening and just sobbed. This was so out of character for him. His dad spent hours talking to him and I wanted to say 'stop now' but talking clearly helped. My son took a few days off. We emailed his tutor too who was so helpful. His dad decided to drive him there two days a week and they joined a gym nearby to pass the long hours. He didn't quit sixth form. Talking and being there in anyway possible truly helps.

My DD suffers with generalised anxiety. She has always been anxious, since she was a toddler. It started to manifest itself in OCD tendencies, rituals and compulsions. CAHMS really helped her, and she had counselling for about a year. She no longer does the rituals, but the anxiety is always there lurking.

I just support her as much as I can. Talk to her, hug her, reassure her. I do breathing exercises with her when she feels panicky/ anxious. I hate to think that she will always be a worrier, but I do think she will. So I just try to help her cope with it, and learn coping mechanisms.

My first reaction to the app was a negative one. It felt as though it was encouraging life and emotions to be recorded as data. I far prefer to talk, encourage communication and devote time rather than give DD another tech resource to rely on.
However on further thinking, I can see its value a bit. DD is Very, very shy and struggles to confide or ask for help. This app could be another version of the 'feelings box' her school use.
But I still feel that for me and DD, talking and time is the best support I can give he. But that could very well change as she grows older and faces different challenges.

When my daughter started nursery (around a year and a half) it started out fine, when she was then 2 years old we started seeing behaviour problems. The nursery couldn't handle her and it was getting out of hand. They were calling me an hour after dropping her off telling me I needed to pick her up. We took her out of nursery and then went to a childminder, where she could have more close knit attention and more exposure to children of all ages, rather than with her age group. Her problem was that she has been very advanced for her age from a very young age.

I never looked back with this. The childminder we chose has experience with children from all ages, all abilities and her son has aspergers, so she has the experience and knowledge and patience that was needed with my daughter.

We all work together (me, my partner, childminder and the school) to ensure that my daughter is the best (and happiest) he can be :)

My advice is to try and get a community around you for advice, support and guidance. Whether this is friends, family, childminders, online forums and groups. It always helps when you are working together.

Sibling rivalry caused some jealousy and rough behaviour when eldest DC was age 3. Making an effort to spend 1:1 time with her so she knew she still mattered helped.

Staying calm and patient is important when they misbehave, if they perceive that we have lost control and become angry their behaviour becomes even harder to manage.

I have OCD and have worked very hard to conquer it as the last thing I want is for dcs to pick up from my behaviour. Although they are very good at getting exasperated with me and picking me up on how many times I wash my hands or check the doors are locked when we leave the house.

I had a look at the website and just don't understand how this app will possibly do anything positive. I have no intention of comparing my family or children to others. I think it is far better to interact and communicate with my family rather than an app.

Ds1 has ADHD and ds2 has ASD so I dealt with a good few behavioural problems whilst they were growing up. Now I See ds3 displaying some similar behaviours and spend a lot of time trying to work out if these are normal for a NT child or if he too is on the spectrum.

DS is quite an anxious person and I have suffered from depression in the past. My history is helpful I think because I am well practised at prioritising my well-being.

Things I have done are:

Asked for a referral to CAMHS
Talked openly with DS, without judgement and been supportive
Read information online and books
Contacted Parent Line for advice/support
Contacted Young Minds for advice/support
Practised mindfulness with DS

My husband often struggles mentally, with depression and anger etc so I do worry sometimes that my children will inherit it. He had a very hard time growing up, my oldest is about the same age now as he was when he first got depressed. I don't have any methods of dealing with it yet but I try to keep an eye on her a lot just in case. My husband will be able to relate to it and help her out a lot I think because he's been through it himself.

In my experiences with autistic children with anger issues it was a case of holding them in a bear hug to stop them injuring themselves til they calm down, talking gently and show compassion and understanding that they have difficulty in communicating their feelings. Sometimes its difficult to pinpoint the cause of their frustration because they cant tell you whats wrong. We've had the experts, the stats, the studies, but its the love of family and that support that matters, not an app.

My five year old daughter started saying her legs were fat....I've no idea why. We did a lot of reading about being healthy, eating well and exercise....luckily she's stopped saying this now, but I'm not looking forward to it happening again.

Have always used the ABC (antecedent, behaviour, consequence) approach to behaviour, positive reinforcement, and learning about feelings to understand own and others.

To ensure good mental health the basics are important so healthy food, enough sleep, quality family time, exercise, hobbies, socialising etc. I have used cbt methods to help certain situations and have taught youth mindfulness.

I think an app to guide on these things would be fab

i do try and encourage my children to share any feelings with me from an early age. my youngest son will completely clam up and i worry he keeps everything bottled up and its effects

Patience and understanding when my little one has behavioural issues

We talk and I trying to listen. Too often when things go wrong with behaviour my default is shouting mum. I'm trying hard to re-wire that and listen as well as talk.
Communication. I want my kids to be able to chat to me about anything.
I'm strict but fair. I always follow up a 'punishment'.
Never be too big to say sorry.

I struggled with the behaviour of my eldest daughter. My main problem was that she was stubbon to the point she just point blank refused to do anything she didn't want to. Before I encountered this problem, I used to think "OMG you just TELL your child what to do". Well, once I actually experienced it I realised how that does not work. She tried to play her Dad and I off against each other, which to a point we allowed for a quiet life. Sinec her Dad and I are now on 'the same page' so to speak, things are a little easier. Now we are showing a united front, combined with that she is now getting older things are getting easier. It was just a long hard slog of putting up with her behaviour for the harmony of the rest of the family.

a lot of patience love and support! our youngest son (we're sure) has ADHD but as he's only 5 they won't officially diagnose him but knowing there is a reason he acts the way he does is half the battle.

its important to make sure they know they are loved, understood and safe. Accept who they are and highlight what they are good at instead of what you might see as their failings.