News

Many parents don’t speak about mental health with their children

5 December 2015

By James

A survey of parents carried out by Opinion Matters on behalf of the charities Mind and Rethink Mental Illness with the Department of Health suggests that more than half of parents in England and Wales have never spoken to their children about mental health.

With the atmosphere of increased worry about mental illness in children and teenagers (and the news that one in ten children will suffer from a mental health issue), the survey was set upon as part of the Time to Change campaign, which aims to reduce the stigma around mental health. The campaign’s director, Sue Baker, says that “this has to be the generation for change” for mental health issues.

But the results of the survey also show that 20% of parents “did not know how to address the issue”, and that 45% felt that they did not need to speak to their children about mental illness because it was not a problem. Mental health authorities, however, seem to say otherwise.

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