Core topics

Parenting is a difficult job and even more challenging when parents have physical or mental health issues, their child has learning difficulties or refuses to attend school, and the family has fled civil war in its native country or is overburdened with home-based or external stresses. General practitioners (GPs) has focused less on preventive child health and more on chronic disease management. Genetic factors have an impact on long-term physical and mental health, and sometimes we can take straightforward actions such as prescribing statins in familial hypercholesterolaemia. All GPs have worked with profoundly depressed mothers who are excellent parents, and with perfectly mentally healthy parents who are insensitive to their infants needs. There are strong but complex associations between parental mental health, parenting behaviours, children's brain development and, ultimately, adult health. Although parental emotional well-being is a major predictor of child development, parenting behaviours have a stronger influence.