World Mental Health Day

Each year, The World Health Organisation recognises ’World Mental Health Day’ on 10th October.   World Mental Health Day is a chance to talk about mental health in general, how we need to look after it, and how important it is to talk about things and get help if you are struggling.

Talking about emotions can be a good place to start when thinking about supporting our children’s emotional wellbeing.    

Here are 5 ideas for supporting children to name, understand and express their emotions.    

• Help children to recognise different facial expressions and link these to emotions we may be feeling.  You can use mirrors, images, actions and visual prompt cards to support this.   
• Model talking about your own emotions to the children.  Give them examples of times you felt certain ways, what happened to make you feel like that and how did you respond to this emotion, such as doing something to make yourself feel better.   
• Prompt children to think about how their friend is feeling and how they are expressing that emotion, “Sam, look at your friend Ben. He is giving you a big smile.  He is feeling really excited to read this story with you.”   
• Sing songs together about emotions.  For example, you could begin the day by singing an Emotion Hello Song, such as “Hello, Hello, Hello and how are you? I feel … and how about you?”    Visuals can be used alongside the songs to support.   
• Read stories together.  Talk about the emotions that the characters might be feeling during different parts of the story and think about how they are expressing this emotion.    

More information can be found here.