Mental Health Part Deux

This is the Second part of Mental Health for Expats and their Families. This information comes from the Truman Group via a NESA Webinar.

Overall, expats experience anxiety, depression which can lead to adults being combustible at times, overreacting to small situations. This combustibility is related to our anxiety. There is more substance abuse in the expat community versus staying in our native country and there are the changes in family situations when arriving in a new country that is challenging. Part of this is due to the lack of mental health resources in the numerous countries we live in.

In looking at the parent perspective of challenges during COVID times, this can have an effect on our children. A recent study in June 2020 out of the US which sampled 5400 young adults (18-24) indicated 41% felt adverse mental health concerns, 33% self-reported anxiety/depression, 10% reported an increase in substance abuse and another 10% considered suicide.

In being a parent, our emotional experience affects our children and our child’s emotional experience will affect us. Over the last number of years, there has been a rise in anxiety and depression amongst young people. Some of the contributing factors include:

• Pressure from families about getting into good universities/colleges (My comment is there is a university/college for everyone.)
• Changes in family structures over the years and different parenting styles.
• Technology and its effects on peer interactions. In the classroom students can see others struggling on a test or a topic but in the social media world, others are presented as flawless with perfect images and pictures of friends. Social media can give a false image of reality.

Some anxiety can be good as it raises our heart and respiration rates and makes us more acute to what is happening around us. There are ways to combat bad anxiety. We can change what we do and feel and we can learn how to respond to situations in a better way. As a parent we are role models for our children. Ask ourselves, are we able to keep calm in stressful situations? When our children see us react in a stressful situation, this is the message we are sending about how to react in these situations.

We can test ourselves as parents by thinking about when we may have overreacted at times. Was there ever a time plate was dropped and smashed on the floor. One parent may say “OK, let’s clean up.” Another may raise their voice and instill consequences right away. Think of a time you might have overreacted, what was happening in your life at that time? This could give you a way of identifying a time you felt anxiety or stress. When we are able to identify anxiety or stress, we are better able to address it.


Some tips for relieving stress in you that will help how we interact with our children and these tips work with our children as well.

• Exercise - get the heart rate going - we feel great afterwards!
• Set Short Terms goal for what needs to be done
• Tech time versus sleep time. Technology brings sleep disruption to us and our children. Keep the phones away from beds. Plug them in somewhere else.

If you have a child with anxiety support can include:

• Demand, but not too much, try to find the sweet spot
• Keep kids engaged.
• Reframe thinking in a way that tones down the situation.
• Interpret your child’s experience in a way for them to take control of the situation.

Since COVID times hit there is more anxiety but we are resilient, children are even more resilient. We will be fine.