Top tips to look out for if you think your children are masking

As a quick disclaimer, I should say that I am not a professional, a doctor or a psychiatrist., I am just a regular person, except I have accidently spent my entire life masking out of fear. I am now an adult (or 42-year-old child, whichever you prefer), and have only recently resurfaced from my lifelong personality projection. 

It’s only since my four children, a nine-year-old, a seven-year-old, a five-year-old and a three-year-old – have started growing up that I can now understand that I was always masking as a child. This is how I know how to spot the signs when children are masking.

First of all, parenting isn’t an easy job, and there is no training or preparation that will prepare you for the journey you and your child are about to go on – but you are the best person for this job. Remember that. 

As a parent, you know your child better than anyone else, so you might think nothing would ever go unnoticed. But we live such busy lives, full of endless school runs, washes, mealtimes, and occasionally grabbing those tiny moments to ourselves, so we might not always be able to give our children enough time to share how they really feel. 

Things to look out for if you think your child is masking

When your child starts to express how they feel, you might think what they’re saying is nonsense and they need to just snap out of it. But not giving a child the attention they need can trigger them to further bury themselves.

Don’t underestimate the emotional intelligence of a child. Ask your child how they are and listen to them, no matter how old they are, what the answer is, or how long they keep talking. Just be there for them, because you are the most important person in their world.

Keep checking in on them, making sure they don’t get lost but also giving them the space they need to explore and figure themselves out. For some children – like me – who feel like they have no tribe or place in the world, they might turn to their imagination to create their own world and invisible friends to help them discover who they are.  This break from the world gives you and them time to figure this out without the frustration that comes with raising a child who can’t tell you why they feel a certain way. 

Where it went wrong for me, no one came looking for me. 

My parents were too busy and distracted with their own lives

So no one noticed I left. so, I never came back.

Credit: All My Friends Are Invisible by Jonathan Joly is published by Quercus in hardback on 3rd February.