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Combining 3 Professions: Athlete, Psychologist, Parent...

Sunday, 24 August 2014 00:10

By Ruth Brennan Morrey (ruthbrennanmorrey.com)

Mental health has received significant national attention in the past two weeks with the passing of Robin Williams and his longstanding battle with depression. A PhD in psychology has certainly prepared me well to work with patients who are living with a large spectrum of psychological disorders while providing adequate education and utilizing empirically validated treatments for improved outcome. Ironically, however, I always feel somewhat ill equipped to discuss the difficult topic of suicide and...

mental illness with my own kids—the little guys don’t yet realize just how privileged and functional their childhood is, and that mental health goes well beyond thinking happy thoughts. Let’s face it, most adults don’t get it either.

       
From my perspective, the truly successful people in life not only work hard and strive to discover and capitalize upon their own given talents, but they habitually and selflessly pick up anyone else who stumbles in their path. When helping becomes a habit and pro-social behavior is internalized as a responsibility for my kids, I can use it as a gauge for parenting success. Why? 1) It is the right thing to do, and 2) It grows a child’s emotional intelligence. Early pro-social helping experiences build empathy, foster positive relationships, help regulate one’s own emotional responses, build an emotional ‘language’, and develop solid resiliency and advocacy skills. Lastly, assisting same age peers is particularly powerful for little tikes because their emotional and behavioral contexts are somewhat congruous. There are hundreds of parenting books dedicated to these concepts. READ MORE