Pay attention to the mental wellness of your child – Psychologist to parents

A lecturer at the department of Psychiatry of the University of Ghana, Dr. Seth Mawusi Asafo has urged parents to pay attention to their children’s mental health as their mental wellbeing begin with the parents.

According to him, children bond well at a very tender age with people who are emotionally available and therefore the onus lays on parents to be emotionally available to their children.

He said, the general concept of education especially in Ghana has been all about studies and writing of exams but it is important to realize that education cuts across different modalities of the social, emotional and psychological.

He said “It’s not only about intelligence or classroom work, there is a line or bridge we need to put between all these extra curricula activities and classroom work” adding that “In recent time there has been calls to reach out to make it better and I think we are getting there”.

Addressing the issue of protecting the mental health of the Ghanaian child at this year’s ‘Transform, Inspire, Motivate and Educate’ (TIME) Conference held in Accra on Thursday, Dr. Asafo emphasized, that protection of every child’s mental health starts from the home.

“Children start their bonding with everybody when they are young, so if you are emotional available to your child’s when they are young when they grow they will come to you,” he said.

The Psychologist said, he has worked with a lot of children who have gone through some unusual things, but they are unable to talk to their parents about it because parents mostly do not have the time to listen and children fear they may be judged on what they say.

Participants at the workshop

Speaking to the theme for the event “Wellness: Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing in a Robust Academic Environment” he said, mental health is a problematic area that we all need to work at especially among children.

“I know some schools do have counselling units and sessions for their students and so they are people who are trained to handle these needs of children in that state” he said.

He added that, various discourses are going on at conferences and seminars which will hopefully expose teachers to identify and be able to promote mental wellness among their students.

The day’s event had 330 participants, 24 workshops, 7 seminars, 55 facilitators and representatives from 24 selected public schools.