How a Parent’s or Guardian’s Mental Health Impacts Children’s Mental Health

Margaret: Parents and guardians fill many roles: providers, nurturers, protectors, guides, disciplinarians and more. Busy schedules and life stressors often lead adults and caregivers to neglect their mental health. Maintaining our own mental health is one of the best ways to care for children. Parental mental health significantly influences youth, from early childhood through young adulthood.

Margaret: A child's ability to securely attach to primary caregivers is crucial in infancy and early childhood. Healthy attachment lays the foundation for lifelong development. Secure attachment is rooted in trust, caregiver presence, predictability, attentiveness and safety. Children explore more comfortably when they have a reliable caregiver — a secure base — to return to. This consistency helps shape how children view themselves and the world. Caregivers encourage secure attachment through consistent behavior, responsive care and emotional warmth, supported by tending to their own wellness.

Margaret: During the school-age years, children absorb their surroundings, internalizing both verbal and nonverbal cues about feelings and mental health. When adults show emotional dysregulation or lack healthy coping, children may become "parentified," acting as emotional support or mediators prematurely. A family’s perspective shapes children’s views on mental health. Judgment and denial of mental health needs stigmatize normal experiences, which are often manageable with professional help.

Margaret: Parents and guardians foster healthy emotional development by accepting age-appropriate emotional expression, using emotion words to help children identify feelings and recognizing that children have fewer self-regulation skills. Part of the caregiver's role is to support children as they meet emotional challenges and experience discomfort.

Margaret: Many evidence-based therapeutic programs strengthen family mental health and cohesion. For young children, programs like Circle of Security and Parent-Child Interaction Therapy build relationships and teach caregivers to manage challenging behaviors. For school-age children, the Modular Approach to Therapy for Children (MATCH) involves caregivers to reinforce treatment strategies.

Margaret: Even when caregivers struggle with their own mental health, they can foster secure attachment, avoid parentification and remain available and communicative. This requires appropriate help-seeking. Like putting on your own oxygen mask before assisting others, caregivers should prioritize their mental health to remain healthy and regulated.