Meet the psychiatrist who set up her own business to improve children’s mental health

If you’re a parent and have felt like you’re anxious, isolated or depressed over the last four months, you’re not alone.

Figures from a recent survey by Oxford University found that more than half of parents are stressed about their children’s wellbeing.

Most people have struggled at some point over the last four months but parents have been hit particularly hard.

Faced with the challenges of schooling their children at home, some whilst working, has left many feeling worried about the future.

Dr Victoria Khromova, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Cygnet Hospital in Sheffield, who also runs her own business, Emerging Parent, has been a shining beacon to parents in recent weeks, helping them navigate through the uncertainty with advice on how to approach lockdown with children, home-schooling tips, how to beat the mum guilt, and dealing with anxiety linked to returning to the new ‘normal’.

Emerging Parent, which was set up 18 months ago, provides free resources on the website as well as paid-for online courses, one-to-one coaching and memberships. Dr Khromova, who is mum to a seven year old daughter, has put all of her knowledge and experience together into the “four key essentials of balanced parenting”, a concept that focuses on the four things she has found make the biggest difference when it comes to raising fulfilled and emotionally well-adjusted children.

“I was seeing these parents and I was thinking ‘if only I could get in a bit earlier with the right information, maybe we wouldn’t even get to the stage where their kid’s really poorly’,” she says.

“I want them to feel empowered because often by the time parents get to me they feel like they’ve failed and that they’re a terrible parent. I wanted to share the knowledge I’ve learned and that I actually use with my own daughter.”

Dr Khromova’s advice is relevant to all parents but through Emerging Parent she often works with those who have children who may be on the autistic spectrum but don’t have a diagnosis.

One of her key pieces of advice for parents faced with weeks at home with their children is to structure each day.

“On school days I have quite structured days with my daughter because I find otherwise it becomes really difficult,” she says.

“I’m a big fan of setting boundaries but allowing some freedom within those boundaries. For example, saying we’re going to be doing these lessons today but you can decide which order we do them in or where we have the breaks.

“The other thing I’m a really big fan of is being present with your children. “We have regular family game time every day.”

Dr Khromova is launching an online teen mental health course later this month, which includes advice for parents who are worried they aren’t getting the help they need and what questions they need to ask their GP to get the right information.

“Mental health is actually really specialist for kids. If parents are worried, they often ask teachers but teachers don’t get a lot of mental health training, it’s really quite variable,” she says. “Often in class, if kids are not causing trouble, teachers don’t get worried about them.”

Health professionals are concerned that Covid-19, and the fallout from it, could spark the biggest mental health crisis for children and young people in a generation.

Childline has seen a 37 per cent rise in the number of children aged 11 and under contacting them for mental and emotional health issues during lockdown restrictions.

Dr Khromova believes that children who were prone to anxiety and/or depression before the pandemic will decline further and lots of children may not go back to school at all.

“I don’t think the wider mental health picture has been thought about that much,” she says. “I agree with the professionals who are calling for a return to school to not be about academic achievement in the first instance but about getting used to routines again, being around other children again and repairing from what’s happened rather than saying ‘right, you’ve all got to catch up, let’s get going’”

Born in Moscow in 1982, Dr Khromova spent her first four years living a communist life in Russia’s Soviet Union. When her father got a posting in Africa through his job at the United Nations, the family moved to Kenya.

“It was only meant to be for a couple of years but we ended up staying until I was 18,” she says. “It was a very different way of life to Russia. I went to an English curriculum school and I met people from all over the world. It was a true multicultural society.”

At the age of 18, she moved to Yorkshire to study medicine at Sheffield University. “I always wanted to be a psychiatrist,” she says. “But when I did a child psychiatry placement at university I realised that’s what I wanted to do - to get in there early and prevent that trajectory in adult life.”

Remembering how she felt when she first arrived in Yorkshire, she says: “I landed in Manchester and drove through the hills to get to Sheffield. It was how I imagined England to be: green and beautiful stone and Victorian houses. I really loved it and I’ve never moved away since.”

She adds: “I think I’m one of those people who feels very at home in most places. The hardest thing about coming to Yorkshire was understanding the accent. It took me ages.”

Even with an extensive background in child psychiatry, Dr Khromova is not immune to the pressures of parenting during a pandemic. But she believes the most important thing is repairing relationships after an argument.

“Being a child psychiatrist does not make you a zen parent,” she admits. “Like everyone else, I’ve had to re-establish my relationship with my child as a teacher and that’s difficult. I’m not a teacher by profession.

“We’ve certainly had some times that have been really difficult. Regardless of what I do, it’s still a stressful situation for kids, they’re not seeing their friends and Skype hasn’t been a great substitute for that.

“ You’re going to fall out with your kids, regardless of lockdown, but the important thing is how to repair that by saying sorry and talking about it.”