If you read the headlines, you know that mental health struggles are on the rise, especially among kids and teens. There are a host of factors believed to contribute to this (including the pandemic, electronics, etc.), but regardless of the reasons, coping with mental health issues has become a major player in many families’ lives.

Before I get too far, I need to add a disclaimer: I am not a mental health provider, counselor, psychiatrist, or anyone credentialed to speak to this topic professionally. But I am someone who’s struggled with anxiety and depression personally. And I’m a parent to three kids who’ve all struggled as well, especially two of my teens. The coping skills I’m sharing below are not theoretical, they’re the things that have worked for our family. I hope they inspire you to find tools that will help yours, too.

Name It

During a counseling session early on, my son’s therapist suggested something that seemed a little odd: she asked him to choose a name for his depression. At first, I thought it was a cute exercise for a child. But over the next weeks and months, I began to see the wisdom in it.

Naming his depression gave it an identity outside of himself, removing the feeling that he was the problem. It became an illness, separate from who he was, which was a crucial distinction for him to make.

It also made it something he could address. When he began to feel “Patty” intruding on his thoughts, he told her to leave him alone. When “Patty” stole his pleasure in the things he’d once enjoyed, he told her to go away. In fact, the only time he was allowed to say “shut up” was when he was talking to his depression!

A few years later, my daughter decided to name her feelings of anxiety, calling them “Fester.” It worked just as well for her, and helped her to separate herself from her symptoms.

Find a “Turn-Around Song”

We stumbled on this tip almost by accident. We were all struggling one day with feeling down and discouraged, and I pulled up a playlist the kids had created on Pandora. A few songs in, there was a cover of the song Three Little Birds by the Chipmunks. Immediately, the mood in the room shifted.

The song was so silly, but so upbeat, that they couldn’t help but smile. By the time we got to the chorus, “Don’t worry about a thing ’cause every little thing is gonna be alright,” we were all singing along at the top of our lungs and laughing.

Since then, I’ve often played that song on the hard days. It doesn’t fix everything, but the song itself and the memories attached to it often help to lighten the mood and ease some of the symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Destroy Worry

One day, all of my kids came home in bad moods. They’d each had horrible days, with a series of things that went wrong. As they relayed some of what happened, they got more and more worked up.

After listening for a while and trying to help them reframe things and process, I had an idea. I ran upstairs in search of some supplies and returned to the living room, handing each of them a pad of sticky notes and a pen. I told them to write down every single thing that had gone wrong that day, down to the smallest thing that was bothering them. At first they looked at me like I was crazy, but they did it. Several minutes later, they each had a small stack of notes.

I told them to take a look at what they’d written and said, “It’s all over now. Those things that happened are in the past. They affect you, but they don’t have to control you. You can let them go and leave them in the past.”

Then I pulled out our paper shredder. One by one, they shredded every bad thing that had happened and watch as it was destroyed.

It’s not magic. There’s something about getting our worries and thoughts out of our heads and out in the open, and destroying them is cathartic. It helps us release the things we’re holding on to. I’ve done it in my own life, writing down the things I’m worried about or the ways someone has hurt me, then shredding the paper, burning it, crumpling it up… Whatever it takes to signal to my brain that that issue is over and in the past, and I can let it go.

After my kids shredded their papers, we scooped them out of the bin. I put on our silly song and we threw the paper strips up in the air like confetti, then stomped them on the ground. Within seconds, everyone was laughing at the silliness of it.

And it worked.

Dance Party

Both music and movement can help boost our mood. There’s something about the movement of dancing, especially while listening to enjoyable music, that helps us regulate our moods and emotions. There’s scientific work at play, but there’s also just the sheer joy and physical benefit of the exercise of dancing.

We’re big fans of dance parties around here, usually in the kitchen. They usually start with some reluctant dancers, but as we all (including my husband and me) let down our hair and allow ourselves to get silly or to move with the music, our tension seeps out. We feel a little lighter. And usually by the end of the first song, we’re all grinning.

Dancing together has the added benefit of bonding you as parent-child or as a family. When you struggle with mental health challenges in the home, it can feel like a lot of hard work. It’s easy to lose sight of the joy of just being a family. For us, dance parties have been bridge-builders back to our kids.

And before you think this only works with young kids, you might be surprised… We’ve had more dance parties since our kids entered their teen years than we did when they were little, and they’ve worked just as well or better now that they’re older.

Give it a shot next time the mood is glum or anxious in the house. You might learn some new moves, and I guarantee it’ll lighten the atmosphere in the home!

Fact-Check Your Worries

Let’s face it: worry and fear are not logical. In fact, fear pushes us into functioning from the “non-logical,” emotion-based part of our brain. While we may not be able to fully rein in our fears, sometimes approaching the specific worries with logic can help.

Two questions have helped me, especially, when I feel myself starting to spiral into anxiety or panic:

1. Is it happening now?
2. Is it likely to happen?

If it’s not happening in this moment, then I don’t need to waste energy worrying about it. I remind myself that the thing I fear may never happen, and I have plenty to occupy my time and attention in this present moment. Often, it helps diffuse a little of my fear and lets me take a breath. I’m free from the thing I’m worrying about in this present moment.

Then I go a step further in asking myself whether it’s likely that thing will ever happen. For example, I’ve been known to spiral into a panic about the possibility of dying in a plane crash. But statistically, it’s extremely unlikely that it would happen. I remind myself that out of the thousands of people I know, no one has been involved in a plane crash. I review some of the checks and safeties that are in place to prevent that kind of thing. And then I remind myself that, if a thing is unlikely to ever happen at all, I don’t need to waste my time and energy worrying about it.

Neither question is a magic fix, of course. But it does engage my logical brain and helps give me a more accurate framework for the thing I’m worrying about. And often that’s enough to take the edge off of my mounting panic and allow me to put my other coping skills to use.

Have you tried any of these tools for coping with mental health challenges? Are there others that have worked well for you? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!