Selena Gomez's Mom Offers Advice on Supporting Children with Mental Health Challenges
Mandy Teefey, best known as the mother of actress and singer Selena Gomez, is a prominent mental health advocate dedicated to improving emotional well-being. She actively promotes mental fitness, emphasizing the development of resilience and stress management techniques. In 2022, she co-founded Wondermind, a mental health media company, with her daughter.
Both Teefey, who has ADHD, and Gomez, who has bipolar disorder, have openly discussed their experiences with mental health conditions. Gomez publicly shared her bipolar disorder diagnosis in 2020 via Instagram and further detailed her journey in the 2022 documentary, "Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me." In the documentary, Gomez expressed profound gratitude for being alive, highlighting the importance of acknowledging and addressing mental health challenges. In a separate interview, Teefey shared her own struggles with ADHD and anxiety.
Teefey and Gomez frequently field questions about navigating mental health as a parent-child duo in the public eye. They often note the lack of readily available resources and support systems specifically tailored to families facing these challenges. This shared experience significantly influenced the creation of Wondermind, which they envision as a comprehensive ecosystem dedicated to mental healthcare. Their goal is to provide families with the tools and information needed to navigate mental health concerns collectively.
Teefey, acutely aware of the pressures on parents today, offers valuable guidance on supporting children experiencing mental health challenges.
The Importance of Education: A Cornerstone of Support
Teefey stresses the crucial role of education in addressing a child's mental health concerns, whether they are experiencing mild anxieties or managing a diagnosed condition. She emphasizes the importance of proactive learning as a means of confronting fears and uncertainties.
Teefey recounts an anecdote about her daughter's childhood fear of tornadoes. Instead of dismissing the fear, Teefey engaged Gomez in a learning process, encouraging her to acquire comprehensive knowledge about tornadoes. This approach, she explains, transformed a frightening unknown into something manageable and understandable.
This principle extends to supporting children dealing with mental health conditions. Teefey draws a parallel between managing a mental health condition and managing a physical illness like the flu. Just as parents seek information to effectively care for a child with the flu, they should similarly educate themselves about mental health conditions to provide appropriate support.
She explains that a lack of knowledge often breeds fear and intimidation. In her own experience supporting Gomez's journey with bipolar disorder, Teefey highlights the extensive research and reading she undertook to understand the condition and to communicate effectively with her daughter. Her goal was not to parent Gomez according to her own childhood experiences, but to adapt her parenting approach to Gomez's specific needs and condition. This involved understanding the nuances of bipolar disorder, and learning how to communicate effectively and offer support in a way that would resonate with Gomez.
Modeling Self-Care: Prioritizing Mental Fitness
Teefey advocates for normalizing the discussion and practice of emotional processing and self-care. She highlights the importance of regularly prioritizing mental well-being. Since launching Wondermind, Teefey has meticulously crafted a wellness routine that significantly impacts her daily life.
Her day begins at 4:00 a.m. with a deliberately slow and calm morning routine. She prioritizes this slow, deliberate approach, consciously enjoying the peace and quiet of the early morning hours. While she's unsure if the early rising itself is the key to her well-being, she credits the dedicated alone time with improving focus and grounding her for the day ahead.
Her morning routine includes 15 minutes of meditation, time dedicated to engaging reading material, and journaling – a "brain dump" to release anxieties and manage her ADHD symptoms. She describes her thought processes as rapid and chaotic, emphasizing the importance of journaling, scheduling, and using calendars to manage her ADHD. Reading and writing, she explains, help detach her from any ongoing stress or chaos in her life.
Teefey purposefully avoids checking her phone until 10:00 or 10:30 a.m. This deliberate delay, she believes, reduces the immediate influx of information and allows her to start the day in a calmer, more focused state. This deliberate pause in the morning allows her to breathe, center herself, and remind herself that amidst stressful thoughts, the world will continue, fostering a sense of perspective and calm.
Teefey emphasizes the importance of self-care for parents, acknowledging the multitude of responsibilities and pressures they face daily. She uses the analogy of putting on one's own oxygen mask first on an airplane – a reminder that parents must prioritize their own well-being to effectively care for their children. She stresses that even short periods of self-care, be it 15 or 20 minutes, are valuable and shouldn't be dismissed. These moments of self-care allow parents to return to their responsibilities refreshed and more capable of handling the day's demands.
In summary, Teefey's advice for parents of children with mental health challenges centers on two key strategies:
Education: Proactively seek knowledge about mental health conditions. Understanding the challenges your child faces is paramount in providing effective support and guidance. This involves researching the specific conditions, understanding available resources, and learning effective communication strategies.
Self-Care: Prioritize your mental fitness. Model healthy coping mechanisms and self-care practices to demonstrate the importance of well-being to your child. This involves establishing a routine that includes activities such as meditation, journaling, reading, and limiting early-morning technology exposure. Remember that taking time for yourself is not selfish but crucial to maintaining your ability to be the best parent and support system for your child. By consistently prioritizing your own mental health, you equip yourself to better meet the demands of supporting your child through their mental health journey. These practices ensure that you approach your role with greater resilience, calmness, and emotional intelligence.
