Role modelling mental wellbeing activities at home now will help develop the tools your kids need in an ever-changing world
Image sources: West Yas Academy, The Pearl Academy, Al Bateen Academy
World Mental Health Day is on 10 October and it’s a great springboard from which to service your mental health wellbeing for you and your kids, no matter how old they are.
Over at Aldar Education, counsellors and teachers have been focusing on the mental health wellbeing of their students, especially during these times of the pandemic.
That’s not to say, however, that mental health wellbeing was not being tackled prior to the pandemic. Aldar Academy has a robust counselling service that has been extremely active for both students and those busy teachers and staff well before the days of the pandemic.
Each Aldar Academy has personalised their way of addressing mental health wellbeing activities, such as Mindful Mondays and Wellbeing Wednesdays (We see a lesson in alliteration there, don’t you?) to monthly Happiness measures and virtual social clubs.
But as parents, what can you do at home to continue on creating awareness of mental health wellbeing among your little and not so little ones.
Mental wellbeing at home
So Team Yalla zoomed Kate McMillan, the Group Head of Safeguarding & Inclusion at Aldar Education, to ask for some useful tips.
Kate shares with us how Aldar Education counsellors focus on emotional literacy in helping young children develop the language around emotions
“So if all I ever feel is angry or sad, that’s not a depth of expression that helps understand and where it’s really coming from,” she says.
Kate points out that disappointment or rejection could be the cause of feeling sad or angry. “It could be slightly more completed emotions that lead to that anger,” she says.
“So self-regulations and self-reflection becomes a really important part of being able to express, so you work out what’s the trigger, to know what the anxiety is about, what I can put in place as a strategy to manage that, and put it in practice.”
This is where you, the mums and dads come in.
Kate is asking you to also share with your children that when, for example you go for a run or exercise that this is self-care for your mental health and say to your child: ‘This is my relaxation, not just for me physically’. ‘When I have a cup of tea and read my book, it’s about self-care. I am feeling stressed and I need a break’.
“I think parents sharing in an age appropriate way what we do as a family to take care about what we do to take care of our mental health is a really positive way forward,” says Kate.
And Team Yalla couldn’t agree more.
For more information about Aldar Academies, please go to: aldaracademies.com
