To improve children’s mental health, start by supporting their parents
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Many Australian children struggle with their mental health. Recent data shows around one in seven children (13.9%) aged 4–17 experiences a diagnosable mental illness.
So what can actually help?
Our research shows the most powerful influences on children’s wellbeing begin at home. We analysed data from 5,501 children tracking their mental health over a decade or more, from early childhood through to their mid-teens.
While we often talk about improving mental health services to address current needs, our findings underscore how important prevention is.
To improve children’s mental health, we need to better support their parents through measures that reduce stress and instability, such as access to stable housing, financial security, mental health care and social connection.
What we did and what we found
We looked for patterns in the data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. First, we identified challenging behaviours and symptoms of mental illness such as anxiety, low mood and restlessness across the whole group. Then we homed in on children who showed declining mental health over time and examined what they had in common.
Our most striking finding was that around 10–15% of Australian children developed severe and persistent symptoms of anxiety, emotional distress and behavioural difficulties. This kind of ongoing distress could begin as early as four or five years of age.
What set these children apart was their home environment. The risk of long-lasting mental health difficulties was much higher for children:
- whose mothers experienced depression or anxiety
- who experienced harsh or hostile parenting, or parental conflict or violence
- whose mothers lacked social support
- who grew up in financial hardship or housing stress.
Research shows poor mental health among primary caregivers, regardless of gender, is linked to worse mental and physical health for children.
Our study focused on mothers because they were the primary respondents in the dataset and were most often identified as the child’s primary caregiver. This reflects broader patterns in Australia, where mothers still tend to take on a larger share of caregiving responsibilities.
Risk factors rarely occur on their own
This isn’t about blaming individuals. It reflects broader systems that leave families without adequate support.
Consider a family where a parent is juggling insecure work, struggling to pay rent, battling their own anxiety, and feeling cut off from support networks. In this environment, parenting becomes harder, tensions rise, and the child absorbs that stress.
The research found children facing multiple difficulties were at far greater risk than those exposed to only one or two. Some individual factors were strongly associated with poor outcomes. For example, exposure to parental violence more than doubled the odds of persistent and severe mental illness symptoms.
Our findings suggest addressing several of these pressures together (not just treating the child’s symptoms) could make a substantial difference. Based on statistical modelling, we estimated that reducing factors such as parental psychological distress, hostile parenting and partner violence could potentially prevent up to 40% of severe and persistent mental health problems in young Australians.
But there is no simple quick fix to break such structural hardships. Governments need to provide coordinated, multifaceted support across housing, employment, mental health services and community infrastructure.
What families actually need
Accessible mental health care
This means shorter waitlists, affordable services, and options that fit around work and family responsibilities.
There have been positive steps in recent years including expanded telehealth and community mental health programs. But many families still struggle to access timely and affordable support.
Parenting support
Evidence-based parenting programs, which give parents practical strategies for managing kids’ anxiety and their own conflicts, can also help.
One example is the Australian parenting program Cool Little Kids. Its online modules focus on managing children’s fear and anxiety around things such as separation, trying new activities and sleep. Among children whose parents completed the program, a review found there was a 21% reduction in anxiety disorder diagnoses in the first year after the intervention, and 45% in the second year.
Housing stability
Secure tenancies allow children to stay in the same school and maintain friendships, reducing stress and disruption. Renters and lower-income families are more likely to experience housing insecurity and repeated moves, meaning many children face ongoing instability during critical developmental years.
Financial security
Australian research shows that policies such as paid parental leave reduces depression in new mothers, with at least 2–3 months being especially protective.
Australia has expanded both paid parental leave and childcare subsidies in recent years, but gaps remain. While these policies have improved support for many families, access is still uneven. Casual workers, lower-income households and families facing housing or financial stress are particularly vulnerable.
Combined with affordable childcare and income support, further investment in these areas could help prevent children’s mental health conditions.
Social connection
When caregivers feel supported and connected, children tend to do better. Local playgroups, community centres and parent networks can reduce parental isolation – a risk factor strongly linked to poorer child mental health in our study.
Australia already has many of these supports through organisations such as Playgroup Australia and local neighbourhood and family centres. But access remains uneven and many families still struggle to find affordable and culturally safe services in their local area.
Prevention starts earlier than we think
The message from our research is clear and compelling: supporting parents early on is the most direct path to supporting children, now and in the future.
When families have stable housing, manageable financial pressure, and access to mental health care, children are less likely to develop serious mental health problems later on.
Narendar Manohar, Research Fellow in Workplace Mental Health, Black Dog Institute; Hiroko Fujimoto, Research Officer in Workplace Mental Health, Black Dog Institute, and Peter Baldwin, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, Swinburne University of Technology; UNSW Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
The Autoimmune Cure – by Dr. Sara Gottfried
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
We’ve featured Dr. Gottfried before, as well as another of her books (“Younger”), and this one’s a little different, and on the one hand very specific, while on the other hand affecting a lot of people.
You may be thinking, upon reading the subtitle, “this sounds like Dr. Gabor Maté’s ideas” (per: “When The Body Says No”), and 1) you’d be right, and 2) Dr. Gottfried does credit him in the introduction and refers back to his work periodically later.
What she adds to this, and what makes this book a worthwhile read in addition to Dr. Maté’s, is looking clinically at the interactions of the immune system and nervous system, but also the endocrine system (Dr. Gottfried’s specialty) and the gut.
Another thing she adds is more of a focus on what she writes about as “little-t trauma”, which is the kind of smaller, yet often cumulative, traumas that often eventually add up over time to present as C-PTSD.
While “stress increases inflammation” is not a novel idea, Dr. Gottfried takes it further, and looks at a wealth of clinical evidence to demonstrate the series of events that, if oversimplified, seem unbelievable, such as “you had a bad relationship and now you have lupus”—showing evidence for each step in the snowballing process.
The style is a bit more clinical than most pop-science, but still written to be accessible to laypersons. This means that for most of us, it might not be the quickest read, but it will be an informative and enlightening one.
In terms of practical use (and living up to its subtitle promise of “cure”), this book does also cover all sorts of potential remedial approaches, from the obvious (diet, sleep, supplements, meditation, etc) to the less obvious (ketamine, psilocybin, MDMA, etc), covering the evidence so far as well as the pros and cons.
Bottom line: if you have or suspect you may have an autoimmune problem, and/or would just like to nip the risk of such in the bud (especially bearing in mind that the same things cause neuroinflammation and thus, putatively, depression and dementia too), then this is one for you.
Click here to check out the Autoimmune Cure, and take care of your body and mind!
Share This Post
-
Dandelion Greens vs Mustard Greens – Which is Healthier?
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Our Verdict
When comparing dandelion greens to mustard greens, we picked the dandelions.
Why?
Despite our best efforts to find something to unseat dandelion greens from the “most nutritious greens” throne, they still come out on top:
In terms of macros, dandelion greens have more fiber, carbs, and protein, making them the most nutritionally dense option in this category.
In the category of vitamins, dandelion greens have more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B6, B7, B9, C, E, K, and choline, while mustard greens have more vitamin B5 (the vitamin that’s found in all foods). A very clear win for dandelion greens here.
Looking at minerals, dandelion greens have more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc, while mustard greens have (slightly) more selenium. Another easy win for dandelion greens.
When it comes to polyphenols, we weren’t able to get figures for mustard greens, but we know that dandelion greens have lots and have beaten every other kind of greenery we’ve pitted them against so far. Probably mustard greens are good for this too, but we can’t comment without data.
Adding up the sections (skipping over polyphenols, on account of the absence of data for mustard greens) makes for an overall strong win for dandelion greens, but by all means enjoy either or both; diversity is good!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
Enjoy!
Share This Post
-
Mythbusting Moldy Food
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Most Food Should Not Be Fuzzy
In yesterday’s newsletter, we asked you for your policy when it comes to mold on food (aside from intentional mold, e.g. blue cheese etc), and the responses were interesting:
- About 49% said “throw the whole thing away no matter what it is; it is dangerous”
- About 24% said “cut the mold off and eat the rest of whatever it is”
- The remainder were divided equally between “eat it all; keep the immune system on its toes” and “cut the mold off bread, but moldy animal products are dangerous”
So what does the science say?
Some molds are safe to eat: True or False?
True! We don’t think this is contentious so we’ll not spend much time on it, but just for the sake of being methodical: foods that are supposed to have mold on, including many kinds of cheese and even some kinds of cured meat (salami is an example; that powdery coating is mold).
We could give a big list of safe and unsafe molds, but that would be a list of names and let’s face it, they don’t introduce themselves by name.
However! The litmus test of “is it safe to eat” is:
Did you acquire it with this mold already in place and exactly as expected and advertised?
- If so, it is safe to eat (unless you have an allergy or such)
- If not, it is almost certainly not safe to eat
(more on why, later)
The “sniff test” is a good way to tell if moldy food is bad: True or False?
False. Very false. Because of how the sense of smell works.
You may feel like smell is a way of knowing about something at a distance, but the only way you can smell something is if particles of it are physically connecting with your olfactory receptors inside you. Yes, that has unfortunate implications about bathroom smells, but for now, let’s keep our attention in the kitchen.
If you sniff a moldy item of food, you will now have its mold spores inside your respiratory system. You absolutely do not want them there.
If we cut off the mold, the rest is safe to eat: True or False?
True or False, depending on what it is:
- Hard vegetables (e.g carrots, cabbage), and hard cheeses (e.g. Gruyère, Gouda) – cut off with an inch margin, and it should be safe
- Soft vegetables (e.g. tomatoes, and any vegetables that were hard but are now soft after cooking) – discard entirely; it is unsafe
- Anything else – discard entirely; it is unsafe
The reason for this is because in the case of the hard products mentioned, the mycelium roots of the mold cannot penetrate far.
In the case of the soft products mentioned, the surface mold is “the tip of the iceberg”, and the mycelium roots, which you will not usually be able to see, will penetrate the rest of it.
“Anything else” seems like quite a sweeping statement, but fruits, soft cheeses, yogurt, liquids, jams and jellies, cooked grains and pasta, meats, and yes, bread, are all things where the roots can penetrate deeply and easily. Regardless of you only being able to see a small amount, the whole thing is probably moldy.
The USDA has a handy downloadable factsheet:
Molds On Food: Are They Dangerous?
Eating a little mold is good for the immune system: True or False?
False, generally. There are of course countless types of mold, but not only are many of them pathogenic (mycotoxins), but also, a food that has mold will usually also have pathogenic bacteria along with the mold.
See for example: Occurrence, Toxicity, and Analysis of Major Mycotoxins in Food
Food poisoning will never make you healthier.
But penicillin is safe to eat: True or False?
False, and also penicillin is not the mold on your bread (or other foods).
Penicillin, an antibiotic* molecule, is produced by some species of Penicillium sp., a mold. There are hundreds of known species of Penicillium sp., and most of them are toxic, usually in multiple ways. Take for example:
Penicillium roqueforti PR toxin gene cluster characterization
*it is also not healthy to consume antibiotics unless it is seriously necessary. Antibiotics will wipe out most of your gut’s “good bacteria”, leaving you vulnerable. People have died from C. diff infections for this reason. So obviously, if you really need to take antibiotics, take them as directed, but if not, don’t.
See also: Four Ways Antibiotics Can Kill You
One last thing…
It may be that someone reading this is thinking “I’ve eaten plenty of mold, and I’m fine”. Or perhaps someone you tell about this will say that.
But there are two reasons this logic is flawed:
- Survivorship bias (like people who smoke and live to 102; we just didn’t hear from the 99.9% of people who smoke and die early)
- Being unaware of illness is not being absent of illness. Anyone who’s had an alarming diagnosis of something that started a while ago will know this, of course. It’s also possible to be “low-level ill” often and get used to it as a baseline for health. It doesn’t mean it’s not harmful for you.
Stay safe!
Share This Post
-
Cranberries vs Gooseberries – Which is Healthier?
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Our Verdict
When comparing cranberries to gooseberries, we picked the gooseberries.
Why?
It wasn’t close:
In terms of macros, cranberries have more carbs while gooseberries have more fiber, so that’s a win for gooseberries. A nominal win as the differences aren’t huge, but clear enough to be a win nevertheless.
In the category of vitamins, cranberries have more vitamin E, while gooseberries have more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, and C, winning easily.
Looking at minerals next, cranberries have more manganese, while gooseberries have more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, scoring their third win in a row by quite a margin.
In other considerations, cranberries have some special properties that amount to a mixed bag of pros and cons (see details in the “learn more” below), while gooseberries are higher in polyphenols. Since cranberries have good and bad things in this round while gooseberries have just good, we say gooseberries in this round, too.
Adding up the sections makes for a clear overall win for gooseberries, but by all means enjoy either or both, as diversity is best (unless one of the contraindications for cranberries applies, in which case, skip those)!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
Health Benefits Of Cranberries (But: You’d Better Watch Out) ← cranberries’ bonus properties (including: famously very good at decreasing UTI risk) come with some warnings, including that they may increase the risk of kidney stones if you are prone to such, and also that cranberries have anti-clotting effects, which are great for heart health but can be a risk of you’re on blood thinners or have a bleeding disorder.
Enjoy!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
What Happens In Your Brain When You Can’t Recall A Word
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Dr. Cella Wright explains:
Tip-of-the-tongue
“Tip-of-the-tongue” is a temporary retrieval glitch where you feel you know the word but can’t pull it up, even though its meaning and associations are partly accessible.
What’s happening: alongside normal word-retrieval activity, the conflict-detecting anterior cingulate becomes active, generating the familiar sense of frustration and near-recall.
Why it’s happening: while the word retrieval moves from meaning → associations → sound, the “sound” step seems most vulnerable to slipping, making the final step of recall stall. Note that if you’re trying to write it, the process is just the same, except that there’s a four step (spelling) that you also never get to because of not passing the “sound” step
This happens more with some words than others; proper nouns, infrequently used words, and abstract or less-visual terms—like “idiosyncrasy” or “revelation”—are most likely to trigger the state.
Further, related (but incorrect) words can act as blocking distractors, such as remembering “Dorothy” instead of “Judy Garland”, derailing your retrieval pathway.
Fun fact: this is one thing where multilingual people are at a disadvantage, a change from the usual “multilingualism has only benefits except in early years whereby it has the tradeoff of slowing the path to speech”. Multilingual speakers experience more tip-of-the-tongue states, likely because words from one language interfere with retrieval in another, especially during language switching.
Writer’s anecdote: I definitely have this often, with sometimes a word coming to me in a whole bunch of languages, just not the one I need!
You might be wondering about the extent to which this correlates with age, and yes, frequency does increase with age, but this can be for good reasons as well as bad, i.e. while it can potentially be due to cognitive decline in speech-related regions, it can also be a matter of simply knowing more words. And while there is theoretically no known limit to how much information can be stored in the brain, and in fact more items means more connections and therefore often greater ease of access, the fact remains that more connections also means more opportunity to errantly go off-piste.
For more on all of this plus a bonus tip for how to get unstuck, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
How To Boost Your Memory Immediately (Without Supplements)
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program For Reversing Heart Disease – by Dr. Dean Ornish
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
We’ve previously reviewed Dr. Ornish’s “Undo It!” which is about reversing many kinds of chronic diseases (not all, alas, but quite a few) by undercutting their common etiologies, such as inflammation, insulin resistance, and so forth.
This book is entirely consistent with that one, but the focus here is (as the title says) specifically on reversing heart disease.
Of course, it does not require you to already have heart disease—if you do, well, getting onto this is better sooner than later. If you don’t, and are “merely” in a risk zone, or even just want to be proactive about your heart health, then this book will stand you in good stead.
The book covers all the lifestyle things you’d expect it to (especially diet, but also exercise, and not just “quit smoking” but also how, things like that), and possibly some things you might not expect (chapters on more psychological factors that have a big impact on heart health).
There are recipes (157 pages of them; they are plant-based and good) and there is a 21-day meal plan to get you going.
The style is a little dated (written in the 90s), but the content doesn’t suffer for it, having been updated over the years in any case.
Bottom line: if you want a holistic approach to taking care of your heart that’s not extreme and/but is very effective, then well, you’ve found it.
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
