Family Communications

    

    Today, every time I go on social media, I see the rise in conversation about mental health. As I scroll through endless videos that kids around my age make, it all has many things in common. Mental health. As I grew up in a house with my mother and father, the talk of mental health was never specifically brought up. I am so grateful that my parents have helped me grow a relationship with them where I am able to tell them anything, but I never truly knew much about mental health. My father came from an extremely dysfunctional home. He has been on his own since 16 years old and was never able to deal with his pain from his childhood. In the Latino community, mental health is a very sensitive topic to discuss. It is as if Latinos are too busy to be depressed or anything else. In this mentality, you have to get over it and never talk about it. My father knew that the family he grew up in, was not a normal family. Due to this, when he was kicked out at 16, he knew that he wanted to build a strong loving family in the church, and that is exactly what he did. Though he accomplished his goals with raising a close family, there was never talk about how it may have affected him. Again, it's something that you shrug off and grow from, and you never talk about it again. As I scroll through videos made by kids my age, they discuss trauma that they faced growing up due to the lack of conversation. I see kids of all different races face a similar problem, but it seems as if caucasian kids get more help to talk about their mental issues, compared to Hispanics. According to the CDC, in 2019, 19.2% of adults in the United States received mental health treatment. Though it is a small number, 23% of white adults were more likely to obtain help, while 12.9% percent of Latinos received any type of mental treatment. Clearly, it is a little easier for people from white families to talk and receive mental health treatment compared to minorities. This is not to blame white people and say that they have more access to help, but it is a way to show our people how it is important to talk about these things with our families. In order to create a strong family unit, we have to be comfortable enough to talk to our parents and our kids. It is healthier to go to our families and get these problems fixed rather than running to social media and making jokes about mental health. Parents do not want to see their kids struggle, and I doubt that they would rather have their kids deal with these struggles on their own. In order to prevent these scenarios from happening, we need to start talking about these sensitive topics with our families. We do not have to do this on our own. By talking about these sensitive topics, we can learn how to communicate better and create stronger family dynamics. Kids won't have to have to feel like they are going through life by themselves, and parents will be able to understand that it is ok to talk about these things. There shouldn't be such a stigma about these topics that millions struggle with every day. By talking about these taboo subjects, families will only become stronger and more united. In the Latino community, families are always together. Talking about these issues won't break a family up, it will only bring them closer together. It won't always be easy, but it will be worth having a strong united family that will be able to talk to eachtoher.