6 mental health recovery-focused techniques to help your child speak up about what matters.

The 5^th – 11^th February 2024 marks Children's Mental Health Week.

This year's theme is 'My Voice Matters’. Children's Mental Health Week is a mental health awareness week that empowers, equips, and gives a voice to all children and young people in the UK. Mental health recovery also focuses on empowering people and giving them the skills to advocate for themselves and self-manage their mental health. This article discusses recovery-focused techniques that will teach your children that their voice matters. Warning…doing these for your child will also improve your own wellbeing.

1. Empower yourself, and you'll empower your child

Empowerment can dramatically affect a person's well-being, such as by reducing self-doubt and easing depression. When your child feels more hopeful and is confident to pursue goals, their motivation to build resilience, advocate for themselves and stay well grows, too. You can help your child increase their self-esteem by teaching them assertive communication skills, modelling empowerment yourself, encouraging shared decision-making, and showing them how to build healthy relationships.

2. Learn simple strategies to manage stress, anxiety, and depression – and teach them to your children

Stress, depression, and anxiety can impact physical and mental health in many ways. Prolonged symptoms can negatively affect how your child behaves, expresses their needs, and interacts with others. Learning about stress, anxiety, and depression will help you as a parent to identify symptoms and know what to do to help your child speak up about how they are feeling. Understanding how to reduce symptoms and implementing techniques will teach your child how to manage these challenges for themselves too.

3. Consider the five ways to wellbeing

Some techniques that can help with stress, depression and anxiety include using the five ways to well-being. Each of the five elements improves mood differently, and they will all help give your child the confidence to interact with others positively. The five ways to well-being include keeping active, learning new skills, being present, connecting and giving to others. You can start small if you feel your child may benefit from incorporating these into their daily lives more. Simple changes can make a significant impact.

4. Encourage self-expression

It is essential for your child to feel confident enough to communicate their ideas and feelings to others. Self-expression allows your child to find creative ways to explore how they feel and communicate them in ways that may be too complicated by words alone. For example, some expressive outlets include art, writing, journaling, dancing, music, and drama. As well as increasing self-esteem, self-expression may give your child a sense of achievement and allow them the opportunity to learn about their emotions.

5. About Emotions

Did you know you and your child can learn other techniques to help manage emotions? Emotions affect how your child thinks, feels, makes decisions, and responds to situations. As such, emotional regulation and learning how to communicate about emotions can be a powerful tool in supporting mental health. One technique you can use today is to notice and name how you feel right now and tell your child about the emotion you are experiencing. Then, ask your child how they feel about what you have expressed.

6. Show self-compassion and prioritise self-care…for you and your child

The way we think about ourselves can also have a dramatic effect on our well-being. Research shows that self-care and self-compassion can significantly improve a person's confidence, resilience, and motivation. This will affect whether your child can express what matters to them. You can show your child how to place equal importance on their needs by teaching them how to care for their minds and bodies (self-care). You can also support them to think positively and compassionately towards themselves (self-compassion) by talking about how they are enough and speaking positively about yourself and them.

Final thoughts…. think about exercise and food and its impact on mood

Food and exercise are other factors that can affect your child's mood. Our bodies and minds are connected; looking after both is essential for good mental health. Diets that consist of wholesome, nutrient-rich foods, relaxation and exercise can positively impact your child's development, concentration levels, sleep, and disposition, which will have a knock-on effect on their energy levels, as well as their confidence and emotions. It could be worth considering if any changes in food and exercise can help.

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This article has been written by someone with a lived experience of mental health challenges. They learned about the topics and tools expressed here by taking the free, short, recovery-focused courses offered by New Leaf Recovery and Wellbeing College. The college is managed by HPFT and anyone over 18 living in Hertfordshire can access the college anytime by going to www.newleafcollege.co.uk or calling 01442 864 966.

The free courses relevant to the topics in this article include:

• Assertive communication skills and Building healthy relationships
• No decision about me without me: shared decision-making
• Understanding and managing depression
• Understanding and managing stress
• Understanding and managing anxiety
• Five steps to wellbeing
• Art expression for mental wellbeing
• Art journalling to support mental health
• Writing for self-expression
• Understanding emotions
• Self-compassion for daily living
• Practising self-care
• Healthy living, living well
•  

And more!

For the complete list of courses or the current timetable, visit: https://www.newleafcollege.co.uk/Courses-A-Z and https://www.newleafcollege.co.uk/Courses/Book-A-Course