Children's Mental Health Week
FREE Children’s Mental Health resources listed below.
This week, the 1-7th February 2021, is Children’s Mental Health Week. We already know that many children struggle with looking after their mental health. What we didn’t predict was that in February 2021 we would be in our third national lockdown, with the end not so much in sight, as a dwindling hope that with vaccines will come family reunions, days out and sights other than the less-than-interesting corner of our living room.
Lockdown #3 is yet another opportunity for those mental health demons to take hold; loneliness, boredom, stress and fatigue are breeding grounds for depression and anxiety - at any age. Which is why this year’s Children’s Mental Health Week is arguably the most important one yet.
Here at b small, we published the first two books in the LEVEL HEADERS series back in the - comparatively -brilliant year of 2018. Written by Inclusion expert Beth Cox alongside Confidence Coach Natalie Costa, this is a series designed to help children aged 6-9 learn about their mental health in a positive framework, with no blame or shame. Tried and tested techniques are at the heart of these activity books, designed to help children with everything from friendship wobbles to understanding tricky feelings, learning about self-care and embracing mistakes. Here’s a little more about each book:
Find Your Power empowers children to tap into the power of their minds promotes healthy self-esteem. Following tried and tested techniques, children will learn to build empathy and find their inner power. From finding awe in the world, to understanding and embracing big feelings, the awesome activities in this book have been expertly designed to help children discover the wonder of themselves.
Confidence is like a muscle and everyone’s confidence can benefit from a bit of coaching to stretch and strengthen that muscle. From dealing with friendship wobbles to embracing mistakes and coping with change, the awesome activities in this book have been expertly designed to help children discover just what they can do.
Be on your own team! From dealing with friendship wobbles and bullying to understanding tricky feelings and self-esteem issues, the awesome activities in this book have been expertly designed to help children be a good friend to themselves and others!
Alongside Lockdown #1 (ie., a million years ago), we also made some free downloadable activities in the form of PDFs, each being a different activity from one of the three books. We’ve just added a new one in celebration of Children’s Mental Health Week, which this year has the theme ‘Express yourself’. You can find all the activities below, along with some notes on how to use them.
- If you're looking to spread a little kindness this lockdown and make someone else's day, have a go at our social distancing Find Kind Bingo!
- When bad things happen to us, it's easy to focus on that and let it overwhelm us. This activity is ideal for remembering to be thankful for the good things, and can help us see how to focus on the positive instead.
Sometimes it can be really hard to change how we feel - especially if we're feeling sad, angry or upset. This activity can help change our mood for the better!
- Once you're done with the above activities, we've just added a BRAND NEW one to our website in celebration of Children's Mental Health Week - find it here!
Naomi Weeks
