Selena Gomez’s mom and Wondermind CEO Mandy Teefey shares 2 tips for parents of children with mental health challenges
“She used to be very terrified of tornadoes … so I made her sit down and learn everything there was to learn about tornadoes.”
Mandy Teefey is probably best known for being mom to actor and singer Selena Gomez. But she’s also a mental health advocate on a mission to provide education and information to improve people’s emotional well-being. She champions mental fitness, finding tools to improve your mind by strengthening resilience and managing stress. And, in 2022, she launched a mental health media startup Wondermind, alongside her famous daughter.
Both Teefey, who has ADHD, and Gomez, who has bipolar disorder, have been open about their experiences with mental health conditions. Gomez shared her bipolar disorder diagnosis in 2020 on Instagram, and chronicled her experience more intimately in the 2022 documentary Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me.
“I am grateful to be alive,” she shared in the documentary. And, in an interview with The Newsette, a newsletter by Daniella Pierson, who joined the mother-daughter pair to launch Wondermind, Teefey shared her experience with ADHD and anxiety, according to Entrepreneur.
Teefey says the two are often asked how they navigate mental health conditions as a parent and child in the public eye.
“As we’re talking, we’re like, wow, there’s nowhere to really go,” Teefey tells Fortune, adding it propelled the creation of Wondermind, which she describes as an “ecosystem” for mental health care. “How do you navigate [mental health] as a family?”
And now, Teefey, who recognizes the pressures on parents today, has guidance about how to support a child who may be experiencing symptoms of a mental health condition.
Education is key
Whether your child is scared, nervous, or struggling with a mental health condition already, Teefey says the best course of action is to learn everything there is to help confront their fears.
“When [Gomez] was younger, she used to be very terrified of tornadoes,” Teefey says. “So, I made her sit down and learn everything there was to learn about tornadoes.”
As parents educate themselves, they learn how to help a child navigate a potential diagnosis, just as one would manage the flu, Teefey says.
“When you’re not fully educated on something, it’s scarier, and it’s more intimidating,” she says. “I read all kinds of books and did all kinds of research on bipolar to understand how to have that conversation, or how to kind of mediate, and really navigate her in a way that she needs to be parented, not a way that I wanted to be parented.”
Model taking care of yourself
Teefey wants to normalize processing emotions and practicing self-care routinely. Since launching Wondermind, she has honed in on modeling a wellness routine that works for her.
She wakes at 4 a.m. to have a slow, calm morning. “I get up and I do everything at a very glacial pace and just enjoy my time,” she says. “I don’t know if early rising is the key or the alone time is actually what’s really helping me, but it keeps me very focused and very grounded throughout the rest of the day.”
She meditates for 15 minutes, reads something new and engaging, and writes what is on her mind in a notepad—what she calls her daily “brain dump”—to release anxiety and manage her ADHD.
“The ruminating thoughts go 90 miles an hour, so I totally feel that that’s why I have to keep journals and all kinds of different things like calendars and schedules,” she says. “I found reading and writing detach myself from whatever chaos is happening.”
She also doesn’t look at her phone until about 10 or 10:30 a.m.
“There is something really relaxing about detaching yourself from all of the information that comes at you when you wake up in the morning,” she says. “I really try to pause and just breathe and then remind myself that, no matter what’s going on through my mind right now, the end of the world isn’t going to happen.”
The adage is true: Put on your own oxygen mask first. It’s important for parents, who are struggling to manage the realities of children today on top of work and other duties, to practice mental fitness, and make time for the habits and routines that serve them.
“It’s okay to take the 15 minutes and or the 20 minutes,” Teefey says. “It’ll all be there when you get back.”
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