We can support our family’s mental health all year round, but Spring is the ideal time to boost our mood and make deeper connections. Mental health expert Noel McDermott looks at how we can mark the transition from one season and emotional state to another for our children and as a family .

Mental health expert Noel McDermott comments: “For us it’s the transition from inside to outside as the weather improves and we need to understand this as a health transition as much as a seasonal change. One ritual we do seem to hold is the spring cleaning of our physical environment; the opening of the windows and doors to let the air in. The research on the positive link between how we nurture and maintain our homes and our mental health is very strong. Having a home we have cleaned reduces stress, gives us physical exercise, empowers us to take action and improves cognitive functioning such as concentration. It’s a global health impact. Also it’s one of those things that it doesn’t matter what your emotional colouring of cleaning is, engaging in it will improve your health. The conclusion should be simple then, all hands on deck for the spring clean this year”.

Family spring cleaning
Further than that, why not make it a regular feature of your family life? The kids may moan or they may not but investing in these activities, but maintaining a clean home together is not just a useful life skill, it will improve the health and wellbeing of your kids. So why not spring clean once a month? The advantage of this for you is that the more you can double up in this way, learning good housekeeping habits for life and improving your health, means you are more likely to sustain the habit. Health has become a consumer industry and research shows that the way it is branded and marketed make it more difficult to incorporate. While we can understand why the local gym wants to brand itself as healthy, and regular gym attendance is healthy, not everyone can or wants to consume health in that way. Health and wellbeing is more important than likely to be sustainable when you are achieving lots of things at the same time.

Helping Boost Children’s Mental Health this Spring
To achieve this with your kids, parents need to use children’s natural wishes to not only have fun, but to have fun with you and with other people. Being social and active are the core to well-being and mental health. As a species we were historically both tribal and nomadic (hunter gatherer) and so prosocial activity and activity in groups is highly rewarding neurologically. We are fooling our brains into thinking we are contributing to the survival of our clan! Work with this as much as possible to enhance the hit your kids get to their health and psychological wellbeing.
For younger kids get out there and explore the play parks, jungle gyms etc
For older kids get them joining activity groups, paddle boarding, canoeing, outward bound, hill walking, survival camps etc.
Other great boosts for mental health with older kids are boxing, kickboxing etc as learning how to manage aggression is so important. High intensity activities such as this as well as HIIT help manage stress hormone build up. Stress hormones have a huge negative impact on mental health. One, cortisol, is injected into our muscles to help generate explosive muscle energy and it needs to be used up!
Instilling Core Values
The other key things to deal with stress are conflict management and emotional regulation. Rather helpfully you can do both of these things at the same time and it’s really important given the conflicted times we live in and the experience of fear from the changes in the world. The key to this as a family is to value certain core things:
Safety – no matter what we do we can ask for help and asking for help outside the family is fine. If any of our kids get caught up in situations or relationships they feel unsafe if they have the right to say so and receive support and love and help.
EQ or emotional intelligence…encourage regularly the naming of feelings and the communication of them through words…EQ is the central skill in life and being able to put our feelings into word is highly valued so that when we do we get group approval
Teach our boys about consent and and respect for women
Teach our girls about self esteem and red liners in relationships
Encourage respect for difference on all levels. The broader and more diverse our social groups are, the more resilient we are because; our personality skills have to grow to relate to different people, this is the neurological equivalent of all body exercises and directly promotes mental health through brain growth. It’s called neuroplasticity and the broader our social support group is (many eggs and many different baskets) the less likely all our eggs will break if we fall!
Encourage discussion of what is happening in the world, this will give you many benefits. Developing skills and language around diverse political views, emotional support and opportunities to share fears and regulate, opportunities to correct extreme or incorrect views found on the world wide web, encourage learning civic engagement tools
Mental health expert Noel McDermott is a psychotherapist and dramatherapist with over 30 years’ work within the health, social care, education, and criminal justice fields. His company Mental Health Works provides unique mental health services for the public and other organisations. Mental Health Works offers in situ health care and will source, identify and co-ordinate personalised teams to meet your needs – https://www.mentalhealthworks.net/