Children's Mental Health Week is drawing to a close today. It's a time to reflect on the mental health of our children, and how we can improve the mental health of future generations.
You can find out more about Children's Mental Health Week on Mentally Healthy Schools' website.
The theme for this year’s Children’s Mental Health Week is ‘growing together’.
During the week, schools across the UK will be exploring the concept of growing emotionally and thinking about ways to help each other grow.
To help children and young people to grow emotionally, and grow together as a whole school community, it’s important that we embrace and celebrate diversity in all its forms.
It’s vital that pupils feel able to be their full authentic selves in the school environment, and by encouraging this school staff will also support their pupils’ wellbeing, confidence and self-esteem.
Children's mental health and the pandemic
This UK Parliament research briefing outlines that:
In the UK, mental health disorders are the leading cause of child disability, and there are high unmet child mental health needs. The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified known risk factors for child mental health disorders and disrupted support structures, leading to concerns that children’s mental health may be negatively affected.
There has been limited research published to date about the mental health of children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most studies that have been undertaken have found that, on average, children’s mental health had worsened during the pandemic, although the majority of children remained well. Assessment of NHS data has shown that rates of referrals to child mental health services are now at record highs. Evidence suggests that those at greatest risk of poor mental health during the pandemic include children with previous mental health or learning difficulties and those at socioeconomic disadvantage.
This is worrying, as it shows that many children are struggling more with their mental health, and that disabled children may have been disproportionately affected. It's therefore more important than ever that we consider the effect of the pandemic on our children's mental health, and how we can help them to stay well.
Growth Stories
Children's Mental Health Week have put together a series of videos where famous faces discuss their experiences of emotional growth.
You can find the videos here, and I've also posted one below:
I'd encourage you to show these videos to your children to spark a discussion about emotional growth, and how to overcome challenges.
How to speak to your child about mental health
Mental health can be a difficult subject to talk about, especially with children. However, it's important we try and normalise these sorts of discussions so that children and young people grow up knowing it's okay to tell someone if they're struggling.
There's no set formula for having these discussions, as each child is different, but
Young Minds have some guidance that might come in handy.
This guidance includes some ideas for conversation starters. Here are a few of them:
- What do you want to
talk about?
- What was the best
and worst bit of your
day?
- If you could start today
again, what would you
do differently?
- Do you want to
talk about what’s
going on?
- Is there anything that
you need from me?
Space, time to talk,
time to do something
fun...
If your child finds it difficult to communicate verbally, you could always try encouraging them to use a different method of communication to show how they're feeling. For example, by drawing a picture, or using a feelings chart.
Resources for children and young people
There are an increasing number of resources out there targeted towards supporting young people with their mental health. It can be a good idea to make sure your children are aware of these resources so that they feel comfortable using them if they need to. I've listed a few below
- Childline - have a helpline, live chat, email service, and message boards
- Young Minds - have information for parents and young people, including a parents helpline
- Papyrus - have a suicide prevention helpline for young people
- CYPMHS (NHS) - Children and young people’s mental health services (CYPMHS) is used as a term for all services that work with children and young people who have difficulties with their mental health or wellbeing
- ChillPanda app - helps children and their parents and carers understand different emotions, and introduces skills to help regulate these including breathing techniques and calming games
- Catch it app - helps you to track your mood and look at problems in a different way
- Calm Harm app provides tasks to help you resist or manage the urge to self-harm
Over to you
Do you have any other ideas for starting conversations with children and young people around mental health?
What more could be done to help protect young people's mental health?
Do you think disabled children's mental health has been disproportionately affected by the pandemic?
Any other thoughts on the topic are welcome
