Should parents with mental illnesses and addictions disclose their health issues to their children? And if so, how? We spoke to therapists, doctors, and counselors to find out.
Earlier this year, Walking Dead actor Kevin Zegers posted a video on Instagram of his 3-year-old daughters talking to their mother, Jaime Feld, about their father’s alcoholism. In the video, captioned, “Learning em’ young,” Feld can be heard explaining to her kids that Zeger is attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and the girls say their father is an alcoholic.
Some parents choose not disclose their illnesses to their kids because they believe they’re protecting them. But that’s changing: More parents are becoming open with their children as stigmas die down, according to alcoholism and substance abuse counselor Isaac Setton. “It’s helpful for children to know what is going on in their household. Leaving them in the dark can lead to uncertainty about why or how the situation happened,” he tells HG.
University of California, Berkeley professor Stephen P. Hinshaw knows firsthand how damaging it is to live with family silence under the auspices of protecting kids. In his memoir, Another Kind of Madness: A Journey Through the Stigma and Hope of Mental Illness, he writes about his childhood growing up in a seemingly idyllic household with a philosopher father and an English instructor mom.
When a parent does disclose their illness to a child, Hinshaw says it should be “planned and relatively non-emotional.” Even though parents may feel they’re protecting their kids by withholding information, kids typically know that something is wrong. “Keeping silent just promotes internalization, resentment, or both,” he adds.
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