Three Ways to Boost Your Wellbeing for Parent Mental Health Day 2026

There is a lot of discussion these days – rightly – about young people’s mental health, which recent talk about teenage social media bans speaks to. There has been less focus on the mental health of parents and carers, despite the effect a mother or father who is noticeably struggling can have on families.

In 2022, Parent Mental Health Day (PMHD) was founded by stem4, a UK-based digital mental health charity whose resources support the mental wellbeing of young people, and those who care for them.

As a service whose mission is to reduce the numbers of young people who are homeless, SCCR is sensitive to the effect poor mental health can have on a family. Whether it’s mum, dad or the young person whose mental health is faltering, the effects can drive the sort of arguments that lead to a young person leaving home to rough sleep or sofa surf.

SCCR’s website, particularly the ‘Wellbeing and Coping for Parents and Carers’ section of its Learning Zone for Parents and Carers, has several suggestions that can reduce stress and so, hopefully, give a parent or carer some breathing room.

For Parents Mental Health Day 2026, we’ve made three suggestions for ways that parents and carers can begin to nurture their emotional health. More suggestions can be found here.

Asking for Help

Parents and carers don’t have to do this alone. Think about what kind of help you need and where you might get it. Can you discuss it with a friend? Is there a service in the community that you can go to? If you’re not sure what help you need, can you find out more information? Our ‘Pillars of Support’ worksheet can help parents and carers to think about what help they need and who to ask for it. Click here to download the ‘Pillars of Support’ worksheet.

The Worry Tree

When we’re worried, we tend to let individual concerns merge until we can’t see what to do next. ‘A worry tree’ is a way to break down worries, creating a step-by-step path we can use to work out how to deal with each problem.

Essentially, a worry tree is a flowchart that helps you work through what’s stressing you. It asks someone who uses it to divide worries into two categories: problems we can solve and problems that are either hypothetical or too large for one person to affect (for example, distressing world events). Once you choose which category your worry falls into, the worry tree takes you step by step through what you can do. If the problem is soluble, it suggests what you can do to resolve it and your fears. If the problem is one you can’t at this time work through, the worry tree recommends acceptance, mindfulness, and reframing worries. By bringing worry trees into family discussions, families can break down their worries and try to solve problems or let the worry go.

To learn more and see examples of a Worry Tree, click here (scroll down a bit).

Thought Challenging

Negative thoughts that don’t go away or unhelpful patterns of behaviour are likely to cause our mood to suffer over time. In turn, this might have an impact on our behaviour. It could lead us to withdrawing, spending less time doing the things we enjoy, or finding ourselves in conflict with others more frequently. Thought challenging involves finding ways to think differently or asking yourself questions which challenge the thoughts. You can find examples of the questions you might ask yourself here (scroll up a little to find the ’Thought Challenging’ section).