Parental Mental Health
Barnardos released a report on ‘Parental Mental Health and the Impact on Children’. We commissioned Amárach research to carry out a nationally representative survey of 1,000 parents across the country.
Results from the survey show that half of all children will live with a parent with poor mental health during their childhood.
Almost half (46%) of parents said their mental health had been poor at some point since having children. Over one in ten parents (12%) said they were currently experiencing poor mental health. An additional 34% of parents said at some point in the past, since having children, their mental health was poor.
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What you told us about your Parental Mental Health
I have low tolerance and would shout a lot, instead of just pausing and taking a breath and modelling good behaviour, I would find I’m very dis regulated and the consequences is that I fear my child is now not able to regulate.
Struggle to get out of bed every morning. I am never awake when my daughter goes to school and my son often plays computer games or watches TV beside me until I wake up. This makes me feel really guilty and ashamed. I’m always tired.
What you told us about your Parental Mental Health
I have low tolerance and would shout a lot, instead of just pausing and taking a breath and modelling good behaviour, I would find I’m very dis regulated and the consequences is that I fear my child is now not able to regulate.
Struggle to get out of bed every morning. I am never awake when my daughter goes to school and my son often plays computer games or watches TV beside me until I wake up. This makes me feel really guilty and ashamed. I’m always tired.
- One in five (20%) parents said they had experienced other symptoms or conditions affecting mental health wellbeing such as panic attacks or extreme mood swings since becoming parents.
- One quarter of parents reported being burned out most of the time (24%). 95% of parents said they currently experience depression or anxiety at least some of the time with over half (54%) saying they currently felt all of the issues at least some of the time.
- Mothers were two and a half times more likely to say they felt overwhelmed most of the time (25%) compared to fathers (10%) and almost twice as likely to feel anxious most of the time (20% compared to 12%).
I believe some very simple support would have made a huge difference, just to know that I wasn't the only person feeling a certain way, feeling over whelmed, not knowing if you were doing it right, questioning every decision that you made.
Barnardos Recommends
- Address stigma and raise public awareness
There has been huge progress in helping children and young people feel ok and comfortable talking about their mental health.
We now need to make progress helping parents feel comfortable discussing and talking about mental health in the context of being a parent.
The government should develop a campaign raising the awareness of parental mental health, the impact on children, and local parenting support services.
- Increased early intervention and prevention
Act on commitments to increase access to evidence-based parenting and family support programmes that will enhance children and young people’s wellbeing and parental mental health by increasing funding for intensive family support services working with parents facing poor mental health.
- Adult mental health services
The parenting status of all adults engaged with mental health services should be recorded and a referral offer made to all families with children under 18 to sufficiently funded local family support services.