Children's Mental Health Week is coming up next month, taking place from 3-9th February.
This year’s theme, Know Yourself, Grow Yourself, offers a wonderful opportunity to focus on children's mental well-being and explore ways to support them emotionally. Helping children understand their feelings and the reasons behind them can promote emotional security and resilience.
As part of our PhunkyMinds strand, we offer workshop and assembly content that covers four key areas: feelings, anti-bullying, relationships, and resilience. The theme of Know Yourself, Grow Yourself ties in perfectly with building resilience. It is important for us all, but especially children, to recognise their strengths and talents, to believe in themselves, not to worry about what other people think, and to always try their best.
Why not have a go at the following resilience activities within your class:
- Ask the children to think of a time when they tried hard to achieve something and didn’t give up. Share their ideas (activities could include riding a bike, swimming or learning new spellings). Explain that these examples show that they have already demonstrated resilience, as they didn’t give up when they were trying to learn something new. Get them to record three things that they have already achieved and one thing that they haven’t….yet! Having goals to work towards is important for good mental health.
- Consider the language you use when talking about a challenge. Try to make it positive! For example, ‘I can’t do it’ could become ‘I can’t do it yet’, and ‘I’m not good at this’ could be ‘I’ll get better with practise’. Spend some time thinking of other positive phrases.
- Take part in a fun activity where it’s common to make a mistake e.g. repeating tongue twisters, such as ‘red lorry, yellow lorry’. The faster you attempt to say the phrase, the more likely it is that you’ll make a mistake and get muddled up. However, does this matter? Not at all! Making mistakes is completely normal and is in fact a way of identifying that you need to learn something new to move on.
Our Phunky Mindful Moments (available here) are also a great tool to help children calm and focus their minds and bodies.
These progressive, age-appropriate mindfulness practices are designed for EYFS, Key Stage 1, and Key Stage 2, with simple, guided instructions for teachers. The practices can be done anytime during the day, in any setting. Early Years practices last 5 minutes, Key Stage 1 practices are 10 minutes long, and Key Stage 2 practices take 15 minutes.
Have a go at these simple exercises:
- Mindful breathing: Sitting on the floor with crossed legs, ask the children to breathe in and out deeply a few times. Next, explain that they are going to use their hands to make the shape of a ball. When they take a breath in, their fingers will touch. When they exhale, their fingers will move further away from each other. Spend a few minutes focusing on matching hand movements to breathing. To extend the activity, call out different emotions and allow the children to explore how they think each one would affect their breathing e.g. would it make their breathing faster or slower?
- Happy place meditation: Ask the children to find a comfortable place to sit or lie down and then close their eyes. Ask them to think about a favourite or special place. What can they see, hear and smell? To extend the activity, ask the children to create a drawing or painting of their chosen location.
Good mental health is important to enable us to feel happy, content, purposeful and well.
Did you know that the foods we eat can affect how we feel?
Sugary snacks may give a quick burst of energy, but they can lead to a crash, leaving us tired and hungry. In contrast, foods like wholegrains, fruits, and vegetables release energy slowly, helping us stay fuller for longer and keeping our blood sugar levels stable. Staying hydrated by drinking enough water is also crucial for feeling good.
In addition to eating and drinking healthily, other ways to support mental health include getting enough sleep, enjoying activities we love, exercising, spending time outdoors, and connecting with people who care about us.
For more ideas on supporting mental health, visit the Children’s Mental Health Week website and get involved!
