Supporting Children’s Mental Health
Children’s mental health is an important issue to everyone, but particularly here at Connected Kids so we celebrate this awareness week to highlight key issues and explore ways to support the young people in our lives.
Childrens Mental Health Week, organised by Place2be, provides everyone the opportunity to start conversations and share practical steps to nurture mental well-being in children and teens.
This year’s theme, “Know Yourself, Grow Yourself”, focuses on self-awareness and personal development.
The Challenge for Young Minds
Self-awareness can be difficult for young people, especially in a fast-paced world that demands constant attention. However if young people develop a sense of connection to self awareness through their breath, their emotions, the world around them, and then we give them the mindful tools to navigate these – —they feel stronger, more focused, and better equipped to cope. This helps children handle challenges with resilience and confidence.
How do we know?
Because at Connected Kids we’ve been teaching young people meditation for the past 20 years, and witnessed it working.
Here are some creative ideas to encourage mental well-being in young people.
Journaling for Self-Discovery
Encouraging young people to express their thoughts and emotions through journaling can help them develop self-awareness and emotional intelligence. Ask them to write about their daily experiences, challenges, and achievements. Adding prompts like “What made me feel happy today?”, “What did I struggle with?” or “What did I learn about myself this week?” can guide them in their self-exploration.
For younger children, drawing their emotions or using story-based journaling can make this practice more engaging.
Mindful Breathing and Reflection
Helping children develop self-awareness through mindful breathing can be a simple yet effective way to support their emotional health. A short breathing exercise can help them tune into how they are feeling (the good, the bad and the ugly) but without shame:
- Encourage them to sit comfortably and close their eyes.
- Ask them to take a deep breath in and slowly exhale.
- Guide them to notice how their body feels, where they feel tension, or if they feel relaxed.
- Let them acknowledge their emotions and reassure them that all feelings are valid.
- Invite them to visualise letting go of stress about the feelings they struggle with, with each exhale.
- Guide them to accept (with each breath) that all feelings are valid.
This practice helps children become more aware of their thoughts and emotions with acceptance, fostering a sense of calm and balance.
Exploring Strengths and Growth Mindset
To encourage personal growth, help children identify their strengths and areas for development. A simple exercise is to ask them to list things they are good at and things they want to improve.
By emphasising that abilities can grow with effort, we nurture a growth mindset. Encouraging children to reframe challenges as opportunities to learn fosters resilience and confidence.
You can create a mindful pie chart with different areas coloured and represented within it. This can help children have a visual of how they change and grow after they repeat the exercise and witness their evolving abilities.
Nature Walks for Self-Connection
Spending time in nature is a great way to help children connect with themselves and the world around them. A mindful walk where they focus on their senses—what they see, hear, and feel—encourages presence and self-awareness.
A reflective activity could be to ask them to find something in nature that represents how they feel that day. This practice helps them express their emotions in a creative and grounding way.
The ‘Kindness Reflection’ Challenge
To build self-awareness and emotional resilience, challenge children to reflect on acts of kindness they have given or received each day. They can write or talk about how these experiences made them feel and what they learned from them.
This encourages empathy, gratitude, and a deeper understanding of their impact on others, reinforcing their sense of self-worth and connection to the world.
A Brighter Future for Young Minds
Children’s Mental Health Week is an opportunity to spark meaningful conversations and introduce tools that help children develop resilience, self-awareness, and emotional strength. By incorporating mindful activities outlined above, we can support young people in understanding themselves and the world around them.
Let’s work together to build a foundation of well-being for future generations.
Would you like to create and teach mindful ideas like this?
Discover the Connected Kids programme…