Alana Carvalho, LMHC (licensed mental health counselor)

In this interview, Alana Carvalho, a licensed mental health counselor, discusses the importance of open communication between parents and children regarding mental health. She emphasizes the need for parents to create a safe space for their children to express their emotions and concerns. Carvalho also highlights the negative impact of societal and parental pressures on children's mental health, particularly in the age of social media. She advises parents to focus on building a strong connection with their children and boosting their self-esteem. Carvalho also provides information about her work and resources on perfectionism and codependency in parenting. The interview concludes with Carvalho offering advice on supporting children in times of tragedy and reminding parents to be patient and understanding when their children are not ready to talk. The day is upon us. It is World Mental Health Day, and we're continuing our series. We've had the chance to talk to a lot of professionals and bringing in different perspectives and different opinions about the world of mental health and so many different, I guess, components that make up the entire discussion of mental health. And I'm really excited about my next guest, who's joining me here on the program. She's here to talk about the topic of child and teen mental health and some things that parents can do to help their kids out. And maybe they have some children that have some mental health concerns. And we're going to get some really good information from my special guest who is joining us here. She's a licensed mental health counselor, also an author, and an in-demand speaker as well. Alana Carvalho was with me here now with the RNJ morning program. Alana, good morning. It's Burt Barron, WRNJ Radio in New Jersey. How are you today? Hi, I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me. It's my pleasure, and thank you for joining me on World Mental Health Day today. Maybe sometimes, Alana, the first thing is maybe just opening that door and knocking down that barrier and having that initial conversation between a parent and a child. That's probably how the conversation begins with the parents and maybe saying the right things to get their kid to open up a little bit. But what can parents do to show support for their children when it comes to dealing with their mental health? Yeah, absolutely. I think what you just mentioned is extremely important. I think we have to be able to have some of these difficult conversations with our children. They don't have to go perfect, but as long as we're willing to open the door to just show them that we're here to talk about whatever it is that they may need to talk about which can impact their mental health, to me, that feels like the most important piece. Yeah, and it takes a day like this, Alana, to get people to talk about it again and make it a conversation. And unfortunately, there'll be an incident or an event that'll happen with a celebrity, a maybe high-profile person, and then the discussion will bubble up a little bit and then it seems like it tapers off a little bit. I think it's something that we need to continue the dialogue and maybe today will serve as a springboard going forward that we can continue to keep this top of mind and continue to address this. You had mentioned about the expectations of perfectionism and they called it peer pressure when I was in school a long time ago, back in the 1980s when I was in school. That's what we called it there. Has it changed for kids of today, Alana, or is peer pressure the same? Is it more intense nowadays? What's going on with kids today in peer pressure? Yeah, I think it is a lot more intense. I think it's not just peer pressure, but it's also a lot of parental pressure, societal pressure, pressure from our schools for our children to perform in a particular way. And unfortunately, that's kind of coming hand in hand with the fact that our children, their mental health is actually struggling a lot more nowadays than it once was. So I'm so glad we're talking about this because as we speak, mental health has become such a big piece of our teen and children's lives. And unfortunately, the more pressure that we put on them, the more that it negatively impacts their mental health. Oh, I'm sure. And I think unfortunately, Alana, I think kids will unfairly put a lot of pressure on themselves. From what I've seen, a child and a teenager and a kid need to realize, listen, you're never gonna be as talented and successful as Taylor Swift. You're never gonna be as rich as Kim Kardashian. You're never gonna achieve a level that's very few people. It's in your face all the time about people who are wealthy, who are gorgeous, who are beautiful, who have the world in their hand. And I think social media tries to impress that upon people. And I think that kids in particular say, well, if I'm not living up to that expectation, if I'm not playing sold out stadiums like Taylor Swift is, I must have failed at something in my life. And that's definitely the message that we don't want kids to take through their lives. Absolutely. I mean, social media unfortunately is playing a big role in the mental health decline in our kids. And it's just like you're saying, it has to do with them seeing these images of people that are at the height in some way of their career or whatever it is that they may be working on. And unfortunately our children aren't seeing what goes into getting to that point and how many of these people who are successful really fail many, many, many times before they get to the place that they are. And it's really important that we're kind of shifting the dialogue with them to understand what actually goes into that level of success because it's way beyond most of our abilities, of course. And it's just putting way too much unrealistic expectations on our children as if we're asking them to meet these standards that are well beyond what they're capable of. Yeah, you're exactly right. And I use social media every day, Alana, to promote what I'm doing on my morning program, what's going on around here on the radio station. And you look at social media and everybody's rich, everybody's beautiful, everybody's having a wonderful day, everybody's on vacation, everybody has a shrimp cocktail in front of them. But you got to realize that there's a clear difference between the perceived world of social media and what reality is and what's important in reality. And that's good relationships and being on solid ground with your family and being the best person and helping others. I mean, that's the real important message. I think we want to make sure we convey to people today. Alana Carvalho is my guest. She's a licensed mental health counselor. She's also an author and a speaker and she's with me here today. And I'm so grateful to have her joining me on World Mental Health Day. And we're talking about our kids, about our children, about the next generation of people that are gonna be making decisions for me and you, that's for sure. Some overall advice for parents on maybe just bettering that relationship with their children, particularly that rebellious teenager that maybe thinks they're ready to take over the world that's sitting upstairs in the room they refuse to clean. How do you get across to them and have that conversation? Well, I think part of it is just putting things into perspective. Sometimes it's good to have a rebellious teen because that shows that they have some level of confidence and determination in some ways, right? To me, it's about knowing that the connection is the most important preventative factor in children reaching to negative behaviors or having that decline in their mental health. So just continuing to work on figuring out how to connect with your teen, which is really challenging and difficult, but having those open connection, those open conversation, making sure that you're seeing what they're good in and encouraging them in that, giving them the positive feedback. Even though, of course, there's a lot of negative behavior, you wanna focus as much as you can on the things that they are doing well at or they are trying, not just what they're succeeding in, but also when they're putting in effort, all of those things, really kind of helping your kid booster their self-esteem. That's great information. You know, when I was 15, I was ready to take the world over and we have a song here on RNJ by an artist called Tommy Mars that's called 15. And every time I hear it, it takes me back to, yeah, 15. I thought I was ready to take the whole world over at that point, but yeah, really good information today. As we wrap up, Alana, is there some place where people can go, maybe more about your writings and your in-person speaking and your other work? Do you have some websites or social media that you use? Yeah, absolutely. So you can find me on Instagram. I'm at thecodependentperfectionist and my website is also thecodependentperfectionist.com. And you can learn so much more about perfectionism and codependency as it relates to parenting on both of those platforms. Excellent. As we wrap up, Alana, locally, we had a pretty severe tragedy that struck our community over the weekend. We lost a beautiful high school senior in a car crash over the weekend. She was a twin. She was half of a set of twins. There was some things happening at the school and there's services and things that are happening today. Obviously, it's tough on a community to endure something like this. Is there anything that you could share or any words that maybe you could share with parents or maybe friends or fellow students of the student who we lost over the weekend in such a trying time like this one? Yeah, I mean, that is so unfortunate. I'm really sorry to hear that news. I would just say that everyone's gonna go through their own reaction and response to what happened. And again, as a parent, I think you'll also, of course, be having your own reaction and thinking about what if this was your family and all of those things. But as much as you can, just trying to check in with your child and see how they're doing. And also, not push it because sometimes we're not ready to speak about things and that's okay, right? Just knowing that the door is open and whenever they're ready, that you can hold the space for them to share. All right, Arlana Carvalhoa, thank you for joining me today on this World Mental Health Day. Great information, great advice, and thank you again for the time. Thank you so much.