We are talking about poor mental health potentially being contagious. If you are a parent or a teacher here’s what I want you to consider. I want you to consider, that just maybe, your own possibly negative dysfunctional psychological state could be picked up by the young people that you interact with like a contagious disease and begin to affect them too? Now don’t leave just yet! I haven’t lost my mind. There are a few different ways in which I can support this theory.

Firstly, let’s get the weird abstract one out of the way which is for those of you that are parents. How’s about this for an idea. How about inherited memory? Is it a thing, I don’t know? Maybe it is! But I certainly think if we can inherit other people’s genetic code from our physical body perhaps, we can also inherit their genetic code for things like memories, experiences, worries, fears and anxieties.

Is it a good idea for you as a parent to get your mental (or a potential parent those of you that are pregnant or planning on being) is it a good idea for you to get your own mental health in ship-shape before you start raising and influencing young people? Yes! On that basis, I think it is a jolly good idea.

Here’s the other theory on it although it’s probably a slightly easier to digest theory. The other theory is how children learn by modelling.  I’m sure you know the saying ‘monkey see monkey do’ that’s kind of how children learn. I’ve probably mentioned it before that children have in their mindset something that we refer to as mirror neurons and a mirror neuron is basically within their mind. It is the way in which they learn is by seeing what you do and then reflecting it back into themselves.

You might be at this point in time saying:

“No Gemma, there is no way that my own mental and emotional state is affecting my child or is affecting the children in my class or is affecting the young people that I teach and influence. I am a master at wrapping this thing up and keeping it inside. No one would ever know how I’m thinking and feeling I’ve got this disguised thing down”.

You might think that you’ve nailed it but the chances are you probably haven’t because stuff leaks out. Stuff leaks out particularly out of our physiology in the little changes in the intonation in our voice.

Let me give you an example of proof that this is a real thing and I’m not going to give you the exact case study but let us say that there was a parent who brought his son to see me in my private therapy clinic because his son had a fear of dogs. It wasn’t dogs but I’m just going to use that as the example. The boy had this tremendous crippling fear of dogs and the parent spoke to me privately and said listen:

“I have a very bad fear of dogs too. I’ve learned to manage it so I don’t completely freak out and I have never ever displayed any fear whatsoever in front of my son. There is no way that his fear of dogs has come from my fear of dogs because I’ve never demonstrated it. I’ve never talked about it and I’ve never given off any clues of any sense of fear when I’m around a dog “

Come on! I mean you think I was born this morning? If that child hasn’t picked up on it by something that’s been said somewhere along the lines, then they have picked this up from noticing the tiniest changes in that parent’s physical body or their intonation. It may have been a small little flicker in their eye has given off this warning signal whenever they’ve come into contact with dogs with their parent present.

Modelling is something we talk about a lot in NLP and modelling is basically the process by which we observe someone who has a set of skills that we would desire and we watch everything about them and we hear everything that they’re saying and we probe into the ways in which they think and as a result of getting down their strategy, getting the individual pieces of their jigsaw puzzle that makes up who they are when they’re doing the thing that we want to be able to do and steal from them – when we do that there are so many intricate bits of detail that we can tune into in order to be able to steal that useful behaviour that somebody has but children do this naturally like it’s hardwired into them to learn in that same way.

The only difference is they might not always pick up the good stuff. They’re going to pick up the bad bits too. For this reason, if you are a parent who is interacting or soon to be interacting with a new human life get your head straight. If you are a teacher or an influencer of young people and you’ve got your own anxieties going on in your mind get those seen to because if you don’t then at some point in time and in some way those behaviours will begin to exhibit themselves to the young people in your lives. If they do not point it out to you and probe you about it and draw your attention to it in an embarrassing way then the chances are they will pick it up unconsciously and begin to replicate it within themselves.

I have been in situations where a teacher has told me that many people in her class are behaving in erratic anxious chaotic ways. When I have been spoken to that teacher on a one to one basis I have not been surprised to discover that she herself is experiencing some historic mental images and experiences that caused her to be anxious and chaotic in her own life. Even though those things may have happened years and years and years ago they are still influencing how she is interacting now. If that can happen in that kind of an environment imagine how much more impactful it is when it’s between a parent and a child who sometimes seem to transfer messages to each other as if by osmosis or some kind of psychic intuition that they have between each other.

It’s really important that if we want to bring up a generation of young people now with good mental health that the people who teach them and influence them have got their own mental health sorted out first so that is my message to you for this month. If you would like to know how we can help you as a parent or teacher in improving your mental health, why not contact us today and speak to a member of the team.

By Gemma Bailey

www.NLP4Kids.org/gemma-bailey

These days it is not just the people who are physically around us that can influence our mental state. The constant updates of others on social media can have a huge effect on our mood and wellbeing. Sometimes this is useful – a motivational post that inspires you to get up and do some exercise is great! But often looking at other peoples’ seemingly “perfect” lives can cause anxiety and feelings of guilt that we do not match up. It is important to remember that what we see on social media is only a snapshot of one moment in that person’s day, and is probably not the whole reality. Similarly the negative posts and news articles that are online can also impact our thoughts and feelings. Particularly during the covid-19 pandemic, there have been many examples of scaremongering in the media, and fears about the safety of the vaccine have spread around much like the virus itself!

It is important that we take a step back from social media and ensure that it is not having a detrimental effect on our own or our children’s mental health. We also need to remember to check in on the content our children are accessing and remind them that not everything they see is true in real life. If we don’t – they could be exposed to the “contagious mental health” detailed in the article above.

Do you need help to break the cycle of poor mental health? Contact Jo at Worcester Child Therapy today!

07794020471

joanne@NLP4Kids.org

The original version of this article was written by Gemma Bailey, director of www.NLP4Kids.org.

It was republished and rebuilt with additional content by Jo Doherty, www.worcesterchildtherapy.nlp4kids.org