How to increasing the numbers of children who remain in the home with mentally ill parents?

The question i'm proposing is for a Parenting class i'm currently taking at a university.





At the moment, we're learning about Parenting and mental health: Parent's mental Health.





Parent's psychological factors (personality, emotionality, psycholgocal distress, and contexts of parenting) all influences parenting.





Parent's psychological characteristics, such as social-cognitive processes, affects parentiing.





For example:


Attributions - how we judge intent of behavior or causes of things.1. People who have mental health issue have very high tendency to interpret things as being negative in general. When children misbehave to this type of person, they think the kid has all the power, that they kid is doing it to them. People who accurately attribute, tends to use more positive discipline style





Coping styles (proactive vs. avoidance). 鈥?if proactive, parent deal with adversity as appose to ignore it.How to increasing the numbers of children who remain in the home with mentally ill parents?
Consider the relationship of body to mind and spirit.


What if the parents received a massage, a counseling session, and an in-home coach to help prepare healthful meals each week? And a way to make sure the parents get enough sleep? With bodily needs met and emotional needs being addressed, parents would grow in the direction of a more positive response.





Mentally ill people act out their own pain. So get them help for the pain, and they will heal and stop acting out. It's not that simple in practice, but it's still moving in the right direction.How to increasing the numbers of children who remain in the home with mentally ill parents?
I answered your other question and suggested community support.





I think your professor is over-generalizing saying ';this type of person'; for a person with a mental illness. I have a friend who has schizophrenia and used drugs when she was young, and probably her IQ is about 80, and she is a very nice woman. She lost her kids (but the father raised them, and she has had a TERRIFIC relationship with them all along, and takes her meds and all that. She was just too ditzy to keep them, and the father was very competent). Then I am bipolar, my IQ is probably about 140, and I didn't have any kids, but if I did, my parenting style would be WILDLY different than my friend's. And actually, I maybe would have been a very good mom, it's just that I was given the wrong meds for years %26amp; now I'm too old. When I'm with my grandkids (my husband's grandkids) I am very easy going and assume when they do something wrong, it's because they are young %26amp; stupid (I really mean, they haven't matured all that much yet, and someday they will get that it was wrong).





So I think there is a lot of over generalizing going on. You can't talk about ';the mentally ill'; as a homogeneous group. The only thing that ';the mentally ill'; have in common is that we all have some kind of brain disorder.





Another thing would help is addressing the grinding poverty one finds themselves in when they are disabled. And there really are a lot of people with serious mental illness that are too impaired to handle their money well. Also, for schizophrenia and major depression, on AVERAGE IQ tends to trend lower, and certainly educational achievement, since the disability interferes with learning %26amp; with the ability to even go to school. So then what money a person has, they may blow it worse than the rest of us do. And there are scams you can fall into, too.





Another one I can think of is transportation is a terrible thing for someone on SSI. You only get $600 a month on SSI, more if you have kids. But that isn't enough for a car. If you live in the city, great, unless you have to take a sick kid with an ear infection to the doctor and it is a 20 below zero day in Minneapolis. . . Or how about shlepping 12 bags of groceries home on the bus? If you're rural, there is absolutely NOTHING AT ALL. In my state, if you are disabled with a mental illness, there is help to get to your own medical appointments, but nothing for your kids, no grocery store or getting to the pharmacy help.








So here goes:


Community support (social worker, respite/day care, group home access and temp. fostering if a person relapses)





Financial counseling





Transportation assistance of some kind
What about incentives? For example, the health department in my city provides ';incentives'; to low-income parents who keep their kids up to date on their immunizations. They are little things, like a free bib, Tylenol for children, family photo, etc. ~ after so many immunizations they get a $25. gift card to a local grocery.





It doesn't sound like much, but it works %26amp; gets people comming back. Perhaps if there were incentives provided for taking part in community support programs, job skill programs, etc. parents would be more willing to take advantage of them.
Consoling and psychiatric visits for the parents and child