Marti Bledsoe Post, executive director of On Our Sleeves, joins Cheddar News to discuss the latest study finding the impact children's mental health can have on working parents.

Cheddar Wellness

'On Our Sleeves' Executive Director Talks Latest Study

Welcome back to cheddar wellness everyone. A new survey from on our sleeves found 53% of parents have missed work at least once a month to deal with their children's mental health. This comes as parents are experiencing their kids battle the impacts of this pandemic. The results show even when parents are at work, 30-50% of them say they still worry about their kids well being joining us now to discuss is marty blood. So post executive director of on our sleeves marty, welcome to the show. I'm so glad we're talking about this. Parents are forced to juggle remote schooling amid covid. What is the significance of this on your sleeves survey? Well, the survey really found that working parents are juggling not only what's going on with the data to disruption of remote schooling and adjustments to the pandemic, but also adding to that a layer of concern of our their Children coming through the pandemic in a mentally well way. So their work is being disrupted by answering calls or texts or emails or traveling to appointments for their Children. And that is something that we really hope employers can start to take into account as we look at mental health and well being, not just for employees, but for their families overall last the last few years, as you well know have been quite the feat when it comes to multitasking, but as we near the end of the pandemic. Do you think Children and their mental health will begin to heal or get a little bit better. You know, we decided that we would look back to look forward on that very question. And so we've been looking at the data over the past 10 years and what we see our clinical experts are pointing out to us that there has been an increase in the number of mental health concerns and conditions that we are hearing about. And so what we do know as we come towards the end of the pandemic adjustments is there will be more change, there will be more things we have to help our Children adjust to and get used to and so as adults, it's up to us to give them a voice in this mental health conversation and help them navigate what is coming their way in terms of new changes. So we really want to make sure employers and employees are giving each other space in the workplace so that parents can do what they need to help their Children on our sleeves is encouraging parents to have more candid conversations with their Children when it comes to mental health. How do they approach such a heavy conversation like that one? Well first of all we really encourage parents to help their Children talk about thoughts and feelings just on a day to day basis. We have conversation starters on our site on our sleeves dot org to help parents with everything from getting conversation going about the school and learning day to bigger topics like politics or racism or the pandemic itself and what we know overall is that if we encourage Children and give them vocabulary and skills to talk about how they're feeling, then hopefully we can have a more ongoing dialogue with them about what's on their minds, how they're feeling, how they're doing, since they're still learning to articulate some of what we already know about sharing feelings and ideas, removing stigma around mental health is so crucial. How should employers work with these working parents and of course, when it comes to their mental health, not only their kids, mental health, but their employees mental health, right? Absolutely. Employers can do a lot in this space to break down the stigma. First of all, they can create just a more transparent culture about how they use vocabulary like mental health and mental wellness as opposed to referring to mental issues or mental illnesses. So they can paint the vocabulary in a more open and positive light. They can encourage parents to and caregivers to check in with each other whether that's informally or in more formal resource groups for those who are caring for families. And they can remind employees of what kinds of benefits and flexibility is available to them from both. A coverage standpoint and also a policy standpoint. And where are the places where the employer can really flex in those situations and what we heard from parents in our survey is that the more an employer does that, the more the employee, the parent or caregiver feels like this is a place that I feel satisfied. It's an open culture, it's a place where I, you know, want to stay and continue my career. So there's a lot of benefit to businesses for engaging in this topic and helping us break down the stigma. What resources should these employers have in place just as a bare minimum marty? Well, they really need to be gaining feedback from the parents and caregivers in their organizations. It is certainly been a long two years and potentially those changes are just starting to settle in terms of what families really need. So it's important that employers understand what the families and caregivers are going through as we continue to navigate these changes and then make decisions with those inputs in mind. So how are they navigating new decisions about benefits and policies? How are they navigating new conversations about culture and how transparent are they willing to be? And this is something that can really be driven by leadership, willingness to engage in this conversation and also parents willing to say, I'm I'm going to be honest about what's going on in my home life and we want to make sure that employers are making that a safe thing to do within the culture that they're creating. Children have mental health needs, just like adults, but they might have a harder time articulating it. How can parents make this easier for Children? Well, Children don't wear their thoughts and feelings on their sleeves, which is exactly how our organization came by its name because the grownups around those Children are really responsible for giving them some skill in this area. And so it depends on the age and development of the child, but we can do all kinds of things for them. We can listen and validate when we hear them expressing an emotion, even if we're not necessarily a fan of how they express that we can offer back to them what we see them doing or trying to articulate. We can name those feelings and give Children the actual words that go with whatever emotion they are expressing. And then we can actually help Children continue this dialogue with our, you know, with ourselves as the adults and also with other Children by making sure that it's a safe place and that we react with positive or neutral reactions when they do share things with us and all of this is skill that we didn't necessarily grow up within our own households or maybe we did, but it was different than it is now. So that's why on our sleeves exists. So that these resources are available to every community in America from our website. They can get ideas, they can try things and see what works. And then we encourage all parents and caregivers to share openly about what's going well in these conversations with their families. Such fantastic and crucial advice marty Bledsoe post executive director of On our sleeves. Thank you so much for your time marty.