How do you explain mental illness to a child?

[dharmama]

I'm getting increasingly closer to my wonderful niece (5 1/2) and nephew (7 1/2) and I find myself wanting to talk to them about their mother and their feelings about her. (She has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. My BIL shares custody of the kids with her but she has agreed to only having supervised visitation with them once every two weeks.)

I hear people in my family talk about her with that oh boy...she's tone and I know the children hear it and feel it. I try to talk to ask them about her and talk about her as normally as I can (though it's very hard when she goes off medication and does really extreme things) but I just feel like I don't have a strong enough center on the issue to know what the right things to say are.

Just wondering if anyone can point me in the direction of a good book or web site or share personal experiences.

Thanks so much.

[dharmama]

Actually just googled and found this web site. Looks like a lot of good info here.

http://www.mhasp.org/coping/guardians.html

[Tigerchild]

Do you want to talk to them?

Or do they want to talk to you?

I would be very careful it's the latter. If you're close to them, it's likely they will open up to you. But if they choose not to, then really you should respect their privacy. I can understand wanting to help them, but it really should be them making the first move. You can make sure you provide them with a safe ear and a safe place to visit/be in the meantime, though.

My model for this has been my aunt. There were times in my childhood where I really wanted to vent to her, but I wasn't ready. I'm so glad that she just provided safety for me until I was ready, and didn't leap in before then. That probably would have chased me away or triggered the rather sick sense of odd loyalty I had towards my mom. (It was hell with her, but TO hell with anyone who said anything about her to me!) I did open up with her eventually. When I need to process something, I still call her. And as I look back on it, I see the things she did, very gently and subtly, that made it clear that it was okay for me to talk about negative feelings (but by the same token it was equally okay for me not to).

She suffered some of the same things I did, when she was a child (my mom is her older sister). I can imagine the temptation of wanting to save me (even though realistically she couldn't have) or the strong sense of that bond. I don't know how or why she chose to both embrace me and give me my space, but I'm very thankful she did. Even though she's always been my favorite family member, it took me years to fully open up to her. Yet at the same time, knowing that I could gave me the strength to survive what I was going through, even though she probably didn't think I was drawing on her at at all.

If they have lived with her, then to be very blunt...you don't need to explain mental illness to them. They already know. Perhaps just as or more intimately as you. Do you really think that you can explain that to a child, about their mother? Even with all our scientific knowledge and research, we still can't 'explain' things. You can't fix it either. The only thing you can do is provide safe space. And that is more huge than a lot of people give it credit for.

[dubfam]

Good for you!!! My father has some very socially unacceptable mental illnesses, and I grew up hearing people talk about it in a horrible way.

I would feel so bad and confused...I don;t think one adult ever talked to me about my fathers illness in a way that was respectful toward him.

I wish someone would have taken the time.

[mama40]

You might want to talk with BIL before diving into this. He may have his own plans for talking with them about their mother's illness. Unfortunately there is really nothing anyone can do to control how others talk about mental illness. You can only choose to have the kids around them or not, and many people will put up with the talk for the sake of peace and friendship/family.

I think, if it were me, I wouldn't go farther than making a point of speaking respectfully about their mother and the illness, and that only occasionally. And if they asked, I think I would limit any explanation to "your mama loves you, but she is sick, that's why she's not around more. She has doctors helping her." Beyond that, I'd defer to BIL, unless he was openly disrespectful about the illness, too (which I'd be a little surprised by).

My daughter's father is mentally ill, and we've been talking about it since she was not quite two; that was when he was last hospitalized (as far as I know, anyway). She's almost four now. We had quite a lot of talk at first, and she asked questions; then it tailed off so I let it drop. It comes up again when something is going on with him, or when we meet someone else with a mental illness. But until there are more questions, I am inclined to leave it alone and wait.