Children’s Mental Health Week 2021

This week is Children’s Mental Health Week. Running from 1-7 February, this year’s theme is ‘Express Yourself’. Throughout the week, children are encouraged to find creative ways in which to share their feelings, thoughts, and ideas. This might include drawing, writing, dressing up, taking photographs, or singing, for example.

Self-expression is a vital part of childhood learning. It’s important that children are able to explore their feelings openly, in whichever way suits them best, and without judgement. People refer to ‘the terrible twos’, to describe the stage of growth in which toddlers appear to push boundaries. The reality is that they’re learning and developing, and as adults, we have a responsibility to support them in this. Not to think of temper outbursts as being down to an outdated label, but recognising them as part of the child’s development.

What is it that they are trying to tell us? How can we listen, and work with them to understand what they are expressing? It’s frustrating not being able to grasp the meaning, but imagine how frustrated the child feels at not being able to make their point. If we’re struggling to understand our son, we ask him whether he can show us what he means. And if this doesn’t work, we sometimes try drawing. As much as anything, this works as a distraction, and we can revisit the conversation when he has calmed down and is less frustrated in our inability to understand him.

Finding creative opportunities for self-expression doesn’t have to be hard work, or require lots of resources. Sometimes, creativity can be something as simple as spotting shapes in the clouds. Talking about what we see, and imagining how we would feel if we could fly, and where we might fly to. Or naming the trees we meet on our explorations, and thinking about how the forest comes to life when there’s no one around to see it.

While lockdown continues around the world, maintaining good mental health is important for us all. Regardless of whether we are responsible for caring for anybody else, family, friends, or companion animals, we owe it to ourselves to try to keep as mentally healthy as possible. Of course, it’s not as easy as just writing about it in a blog post. There’s a link here to my post on World Mental Health Day 2020, which has a number of ideas of how to access mental health support and advice. And there are links below to some of the Children’s Mental Health Week activities that are available. I hope that some of the resources aimed at supporting children will also be of interest to adults. Sometimes, taking the time to sit and doodle is the break we all need towards beginning to recharge and refresh.

Links:
Information about Children’s Mental Health Week
Ideas for parents and carers
Positive thinking resource pack
Mental health and wellbeing teaching resources