Tammin Sursok on how she encourages her kids to talk to her
Actor Tammin Sursok says she doesn't take an authoritarian parenting style with her two children so they know they can come to her or her husband anytime to discuss what they are feeling and have a 'soft place to land'.
The mum-of-two also said going on walks together was a great time for her family to connect, adding they tried to sit down together for dinner together four nights a week in between a busy schedule of extra-curricular activities and hour-long trips to and from school.
Opening up about family life to start a conversation for News Corp's Can We Talk? mental health awareness campaign, in partnership with Medibank, the 41-year-old revealed they were considering relocating from Nashville back to Australia next year.
This was so her two girls, Phoenix, 11, and Lennon Bleu, 6, could be closer to Sursok's family.
'We're definitely planning and thinking about next June, coming back (to Australia) for an extended period of time,' she said.
'We're trying to figure out, like, the next steps, but it is looking very promising that we'll come back to Australia, and hopefully we'll find school right next to where we live.'
Sursok, who rose to international fame after her roles in Pretty Little Liars and Young and the Restless, has long been vocal about her own battles with mental health, including suffering from anxiety and struggling with bulimia.
She has also grieved and lived with the heartbreak of having two miscarriages.
'I've been very open and honest about mental health issues I've had my entire life,' the former Home and Away star said.
'It's been a very open conversation with my family and ultimately that's going to help them.
'I think it's been really helpful for my kids to see that we don't always have to have it together and be perfect.
'You can falter and you can fail and it's okay.
'My kids definitely see that if you are having a moment where you are struggling, there are so many tools that you can adopt that will help you get through it.'
Sursok said some of the techniques they used to stay calm included breathwork and facial tapping.
'I know my littlest one, who is six, when she is overwhelmed she does box breathing (a deep breathing technique) which she learnt from school,' Sursok said.
'For me I do something called tapping in the car, so if you're really overwhelmed, neurologically it's meant to get your mind back on track.'
She said she also took the supplement L-theanine — an amino acid found in green and black tea leaves – to help with her anxiety.
Sursok and her husband Sean McEwen – who is on a movie shoot for the next seven months – both go to therapy separately and they regularly prioritise going on walks together with the kids.
'As a family the main thing we do is move our bodies, we go on walks because exercise is such a massive tool in the toolbox when it comes to anxiety,' she said.
'That to us is just getting out, grounding ourselves in the earth and walking and being out and breathing the air.
'I go to therapy and then I can implement some of those strategies, too.
'Therapy is just like a workout for your brain, we work out our bodies and therapy helps you get tools and break things apart and figure it out.'
Sursok said one of her biggest parenting hacks to help get her kids to open up was not being too 'authoritarian'.
'Sometimes this authoritarian approach feels like it's not going to be the most fertile environment for my kids to open up to me if I'm just going to get aggressive or heightened,' she said.
'Like, why would they want to share anything with me?
'Trying to be measured and trying to talk through it doesn't mean I can't be forceful. I really believe in forceful but kind.
'So I think that's what really works for people to get the kids open up, they always have a soft place to land.'
After spending her teen years growing up on the set of Home and Away, Sursok noted she thought it was more challenging for kids now.
'Kids growing up today are very different to kids growing up when I was younger because there's all the social media and we are pretty hard and fast about (our eldest) not having social media, at least for a long time,' she said.
'I just want her (my eldest daughter) to love herself, give herself grace and kindness and talk to herself kindly.
'We are trying to implement a lot of tools if she feels stressed and overwhelmed.'
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