A child's experiences at home can have a tremendous impact on how they function at school, and into their adult life.  Healthy relationships at home and engaged, supportive caregivers are also key protective factors for child and youth mental health. And for youth experiencing mental illness, involved and unconditionally supportive parents will make the journey easier. For all of those reasons and more, in this Snapshot we'll be focusing on different resources to support child and youth well-being from home.

FamilySmart has tapped into the voices of youth and families to gather ideas for ways to make hard conversations work at home, and what youth are saying about helpful and unhelpful actions and expectations.

Here are some of their recommendations for conversations:

• Instead of saying "you need to just stop hanging out with those people," try asking "tell me what you like about them."
• Instead of "Why don’t you ever tell me what’s going on?" try, "I’m here for you. Let me know how I can support you."
• Replace "you need to calm down," with "I can see you’re really upset, I’m here if you need me."

And what youth are saying they need:

• “Be honest with me. I can tell when you are having a bad day, so don’t pretend everything is okay. Instead, show me how to deal with a bad day. Model it for me.”
• “I need you to be a safe place, a place where you don’t judge and criticize me.”
• “Don’t ‘Google’ what’s wrong with me. Help me find real answers.”

Read more about what families and youth are saying at the links below.
Family Smart - Some Ideas for Helping Conversations Go Better
Family Smart - What to Expect From Me

Our understanding about child and youth mental health and well-being has evolved a lot over the last few decades, and continues to shift as the influences on children and youth rapidly change. This is why we're hoping to have a recurring focus on a new learning that counters previous assumptions some of us may have about this topic in this "check your assumptions" section. 

In our household, and I'm sure many others, video games are the source of a lot of disagreements - from the type of video games allowed, to the duration and frequency that the kids want vs the adults' expectations. Some of this, we have to admit, stems from our own mistaken belief that video games have, at best, zero benefit for cognitive development, and at worst may have detrimental effects. Well, a recent study should ease some of those concerns for parents who share those worries.

Researchers at the University of Vermont analyzed data from 2000 nine and ten-year-olds, making comparisons between those who played video games and those who didn't. What they found was that "the children who reported playing video games for three or more hours per day were faster and more accurate on both cognitive tasks than those who never played...[and] that children who played video games for three or more hours per day showed higher brain activity in regions of the brain associated with attention and memory than did those who never played." 

Does this mean that gaming should replace other mentally stimulating activities like card games with family, or playing piano? Probably not. But is it an argument for trading TV time for video game time sometimes? Maybe. At the very least, maybe it can calm some of that parental anxiety about screen time that we often feel.