Supporting Children’s Mental Health
Children’s psychological well being is a vital situation to everybody, however significantly right here at Connected Kids so we have fun this consciousness week to focus on key points and discover methods to assist the younger individuals in our lives.
Childrens Mental Health Week, organised by Place2be, offers everybody the chance to begin conversations and share sensible steps to nurture psychological well-being in kids and teenagers.
This 12 months’s theme, “Know Yourself, Grow Yourself”, focuses on self-awareness and private improvement.
The Challenge for Young Minds
Self-awareness could be troublesome for younger individuals, particularly in a fast-paced world that calls for fixed consideration. However if younger individuals develop a way of connection to self consciousness via their breath, their feelings, the world round them, after which we give them the aware instruments to navigate these – —they really feel stronger, extra targeted, and higher geared up to manage. This helps kids deal with challenges with resilience and confidence.
How do we all know?
Because at Connected Kids we’ve been instructing younger individuals meditation for the previous 20 years, and witnessed it working.
Here are some artistic concepts to encourage psychological well-being in younger individuals.
Journaling for Self-Discovery
Encouraging younger individuals to specific their ideas and feelings via journaling can assist them develop self-awareness and emotional intelligence. Ask them to write down about their day by day experiences, challenges, and achievements. Adding prompts like “What made me feel happy today?”, “What did I struggle with?” or “What did I learn about myself this week?” can information them of their self-exploration.
For youthful kids, drawing their feelings or utilizing story-based journaling could make this apply extra partaking.
Mindful Breathing and Reflection
Helping kids develop self-awareness via aware respiration generally is a easy but efficient option to assist their emotional well being. A brief respiration train can assist them tune into how they’re feeling (the nice, the dangerous and the ugly) however with out disgrace:
- Encourage them to sit down comfortably and shut their eyes.
- Ask them to take a deep breath in and slowly exhale.
- Guide them to note how their physique feels, the place they really feel stress, or in the event that they really feel relaxed.
- Let them acknowledge their feelings and reassure them that every one emotions are legitimate.
- Invite them to visualise letting go of stress concerning the emotions they battle with, with every exhale.
- Guide them to simply accept (with every breath) that every one emotions are legitimate.
This apply helps kids turn into extra conscious of their ideas and feelings with acceptance, fostering a way of calm and steadiness.
Exploring Strengths and Growth Mindset
To encourage private progress, assist kids determine their strengths and areas for improvement. A easy train is to ask them to listing issues they’re good at and issues they need to enhance.
By emphasising that skills can develop with effort, we nurture a progress mindset. Encouraging kids to reframe challenges as alternatives to be taught fosters resilience and confidence.
You can create a aware pie chart with totally different areas colored and represented inside it. This can assist kids have a visible of how they alter and develop after they repeat the train and witness their evolving skills.
Nature Walks for Self-Connection
Spending time in nature is a good way to assist kids join with themselves and the world round them. A aware stroll the place they concentrate on their senses—what they see, hear, and really feel—encourages presence and self-awareness.
A reflective exercise could possibly be to ask them to seek out one thing in nature that represents how they really feel that day. This apply helps them categorical their feelings in a artistic and grounding method.
The ‘Kindness Reflection’ Challenge
To construct self-awareness and emotional resilience, problem kids to mirror on acts of kindness they’ve given or acquired every day. They can write or speak about how these experiences made them really feel and what they realized from them.
This encourages empathy, gratitude, and a deeper understanding of their affect on others, reinforcing their sense of self-worth and connection to the world.
A Brighter Future for Young Minds
Children’s Mental Health Week is a chance to spark significant conversations and introduce instruments that assist kids develop resilience, self-awareness, and emotional power. By incorporating aware actions outlined above, we will assist younger individuals in understanding themselves and the world round them.
Let’s work collectively to construct a basis of well-being for future generations.
Read extra on psychological well being
Would you prefer to create and train aware concepts like this?
Discover the Connected Kids programme…