Everyday Mental Health By Aida Kamanyire

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Everyday Mental Health By Aida Kamanyire

Creating mental health awareness and psychosocial support for children/teens/adults ��
Safe space �

05/06/2024

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This June, we honor Men's Mental Health Month by acknowledging the silent battles many men face. Let's break the stigma and encourage open conversations about mental health. Remember, seeking help is a sign of strength, not weakness. To all the men out there: your feelings matter, your struggles are valid, and your mental health is just as important as your physical health. Together, we can create a supportive environment where every man feels safe to reach out and heal. You are not alone.

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01/08/2023

HAPPY WORLD BREASTFEEDING WEEK 💐

This year's theme is "Let's make breastfeeding and work, work!"

Every first week of August we celebrate world breastfeeding week to create awareness around the importance and need for mothers to breastfeed their little ones.

In this year's theme there is focus on raising awareness for working mums who do not have essential space, facilities and support in regards to breastfeeding and expressing at their places of work. Sadly most babies(over 50 percent) end up not even exclusively breastfeeding for 6 months at the least.

Let's all join hands in playing a role in being the voice for all breastfeeding mums. Working or not. 🌹

15/07/2023

ART THERAPY 🎨

Art therapy is a form of expressive therapy that uses artistic creativity to improve ones mental health/mental well being, physical health and emotional well being. Could be through drawing, colouring, painting, sculpting etc...

It is very effective in relieving stress and tension, expressing emotions, healing anxiety, healing traumas, PTSD, substance and drug abuse, mood disorders and even as a mode of self discovery. Etc.. in both children and adults.

One doesn't have to be artistic to go through art therapy but it is important to note that it doesn't work for everyone. ❤️

17/06/2023

June is Men's mental health awareness month

Unfortunately many men downplay their symptoms of mental health disorders due to societal stigma and pressure to be perfect and strong beings. This needs to end.

Silence and withdrawal is not safe or healthy and men should feel safe enough to openly talk about their mental health, struggles around mental health and seek appropriate help when and if need be.

During this month of June and other months to come, let us also prioritize and create awareness on how important men's mental health is globally.

Image source: Google

21/05/2023

STAY AT HOME MUM DEPRESSION 💚

To all the stay at home mums, sending lots of love and hugs.
It is not easy sacrificing your whole world to raise little humans into our future leaders, teachers, doctors, farmers, engineers, architects, lawyers etc of tomorrow. Moulding a human into one of good values and teaching them everything from the basics to the difficult all alone and still with the expectation of keeping sane, keeping a spouse(if any) happy and keeping a home in order while still putting on a smile and braving on even through the roughest of days where you can't even express what you're going through because everyone expects you to be perfect.

I understand how it feels to cry silently in your pillow or in the shower at night and wake up like everything is okay while you're slowly dying inside each passing day. Keep going mama. Take one day at a time. God's reward for you is greater than any you'll ever receive. You are a blessing!

11/05/2023

Postpartum Depression 💚🕊️

05/05/2023

May is Month 💚

Mental health means our social, psychological and emotional well being. It is estimated that 1 in every 4 kenyans suffer from mental health disorders. Top of the list is depression followed by drug and substance abuse.

Throughout this month let's push to talk more about mental health and how to improve ours every day. If you'd like me to talk about any topic around mental health, please comment and I will post in the coming days.

💚

Image: google

17/04/2023

How to help children cope with stress 🕊️💚

21/03/2023

SIGNS OF DEPRESSION/ANXIETY IN CHILDREN 💚

Did you know children also go through depression and anxiety? Unfortunately it is not only adults who go through mental health illnesses but children do too. Here are some signs you can look out for in your child that may be giving a hint they are depressed or anxious.

1. Becoming withdrawn from everyone and everything
2. Sudden bed wetting or regressive behaviours eg thumb sucking, wanting to be fed even if they know how to self feed etc.
3. Unexplainable body aches/headaches
4. Heart palpitations
5. Nausea and vomiting without any underlying illness
6. Excessive sleepiness
7. Excessive fatigue
8. Extreme anger/violence
9. Being highly irritable
10. Always sad or crying for no reason
11. Withdrawing from all activities they used to love doing
12. Suicidal thoughts and tendencies
13. Insomnia/Lack of sleep
14. Difficulty in concentrating
15. Feeling worthless/restless and hopeless
16. Change in eating habits
17. Low self esteem

CAUSES
1. Loss of a loved one
2. Bullying/body shaming
3. Family issues eg divorce or separation of parents/financial strains at home etc
4. Trauma (From rape/abuse/violence/scary life experience etc)
5. Biochemical imbalances
6. Family history of depression/anxiety
7. Excess pressure from parents/school to excel

If you note any abnormal change or differences in your child's behaviour/day to day activities please seek professional help. You can also contact me for emotional support/therapy we can do with your little one.

13/03/2023

I know many of you with toddlers can relate... You choose clothes for them to wear but as soon as they see what you've selected, they throw a tantrum and want to choose their own clothes, sometimes they choose a good fit, other times they select something that is totally off. Or, you serve your child with a certain plate and they throw a tantrum insisting they want another specific plate and not what you've chosen.

Now we have a frustrated toddler and an angry or irritated mother. Mum is getting angry with the baby's behaviour and the baby is frustrated that mama doesn't understand. In most cases we shut the toddler down and do things OUR way and move on with life.

Did you know that when a toddler gets to the stage of wanting to choose what they want to wear or which plate or cup they want to use there's a very important phase of child development happening? Allowing a child to sometimes select for themselves builds self confidence in them, develops high self esteem in them, teaches them decision making skills, independence and how to be expressive about their personal interests. They also learn self determination skills and a unique sense of their own style. Toddlers will also enjoy expressing individualism better when you let them decide on some things by themselves than seeing the whole process as just a boring chore. You expressing confidence in them to decide what they want also boosts their self esteem and confidence.

If by any chance what they want isn't possible, remember to explain to them why and offer an alternative as you reassure them. Every time you just tell the child no and yell at them, you kill this part of developmental growth a day at a time.

As we parent, let's seek to understand our toddlers better and make our parenting journey easier.

Image source: Google

UNICEF Kenya UNICEF

08/02/2023

Dealing with change can be challenging for all of us and mostly children. Here are some tips to make the change process a tad bit smoother/easier.

❤️

01/02/2023

Before you rush to teach your child how to count from 1-10, alphabets and colours all by the age of two, please consider teaching them *FEELINGS* first.

Teaching your child on feelings is a very important aspect of emotional and mental development. It highly improves their understanding of themselves, those around them, improves relationships, greatly improves their communication skills and also is a long term benefit on their mental well being. Things like tantrums will reduce and your child's speech and brain development will also be improved. When I talk about feelings what I mean is simple things like ..

Feeling hot, feeling hungry, feeling happy, feeling sad, feeling angry, feeling tired etc. When a child for example doesn't want a sweater on and you can clearly see it is hot, ask them, why don't you want a sweater, how do you feel about wearing it? They may not be able to say they are feeling hot or cold but they may cry, shrug shoulders, say they don't want and all that. Ask the child, is it that you're feeling hot? And use actions... Slowly your child will learn the difference.

Or, every morning ask your little toddlers how they are within the day. Ask them are they happy or sad. Use an expression to explain happy and another to explain sad. Or even a drawing of a dad and a happy face. With time they begin to associate a bright face on someone who is energetic and at peace and jolly as being happy and a gloomy face on someone full of negative emotion as maybe sad or upset.

These are just examples. For older kids we use other play therapy methods that we will talk about next time.

Highly engage your child like an adult but in a child friendly way. Exposing them to only screen time will make them miss some of these very important developmental stages before you know it.

Image from Google

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