Parents are understandably distressed about watching their child struggle, but many can feel sidelined in the process of trying to help them, writes Dr Jenny Brown.
When a child begins struggling with anxiety, depression, an eating disorder or emotional distress, parents are rightly encouraged to seek professional help. The growing awareness of children’s mental health and the emphasis on early intervention represent enormous progress. Families are far more likely to ask for help today than they were a generation ago.
But there is another story that receives far less attention.
For many parents, entering the mental health system marks the beginning of a second crisis. Not only because they are trying to navigate long waiting lists, fragmented services and conflicting advice, but because they slowly lose confidence in themselves.
As part of my research, I interviewed parents about their experiences of seeking mental health support for their children. While every family’s story was different, one theme emerged with remarkable consistency. Parents spoke not only about the distress of watching their child struggle, but about feeling increasingly sidelined in the process of trying to help them.
This was rarely because professionals intended to exclude them. Australia’s mental health workforce is under enormous pressure, with clinicians carrying heavy caseloads and working within overstretched systems. Yet many parents described leaving appointments feeling less certain about themselves than when they arrived.
Some worried they would make things worse if they said the wrong thing. Others felt they needed permission from professionals before responding to everyday parenting challenges. Many came to believe that the answers lay almost entirely with experts.
What struck me most was that hope itself had become externalised.
Parents found themselves waiting for the next appointment, the next psychologist, the next diagnosis or the next treatment plan to bring relief. Their confidence became tied to services they could not control rather than to the one relationship that would remain long after treatment ended.
Professional expertise is essential. Children deserve access to skilled mental health care.
But if parents leave the system believing they have little influence over their child’s wellbeing, we have overlooked one of the most important resources a child has.
One of the central ideas I explore in The Parenting Paradox is that parents are not responsible for fixing their child’s mental health, nor are they to blame for every struggle their child experiences. But they are not powerless either.
Parents remain part of the emotional system in which recovery takes place.
They cannot control whether their child experiences anxiety or depression. They cannot eliminate distress or guarantee outcomes. What they can do is learn to manage their own anxiety, respond rather than react, strengthen the relationship with their child and recognise patterns within themselves and their family that may unintentionally keep everyone stuck.
This is not about blaming parents but rather about recognising their capacity.
In my research, the parents who described finding hope again were not necessarily those whose children improved first. They were the parents who discovered there were meaningful things within their own control. As they became calmer, clearer and more confident, many noticed subtle but significant shifts in their family relationships. Hope no longer depended solely on what happened in the consulting room. It began to grow at home.
This is why partnership matters.
Too often, partnership is understood simply as including parents in meetings or keeping them informed about treatment decisions. Those things are important, but genuine partnership goes much further.
It means recognising that clinicians and parents bring different forms of expertise.
Professionals understand assessment, diagnosis and treatment. Parents understand the child’s history, temperament, relationships and the everyday moments where change is either reinforced or lost. Neither perspective is sufficient on its own.
The question should not simply be, “How can we treat this child?” It should also be, “How can we strengthen these parents so they leave feeling more capable than when they arrived?”
When professionals help parents understand the patterns they are part of, not to assign blame but to increase awareness, they restore something that many families lose during a crisis: agency.
Parents stop standing anxiously on the sidelines waiting for someone else to fix the problem. Instead, they begin asking different questions. How can I become a steadier presence? What is within my control? How can I respond differently when my child’s anxiety escalates? How do I create the kind of relationship that supports recovery over the long term?
These questions do not compete with therapy.
They make therapy more effective because they recognise that children spend far more time with their families than they do with clinicians. Sustainable change happens not only in consulting rooms but also around dinner tables, in car rides, at bedtime and during difficult conversations.
This philosophy sits at the heart of the Parent Hope Project, where our work is based on a simple belief: parents are not bystanders in their child’s recovery. They are partners. When parents develop greater awareness of their own patterns, strengthen their emotional leadership and regain confidence in their role, children benefit too.
The hidden trauma of seeking mental health help is not only watching your child struggle. It is gradually becoming clear that someone else holds all the answers.
The partnership that can change this combines professional expertise with parental capability.
Not because parents are expected to become therapists.
But because every child deserves clinicians who see parents not as problems to manage or spectators to reassure, but as their child’s most enduring resource.
When we help parents rediscover their own influence, we do more than support mothers and fathers.
We strengthen the relationships that give children their greatest chance of healing, resilience and hope.