Tomika Anderson of Single Parents Who Travel On Raising Children Who Are Mentally & Emotionally Healthy
An Interview With Maria Angelova
One of the most important things we can do as parents to raise mentally healthy children is to really listen to them, and regularly, talk about what they’re thinking, experiencing and feeling in their everyday lives, including what they’re consuming on social media, if they’re a teen. By encouraging this kind of conversation, distraction free, we’re in a better position to more accurately monitor them for signs they may be struggling emotionally before they’re in crisis. It’s also important to, whenever possible, be ahead of the game in terms of recognizing when they, depending on age or circumstance, may need to talk with us about difficult subjects they may or may not bring to us without our asking.
Our children are facing challenges that didn’t exist just a short while ago. They are growing up with social media, constantly being connected, and the hurried pace of life today, as well as the pandemic and the often frightening news. In short, our children are facing unprecedented mental health challenges. Anxiety, depression, and even suicide are on the rise. As parents and educators, what can we do to raise children who are mentally healthy? In this interview series, we are talking to authors, parenting experts, and mental health professionals who can share their expertise and advice on Raising Children Who Are Mentally Healthy. As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Tomika Anderson.
Tomika Anderson is the owner of three businesses, including Motivated Mamas, Single Parents Who Travel (SPWT), and Manifest Greatness Media (MGM), two of which have been featured in well-known publications such as Forbes, Parents.com, and Good Morning America. An award-winning writer and former journalist for publications ranging from The Atlantic to CNN who now owns her PR and marketing company (MGM), Tomika offers executive and lifestyle coaching services (Motivated Mamas) designed for parents and other individuals looking to strategically game-plan their personal lives and careers while best supporting their children. Over in the travel space, Single Parents Who Travel is a full-service travel company and global community aimed at single-parent families and beyond around the globe.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to hear a little about you. Inspire us with your backstory!
It’s funny because I do a whole lot of different things now professionally, but I actually started as a writer and journalist, working for outlets like Vibe, Entertainment Weekly, and MTV in New York City. When I became a single mom in 2013, I decided to leave NYC for the suburbs of Washington, D.C. area to live closer to my parents. Taking a consultant job in the federal contracting space, I was exposed to entrepreneurs and business owners in and out of the federal government and was inspired to branch out and chart my path as well, with businesses that serve fellow single parents and children. Nearly 10 years ago, I started a mastermind and coaching business to help single parents. In addition, I started a single-parent travel community designed to help connect parents to each other and resources that make it even more possible for us to, as our tagline says, “give our kids the world.”
What are some lessons you would share with your younger self if you had the opportunity?
I would lovingly tell myself to not be so self-conscious about every darn thing and that everyone in the world struggles with many to most of the same fears, concerns, and insecurities that I do. I would tell myself that even as a double minority and survivor of violence, I have all the tools needed with which to grow into a healthy, happy, and whole human being with the power to help break generational curses, beginning with my son. Thus, I would tell my younger self the power of, and commitment to personal development is not just a gift to you, it’s a gift to the people you love.
None of us are able to experience success without support along the way. Is there a particular person for whom you are grateful because of the support he/ she gave you to get where you are today? Can you share that story and why you are grateful for that person?
I’ve got to give my former therapist DaRa a lot of credit for where I am today. I achieved the most emotional transformation under her tutelage and care, working through some painful, traumatic circumstances to be where I am today. The work I did with her, as the first therapist I really connected to and let all the way in, laid the foundation for the happy life I have both personally and professionally today, even as I am still very much a work in progress. She and I met in the early 2000s on the heels of a particularly painful romantic breakup — little did I know that doing the work of unlocking why the relationship didn’t work (and why others hadn’t) would lead me to a whole new universe of understanding about myself, why I am how I am, and what I needed to address within my life to be my healthiest, most healed and authentic self. The work we did together led to my desire to coach others, with her referring to me some of my earliest clients.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think it might help people?
In 2023, in addition to my consultant work and work with single parents across businesses, I will be working as an adjunct professor at American University, teaching undergraduate and graduate students freelance writing. I’m eager to share with students how they can not only carve out a full professional life for themselves as writer and journalist across mediums but how, later in their careers, they can successfully leverage the skills they’ve developed within a variety of other professions and industries because of the type of related expertise and proficiency typically attained by folks in our profession. I am also excited to take dozens of single moms and their kids on our 5th annual Single Parents Who Travel retreat to the Dominican Republic, where we will all have an opportunity to make new friends, network, and expand our support networks, not just for one another, but for our kids.
Ok, thank you. Let’s talk about raising emotionally and mentally healthy children. In the Western world, humans typically have their physical needs met. But what has led to the tremendous downgrade in emotional and mental health that we are seeing today, especially for children? What is lacking in the mental health arena? Why are so many of our children struggling today?
The statistics paint a stark picture: according to a recent Jama Pediatrics study, researchers from the Health Resources and Services Administration indicate that anxiety and depression among kids 3–17 has risen over the last five years. Even before the pandemic, anxiety and depression were becoming more common among both children and adolescents, with 5.6 million being kids and teens diagnosed with anxiety problems and 2.4 million diagnosed with depression in 2020. According to a report in The Atlantic, four forces are propelling the “highest level of teenage sadness or hopelessness” ever recorded (between 2009 and 2021) by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with experts citing: 1) social media use exposing the youth to increased negative feelings about themselves 2) sociality is down (with social media use replacing healthy activities such as group sports or spending time with friends), 3) exposure through social media and the Internet to more negative stories than ever about difficult things happening in the world (gun violence, climate change, and financial fears), and 4) finally, coddling behavior by well-meaning parents that actually stand in the way of their children developing more resiliency. I think, because of all of this, we need to start introducing and connecting kids to healthy mental health frameworks, care, and tools, to include therapy, much earlier in life. Increasingly they are connected but not enough or for long enough. I think the best way to do this is by parents modeling the behavior their kids need to see around unapologetically seeking and consistently receiving mental health help over time for their own stressors — anxious parents, in seeking to insulate their children from risk and danger, for instance, are in some cases unintentionally transferring their anxiety to their kids, as that article in The Atlantic also points out.
How does technology play into the equation of mental and emotional well-being? What about social media?
The navigation of social media, and therefore one’s interpretation of what they find on it, is largely a solo sport, often giving parents very little regular insight or input (let alone opportunity to influence that input) into the ideas that shape their children’s feelings and beliefs as a result of what they’re seeing. While I believe that children of a certain age should be connected to technology (computers, age-appropriate and restricted websites, etc.) in order to complete school work and, by and large, learn how to navigate the tools and space they’ll ultimately inherit as adults, less is critically more. The American Academy of Pediatrics discourages media use by children younger than 2 and recommends limiting older children’s (to include teens) screen time to no more than one or two hours a day unless it’s to do homework. Unfortunately, this is not what’s happening: the CDC reports that children ages eight to 10 spend an average of six hours per day in front of a screen, kids ages 11 to 14 spend an average of nine hours, and kids 15 to 18 spend an average of seven-and-a-half hours. My feeling? We, as parents, have to do a better job of not only establishing better boundaries with our kids over screen time but enforcing them, even in the face of adolescence and pre-adolescent resistance.
Obviously, this is a huge issue, and it seems to be growing. What are some small, practical tips, or tweaks, that parents and educators can easily implement to help their children who are struggling?
In my house, for instance, my 9-year-old son is only allowed to use his parent-monitored personal electronic device on weekends and only after his chores are done. During weekdays his only exposure to technology is to do homework on his school-appointed laptop with all the requisite school-use-only controls. Our dinner table is a technology-free zone meant to share what’s gone on in our days to include how we felt about those things. To aid my son in his emotional development, to include the navigation of difficult feelings, he has access to a therapist since he was 6 to talk about how he feels growing up in a single-parent household and all that comes with that, and more recently he’s had access to a therapist with which to talk about his feelings about my soon getting married, building a relationship with my soon-to-be spouse and his bonus dad and his integration into our household. My son engages in sports, Boy Scouts, piano, and other enriching activities meant to help him develop a rich life off-screen to include the cultivation and maintenance of friendships with kids his age, in the hope that as he grows, he will continue to find fulfillment and comfort in these and other healthy, self-confidence boosting areas as he moves towards teenagehood.
In your professional opinion, what are certain triggers or signs that the state of a child’s mental and emotional health is not at its best? What is the best way to be proactive and address these signs from the get-go?
It can look different from child to child, of course, but some of the signs that can be triggered as result of bullying, sexual abuse, and other serious occurrences may include the following: anger/crankiness; verbal or non-verbal indicators of sadness or loneliness; becoming more socially withdrawn, isolating themselves; changes to appetite (eating more or less); shifted sleep patterns (sleeping more or less); trouble focusing, fatigue or low energy; crying spells; complaints of stomach aches or other physical ailments that don’t respond to treatment; thoughts of suicide and more. The best way I know how to get out in front of these dangers? Establish and maintain a healthy line of communication with your kids, whereby they trust you enough to bring their biggest, most confusing, and difficult feelings to you, and you listen intently with an empathetic, non-judgmental ear, such that you’re in the greatest possible position to not only help them know they’re not alone but advocate for them with the mental health professionals that may be necessary to connect them to the help they need.
Do you think we can do a better job of educating our children about their emotional and mental health? What would that look like?
I definitely feel we can, starting with better educating ourselves on what good emotional mental health looks like, both in our children and ourselves. For instance, are we, ourselves, in a good emotional place? Are we ourselves struggling emotionally or mentally in ways that may inhibit us from being fully emotionally available for our kids? Do we struggle with initiating tough conversations –or being on the receiving end of them? Do we have the capacity to listen non-defensively when our kids tell us about hard things that may have happened to them under our care that are tough for us to hear and make the necessary changes or moves in their best interest, even if it means admitting you were wrong or exposing “family business?” And if we struggle in these areas, how can we better “put the oxygen mask on ourselves first” such that we are best equipped to create a safe space for our kids in all the ways we can, from as early in their lives as we can?
Okay, fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview: Can you share with our readers your “5 things parents can do to raise children who are emotionally and mentally healthy”? Please share a story or example for each.
- Really talk to their children
- Connect them to therapy before they’re in crisis
- Encourage them to get regular exercise and engage in other wellness support activities and care
- Validate and acknowledge children’s feelings
- Insist on kids and teens thriving, technology-free, as much as possible
One of the most important things we can do as parents to raise mentally healthy children is to really listen to them and regularly talk about what they’re thinking, experiencing, and feeling in their everyday lives, including what they’re consuming on social media if they’re a teen. By encouraging this kind of conversation, distraction free, we’re in a better position to more accurately monitor them for signs they may be struggling emotionally before they’re in crisis. It’s also important to, whenever possible, be ahead of the game in terms of recognizing when they, depending on age or circumstance, may need to talk with us about difficult subjects they may or may not bring to us without our asking. Being proactive about engaging kids in affirming ways about their developing bodies, sexual identity, relationships in school, and a variety of other issues helps take the burden off of them to figure out how to bring hard topics to us — we bring them gently and lovingly to them. For instance, my son was being bullied in school before COVID, and after, he told me his grandparents. I sprang into action, sitting him down and offering our support in all the ways he felt comfortable, including getting his permission to alert his teachers to the behavior, which led to the bully’s parents being contacted, and the bullying to eventually stop. Behind the scenes, we also seized the opportunity to better y build him up emotionally such that he didn’t feel like the bullying was about him and who he was as much as it was about the bully and how unhappy he was. To be on the safe side, we also connected my son to a therapist, which leads me to another point.
It’s important that, whenever a potential need is exposed, we connect our children to therapy earlier. We’re in an era when there are more licensed therapeutic options than ever to help meet their needs, from the time they can talk, whether it’s virtual or online; through play or talk therapy; after the school day or on the weekends; through insurance or on a sliding scale; and with therapists who specialize in a variety of modalities as they relate to treating children. The resources are there, and the earlier we connect our kids to them once we realize a need, the better they are likely to fare.
Something else we can do to encourage mentally healthy children is to encourage them to get exercise regularly through individual or team sports. Moving the body consistently, also through activities like yoga and meditation, can help to stave away feelings of depression and anxiety, in addition to maintaining proper nutrition. This is something that has worked for me personally over the years, as I struggled myself with depression as a child, and as a result, I encourage my son to play at least one sport a year.
Something else we can do as parents are to acknowledge and validate our children’s feelings and, ultimately, who they are, even if we don’t necessarily understand or agree. This is particularly key with kids who are exploring who they are sexually and need reassurance that you love them and support them no matter what. As a journalist covering LGBTQ issues for more than 20 years, I am always struck, with profound sadness, with the stories from young adults who got so depressed they thought of committing suicide as a result of how their parents experienced their coming out and how this trauma went on to shape the course of their lives. If kids aren’t accepted and supported at home, this only further fuels their dangerous sense of loneliness.
Initially, my son did not like the fact that I had set screen time boundaries. In his mind, it was already bad enough he was only regulated to being on his tablet on the weekends. But I patiently explained to him the dangers of too much screen time for kids his age, even as he sulked, and ran down a list of things he could be doing with that time in a way that he could understand, that would help him have a richer, emotionally safer, more rewarding life. He still sulked, but later, he came up to me and gave me a hug, saying he knows that I love him and am only trying to keep him safe.
Do you have any favorite books, podcasts, or resources you recommend to our audience reading this interview?
I’m a fan of well-known sites like Parenting.com sites like goodtherapy.org, and a book I’m reading now is The Emotionally Healthy Child: Helping Children Calm, Center, and Make Smarter Choices.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
My dream is to be in a position to provide free, lifelong mental health services for entire families, particularly those from historically disadvantaged backgrounds and circumstances. Mental health issues unfortunately often beget further mental health challenges for the children of Black ancestors who have been harmed by the intergenerational effects of slavery, often putting our kids behind the emotional eightball from the very beginning. The goal for me, as I mentioned, is healing generational trauma, particularly as we, as Black people, continue to grapple with the impacts of present-day racism as best we know how.
What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?
Here are my websites that you can follow:
2. Motivated Mamas Mastermind — https://motivatedmamas.org/
3. Single parents Who Travel — https://singleparentswhotravel.com/
4. Manifest Greatness Media — https://manifestgreatnessmedia.com/
5. Coach Tomika Anderson — https://www.coachtomikaanderson.com/
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.
