As time passed, I took a heavier approach at monitoring my daughter’s social media accounts. Later learning my daughter was more intelligent in this space than I gave her credit for.
I went down the path of a parent, asking if there was anything she wanted to talk about, if there was anything upsetting her, all the general questions we ask our children when we notice a change in behaviour.
But life was busy. I work a highly stressful job; we lead relatively busy lives. I would check in; she would respond with a relatively reasonable response, and we would continue in our day to day lives.
I would express concern and try to be patient with her, I also expressed frustration with her, not my finest moment. But I truly at this time did not know the lengths of what she was experiencing or what was about to come because of her experience.
After becoming more aware through behaviours and changes my daughter was displaying.
I decided to apply all my learnings from working with behavioural children, my experience with working with young people, my training in mental health and approached my daughter with a calm and open approach.
Later to learn this was not the best approach for her. Later to be informed I was not supporting her in the way she required and needed. The difficult part being I felt I knew how to deal with this.
I was trained, I supported over hundreds of children and young people with significant trauma in my career.
How could she lash out at me when I was educated?
Why wasn’t she taking my advice?
Why was she dismissing my suggestions?
I was almost offended, but these were my emotions, my feelings. I got caught up in this. Why was I unable to help her? What was I doing wrong?
The realisation was even though I had been successful in my career in this space, I was not being successful in supporting her. I was unable to help my own child.
I began asking open ended questions. I sat and listened. I offered support. By now my daughter had entered year 7 in high school.
There were new circles of friends, detachment from previous friends, which I noted but didn’t feel this was cause for concern, as again this is quite normal when entering high school. I believed she was growing and exploring, doing the typical thing all teenagers do and meeting new friends.
My daughter then started requiring days off school, advising she was unwell. This became more regular than normal. Her need for days off as she explained was, she was feeling sick in her stomach.
A sign of anxiety and stress.
My daughter has always been an anxious child, but not to the point where it impacted her physical health.
We decided through conversations as parents and together with my daughter and the school to investigate counselling provided by the school. These appointments were to commence fortnightly which my daughter attended. Then the days off increased more.
I provided my daughter with facts sheets around anxiety as a resource she could always access, I included several other fact sheets around mental health just as an added layer of education.
For most of my daughter’s life, she has been educated around my roles in the community. My daughter has a great awareness of issues that impact the community.
We had always discussed openly the need for people to reach put for supports if and where required.
I found we were discussing more issues she was facing in school, the social setting. My daughter was sharing with us what some of her peers had been saying to her and about her. Continuing to raise the photo she had shared at the end of the previous year. Parents of her peers had also been made aware of this photo.
My daughter was losing friends she had made in her primary years, she was becoming the target of bullying both in school and online.
My daughter was now officially displaying symptoms of mental health, the realisation had set in, later learning this was only the tip of the iceberg.
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