Dear Parents and Carers,

Mental health in children refers to their overall emotional, social, and behavioral wellbeing. It's about how they think, feel, and behave, and how they relate to others and the world around them. Optimal mental health and wellbeing can come from:

Understanding and managing our emotions
Having good relationships
Experiencing a sense of accomplishment
Using our strengths
Taking part in healthy activities, getting lots of sleep and eating well.

There are a range of things you can do at home to help build and sustain your child’s wellbeing. Two of these things are to give praise, encouragement and positive attention and to promote positive self-talk.

Praise, encouragement and positive attention

Praise helps your child feel good about themselves, which boosts self-esteem and confidence. It can also encourage good behaviour.

You can:

Give your child praise when they behave in ways that you want to encourage
Give your child attention. Play a game with them, do an activity together, send them a friendly text message, ask about their interests
Praise your child for their strengths
Let your child know you are proud of them.

Positive self-talk

Self-talk is the way we talk to ourselves with our inner voice. Positive self-talk is when we say positive things to ourselves. Self-talk has big impact on how we feel and what we do. Encouraging your child to talk to themselves in a kind and positive way can help improve their wellbeing and help them manage stress.

When you hear them speaking about themselves in a way that isn’t kind, you can:

Draw it to their attention
Ask them if what they are saying is true
Get them to think of a more helpful thought
Encourage your child to ‘speak’ to themselves the way they would speak to a best friend
Regularly remind your child of their strengths and accomplishments.

Some examples of positive self-talk are:

I can do it!
I am proud of myself
It doesn’t matter if I make a mistake
I can always improve so I will keep on trying
I’ll use some of the strategies we’ve learned
Every day is a fresh start

By doing these simple things, we are supporting our young people to work towards having optimal mental health and wellbeing.

As we head into the holidays, I have also included this week’s article from our Happy Families subscription “The Habits of Happy Families”.

Happy holidays! Stay safe!

Kind regards,

Vanessa Moore

Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader (MHWL)

Farewell