January 2026 Director's Corner: Talking to Children about Mental Illness

One of the things I do as a mental health activist in the AANHPI space is talk about my lived experience with mental illness and parenting. I am a person who lives with chronic major depression and complex PTSD. I am also a daughter of a mother who had bipolar disorder and a mother to a daughter who has mental health concerns as well.

As a child, I was told my mother was “sick” when she had a bipolar episode and had to go into the psychiatric hospital. We knew she was going into the hospital, but not really the specifics. Some people may think it’s better to “protect” children from the truth, but in my experience, it was harmful to not have age-appropriate information on mental illness and why my mother was acting so strangely. As a child, I knew something was wrong, but I had no clear understanding or information.

Often, when bad things happen in a family, children will blame themselves. It’s the “child mind” of thinking if only I was a good enough kid, then mom wouldn’t be sick or my parents’ divorce wouldn’t have occurred. So, for a long time, I blamed myself for my mother’s illness and somehow thought I had some “control” over the situation. Also, not knowing the truth led to feelings of abandonment and fear. All things that I had to unlearn through therapy later in life. I also had to understand that the things I was being asked to do, in terms of taking care of my mother and the household were not age-appropriate. I was a parentified child.

When I had my own daughter, I knew I needed to parent differently than I was parented. I knew that secrets and silence were harmful. I knew that a lack of information just led to erroneous assumptions and conclusions. So when I was struggling with my depression, I vowed to share the truth. When my daughter was three or four, and I was struggling, I would share with her that “mommy has an illness that makes her sad sometimes, and it’s not your fault.” I repeated this message throughout her childhood and into adulthood. The part about it not being her fault is particularly important as it sets a boundary and lets her know that I am responsible for my well-being, not her. Also, I made it clear that I had helpers – my therapist, my psychopharmacologist, my friends, and family.  It wasn’t her role as a child to take care of me.

I share this because I believe that children usually know when there is something amiss in the family system. They may not know what, but they are attuned. Appropriately sharing is one way we can model conversations about mental health and wellness. It is one way we can be brave and realize that secrets do more harm than good. And you don’t have to have lived experience with a mental illness to share the ups and downs of ordinary mental health. We need to let our children know that everyone has mental health, and most events and things in life affect it. We need to let them know it’s okay to talk about mental health, and as parents, we have to prepare ourselves for those conversations by learning about mental health and signs of mental illness so that our children and ourselves and be healthy – body, mind, and spirit.

-Dr. Pata Suyemoto