Shout-out to Wonderpark for helping me talk to my kids about my own anxiety and depression

So quick backstory...I have quietly struggled with minor depression and anxiety for years. The kind that you almost don't notice getting worst...it's just your new normal. Well a few months ago it got to the point that it was affecting my daily life and I sought help. I now go to therapy and am on medication so things are better.My girls are 4 and 7 and have picked up on the changes. I've been trying to explain it on a level they could understand, more so my 7 year old who was worried about my weekly trips to the doctors. I let her know it was a special doctor that I talk to about my feelings and stuff going on in my life and of course she had more questions. I did my best to explain the feelings and kind of left it knowing she didn't have a clear understanding but that was a problem for when she gets older.Here we are watching Wonderpark for the first time and I actually paused it because it did such a great job at illustrating those feelings, especially anxiety. I had a great talk with my 7 year old, I feel like she's really got a better understanding of it. Before she would say well I get sad or I get nervous and I struggled with explaining the difference between feelings that are okay and feelings that need extra help. There may be some spoilers coming up if you haven't seen the movie...but one of the talking points it gave us was that she was really missing her mom and worried about her but we didn't see that. We saw her worrying about her dad and the house and not enjoying the things she used to. We talked about how it would've been perfectly okay for her to feel sad because she misses her mom or worried that her mom is not feeling well, but it was manifesting in much bigger, different ways, ways that weren't healthy. She stopped seeing her friends, she was getting rid of things she loved, she was angry, she was trying to control other things.I will be honest I was not expecting to be hit with such big emotions on our Saturday movie night...I hadn't seen anything about the movie and just assumed it was your typical funny animal kid movie, but I am so glad it gave me a way to explain something so important to my kiddos in a way they can understand and I thought I'd share with all of you if you struggle with the same thing. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2NASpYZ