As everyone continues to wade through the ongoing lockdown, our children and young people may be starting to get a bit frazzled. Even the most resilient among them are starting to get fed up with the restrictions on their movements and the loss of interaction with their friends.

But as we mark Children’s Mental Health, Action Mental Health New Life Counselling is offering tried and tested tips to help parents support their children and teenagers through the pandemic – tips that may also help parents negotiate these trying times.

The tips are known support mechanisms to help alleviate stress, tension and to promote a greater sense of well-being and resilience.

Encourage your children to:

• Talk to someone they trust. Sharing feelings, fears and anxieties helps to lessen their impact.
• Get out into nature and take notice of what they see around them. Our natural environment offers scientifically proven benefits to our mental health and well-being by reducing stress, tension and anxiety
• Have their own little mini dance party – in their bedroom, living room or even kitchen, like chart-topping Sophie Ellis-Bextor who got the nation dancing with her Kitchen Disco during the first lockdown. Technology will even allow their friends to join them!
• Zone out and away from stress triggers by colouring or doodling – art and creativity are known to alleviate tension
• Laugh out loud, in whatever way gets them giggling
• Start a new hobby
• Maintain a good sleep routine
• Detox from technology for a while
• Volunteer – giving of one’s time is one of the Five Ways to Well-Being and is proven to make people feel good about themselves
• Escape from daily life by reading a good book
• Be kind to yourself and others

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AMH New Life Counselling is an Organisational Member of BACP and adheres to the Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions https://www.bacp.co.uk/events-and-resources/ethics-and-standards/ethical-framework-for-the-counselling-professions/

The Five Ways to Well-Being are important principals which aim to support and foster better well-being and which consequently, have a positive impact on our mental health.

They are: to Give, Take Notice, Keep Learning, Keep Active and Connect. Inherent in many of those key elements is ‘creativity’. It’s an unwritten component of each of them, and illustrates the uniqueness of each individual and how they embrace each of the Five Ways – we use creative thinking to decide.

As we celebrate the theme ‘Express Yourself’ during Children’s Mental Health we are delighted to bring you an amazing story by a Belfast boy who decided to make the most of the lockdown, by ‘expressing himself’ through creative writing.

The Chronicles of Captain Joey

By Matthew Hunter – aged 10

Inspired by his 8-month-old baby brother, Joey

Part One

Boom! went the thunder; flash! went the lightning, making the entire beach go blue. Baby Joey, who just turned eight months old, was in his stroller being pushed by his mother. Along the boardwalk, she said:

“We’d better get home now as this storm is getting worse.”

Joey’s mother only got the words out of her mouth when a bolt of lightning struck Joey’s stroller. The sky turned black and Joey glowed green! There was a deafening silence all around. Joey noticed that his mother was gone!

“Where’s my mother?” he wondered to himself, as a sparkling light shone down from the dark sky and shone right upon baby Joey.

“Come to us, King Joey,” an alien said.

Joey began floating into the green light and noticed a strange flopping in the wind.

“What is that flapping on my back?” he said to himself.

Suddenly, he heard a squeaky, but scary voice, saying:

“Welcome Captain Joey, our Hero of the Seas – we have a special mission for you. You have been selected by the mighty ocean gods from Mars to fight the evil crimes in the ocean. A gang of crazy pirates and crabs have stolen our Aculus and we cannot cross The Milky Way. If do not complete the mission then we will keep your mother – mwaahaahaa!”

So Captain Joey was launched into the Atlantic Ocean with only his dummy, a cape and a bottle of milk with a green substance, which would bring him places he wouldn’t ever think of.

Part Two

Joey came to the Milky Way with a boom and a bang! He burst into Milky Way with a swoosh and took out the guards. Joey took a swig of the green substance and felt power in his eyes – Joey got laser eyes! He opened some massive doors and found a fellow baby saying “help me, help me,” so Joey used his laser eyes to cut the ropes to free him, and gave him the special milk, and said: “What’s your name?”

“Ronan” said the baby. Joey asked him: “Would you like to be recruited?”

“Hell Yeah!” said Ronan, and they walked miles and miles to get to the aculus, when they stumbled upon the Milky Monster.

“Roar!” said the Monster. Boom! Flash! Bang! Went Ronan in his first battle.

They walked for miles and miles and miles more to find the main boss to find the aculus. They stumbled upon their greatest boss in the planet and had the greatest fight of their lives and used the last of their powers, shooting one big laser beam into the monster. It exploded with goo and the aculus was inside him.

They walked an amazing number of miles, back to base and gave the aculus back to the aliens, who then gave them back their mums.

The End… Or Is It?

Our AMH MensSana team have been sharing their wisdom this week during Children’s Mental Health Week – here are their top tips to help your child open up and start talking about how they are feeling.

Encourage discussion and lead by example

Good conversations often happen when you are doing something else with your child/young person for example out walking, driving somewhere, painting/drawing together or cooking/baking. Children and young people often open up in the middle of doing other things. Make the most of your time together to talk. Sometimes it can be difficult to get your child/young person to open up so lead by example – talk about your day.

Could be images of doing these activities together.

Journaling

Journaling can help children and young people process feelings and communicate ideas through art and writing.

How to start journaling

• Let your child or YP choose a book to journal in – explain this is a place to record thoughts and feelings. Your child/Young person can be as creative as they like they might draw pictures, write letters or stories.
• Get a pen/pencil if your child or Young person wants to get creative – coloured pens/pencils, coloured papered, glue and scissors.

Worry Jar

A worry Jar is a place for your child to put their worries so they don’t have to keep thinking about them. Enabling Children to open up and talk about how they are feeling

CREATE THE WORRY JAR

• Find a glass, plastic jar, or a box and have your child decorate it. Ask your child to label it (e.g., Sabrina’s Worry Jar).
• Once the jar is completed, cut up strips of paper Tell your child to write down all their worries, explaining how they can’t be in their head and the jar at the same time. 10 to 15 minutes a day after school but not right before bed to be worry time.
• Every now and then they can take a worry out and tackle it head on.
• When the worry is gone they can throw it away.
• They can add and remove as many worries as they want.

Feelings Scavenger Hunt

A feelings scavenger hunt can help your child learn about different emotions.

1) Obtain images representing different emotions.

2) Cut out the images and hide them.

3) Make a list of all the emotions your kid needs to find

4) When he finds a card, ask him to name at least one thing that makes him feel like the emotion displayed.

Reading about feelings

For younger children using books to describe feelings and asking your child a time that they might have felt this emotion- starts conversations about emotions and feelings.

The Way I am Feeling Janan Cain is a brilliant book beautifully illustrated, below is a link to it being read.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITPUxVQ6UIk

As our younger children endure further weeks away from the routine of the classroom and the comfort of their friends, many may be feeling lost, alone or at least less than motivated to carry on their normal lives.

There are many ways to help our children and young people negotiate this strange period, and during Children’s Mental Health Week, we want to share the benefits of Action Mental Health’s Healthy Me programme – specially designed to support and promote better mental health among 8 to 11 year olds.

One facet of the programme is the Emoji Game. This is a fun and effective programme which employs the principals of a learning system used in autism education – helping those who have difficulties conveying their emotions, through pictures and illustrations.

Outside the field of autism education, it poses a great opportunity for children in mainstream education confront their own emotions that they might not yet be able to fully articulate.

AMH MensSana project worker Michael McClean explains how it is used:

“PECS is used in autism education but we use a thing we call the ‘Emoji Game’ in Healthy Me with KS2 where they have to act out an emoji. It’s like a game of ‘charades’ where a volunteer from the class acts out the emoji on the card whilst the class tries to guess the mood.

“Time permitting we can discuss when you might experience the mood or how you would know if someone was feeling this way? Another way of doing it is to get a volunteer to hold the emoji card behind their head, so they can’t see it but the class can. The volunteer then picks people to give them clues to help them to guess the mood.”

Games like this open up opportunities that families can try at home, especially those younger ones who can find it difficult to adequately convey their feelings – which may be subject to fluctuation because of the ongoing pandemic.

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We are delighted to be joined by the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People, Koulla Yiasouma and the Interim Mental Health Champion for NI, Siobhán O’Neill.

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Koulla offers some advice on how children and young people can #ExpressYourself and talk about how they are feeling.

We partnered up with Professor Siobhan O’Neill, at the beginning of the week for her weekly column in Belfast Live, there she discussed “How to encourage your children to express their feelings as the pandemic continues”

Children’s Mental Health Week is a chance for all of us to take a moment and concentrate on the wellbeing of a group who have lost so much as a result of this pandemic. This year’s theme is ‘Express Yourself’; encouraging our children and young people to finding ways to share their feelings and emotions through creative ways.

The pandemic has resulted in children being separated from their friends and teachers for a long time. Many children have lost loved ones and may now see the world as a very scary, dangerous and uncertain place. The additional stress of separation and pressure of home schooling, without the benefits of interaction with friends, may feel unmanageable and overwhelming.

Recognising what we are feeling, and understanding where the feeling came from, are the first steps to managing our mental health.  It can often be difficult for parents, carers and educators to know how to best approach conversations with our children about their emotions.  So here are some tips I would suggest on talking about mental health and feelings with your children:

• Make time to be fully present with your child; this can be really difficult, especially if we are attempting to juggle our work roles and home schooling. Devoting even 15 or 30 minutes to your child, and focusing solely on them at that time, will help them to feel more connected to you.
• “Do” things together; this will feel much less threatening and challenging than simply trying to have an in-depth discussion. Ask your child to help you do a household chore (they may even enjoy the feeling of contributing); or help your child with an art or craft activity. During the activity, find opportunities to ask your child open questions about what they are doing online and what life is like for them.
• Have “shoulder to shoulder” conversations; it can be easier to talk about difficult feelings when we are not sitting face to face. Go for a walk, or a drive together and use that time to have a chat about how everything is going for them. Ask about the positive as well as the negative. Even very small children will be able to tell you about the best part of their day. Children can be reluctant to say that something was unpleasant or makes them feel bad. I find that asking “what would you like to change?” is a good way of uncovering any problems or difficulties.
• School work is important but many children are exhausted and stressed, which makes learning impossible. Maintaining a good relationship with your child should be your top priority. If your child knows that you are there for them they will be better placed to ask for help and support. 
• Accept their feelings and empathise with them. Parents can unintentionally dismiss a child’s worries or concerns in an effort to be reassuring, and this can result in frustration and a feeling of being disconnected. Listening intently, and providing validation are important. Saying “that must have been really difficult for you” and asking questions such as, “tell me more about what that is like for you” really helps them feel heard and understood. It is only when you understand their worries that you are in a position to problem solve with them. 
• If you have young children, imaginary play is a really valuable tool to help them express themselves. Role play using their favourite characters or toys, and encourage them to discuss how the characters are feeling in different situations.
• If your child is struggling to express how they feel, get creative and ask them to describe their feeling as a colour or shape. You could draw the feeling or ask the child to show you where the feeling is in their body. Again, once the feeling has been identified you can together work out ways to shift it by helping them work out solutions to the underlying problem, and using distraction techniques or movement to change their mood (a little shake or dance can work wonders).
• Be honest with your child; we shouldn’t expect life to be normal right now, and there are many things that we are uncertain about. Parents should focus on providing safety and giving some level of structure and certainty on a day-to-day basis. Make a schedule for each day and be sure to include fun activities, favourite meals and special treats such as family movies. It’s also important to be hopeful and discuss what you might do when we are able to travel and see our friends again.
• Children rely on parents and teachers for cues about whether they should feel afraid. They will subconsciously detect when you are struggling and will mirror those feelings. It is therefore vital that you look after your own mental health, so that you can look after them. Use the Take 5 Steps to Wellbeing (see my previous column), and check out the covidwellbeingNI.info website for information on sources of support.

This year’s focus on Children’s Mental Health comes in a year with a difference – when our homes became classrooms and when our young people were separated from their friends, denied their favourite sports and set on a course into the unknown.

As Children’s Mental Health Week 2021 focuses on the theme of ‘Express Yourself’ – it follows a year in which young people’s mental health has been adversely affected by the pandemic. A recent survey by The Prince’s Trust found that one in four young people in Northern Ireland have said they feel unable to cope with life since the Covid crisis began. Nearly half (45%) of 16 to 25-year-olds here say their mental health has got worse from the start of the pandemic.

The report also found 55% say they “always” or “often” feel anxious, while another poignant finding revealed that 65% feel like they are “missing out on being young.”

But help is indeed out there. Action Mental Health is here, too, to support people of all ages experiencing periods of mental ill health. We are also in the business of resilience building. So, over the next week we will be offering parents ways in which they can help their children wade through these coming weeks of continued lockdown. We will also offer tips and hints directly to children and teenagers on finding ways to encourage them to “Express Yourself” while relieving the stresses and strains of this most unusual period in their lives.

The week long campaign will help young people express their feelings, to seek help or speak out about lockdown, the frustrations of cancelled exams and not seeing their friends, and being anxious about their future. It will also feature some of the tips, games, techniques and skills employed in Northern Ireland’s schools by AMH MensSana, through our Healthy Me and Provoking Thought programmes, which are designed for primary and secondary children, respectively.

AMH MensSana will be hosting mental health awareness sessions for parents and carers during the week, on February 2 and 3 and you can find out more here

Our campaign will also include advice from our specialist teams like our AMH EveryBODY eating disorder service as well as our counselling service, AMH New Life Counselling.

Action Mental Health is delighted to have the support, for this campaign, of Northern Ireland’s Mental Health Champion, Professor Siobhan O’Neill and the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People, Koulla Yiasouma.

January is National Walk Your Dog Month –

If you’re a dog owner, you’ll know that every month is walk your dog month, our furry friends need regular exercise all year round! But during January – with Christmas a distant memory and the cold weather continuing – it can be tempting to put off walking your dog, or do the bare minimum.

Walking your dog can bring benefits for both of you, which can be especially important particularly this January!

Exercise

Regular exercise with your dog is great for both of you and improves your fitness without the need to hit the gym – which are closed at the moment!

Mental wellbeing

Getting out and about can be good for your mental wellbeing as it takes you away from the stresses of everyday life. With time to process your thoughts, the effect of your dog’s excitable happiness when they realise it’s time for walkies, and the shared camaraderie and exchanges with other dog walkers (socially distanced!) will leave you feeling brighter, more enthusiastic and less anxious.

Fresh air

If you’ve been spending time indoors with windows closed and the heating on, you may have forgotten just how good it feels to get some fresh air. Breathing deeply can clear your lungs, unblock a congested nose, give you more energy and focus your mind. It’s good for lowering heart rate and blood pressure too.

Plus, being outside gives your dog chance to be a dog! Dogs love sniffing out scents and exploring; so, while it may not be the fresh air they’re breathing in, they’ll appreciate the benefits it brings. It will also aid their food digestion, and energy levels.

Technology downtime

If you’re guilty of spending a lot of time on your mobile phone, games console, or watching box sets on TV, going outside can be a welcome distraction. Take in your local area, absorb your surroundings, and enjoy living in the moment. Spend time focussing purely on your dog; run around the park with them or take a ball to play fetch. They’ll appreciate your attention. Your tech will still be there when you get back.

Now grab that lead, put on your warm coat, and off you go!

Why not share your walk photos with us on social media. Get outside, take notice of your surroundings & reap the benefits . . .

Always check the latest Covid regulations information and guidance on how to enjoy a safe and healthy walk

Download the brochure to find out how we are supporting our community in the wider Northern Trust locality. Established in response to the Government’s Protect Life Suicide Prevention and Making Life Better Stategies, a range of key community, volutary and statutory sector stakeholders – including Action Mental Health – are working collectively, they are know as “The Northern Area Cross Sector Protect Life Implementation Group”

Action Mental Health are proud to be part of this area wide partnership – called PLIG – that is focused on the prevention of suicide. Find out more about PLIG by watching this video below!

https://vimeo.com/496981632

Find out more about AMH MensSana and AMH New Horizons Antrim, 2 of our services in the Northern Trust Area.

Follow the campaign on our social media channels #ReadyToHelp