Why teaching children the importance of Self Care is crucial to building a happier, healthier generation of adults
With thanks to our friends over at The Positive Doodle Diary for this guest blog
To be self aware is an important life skill. As adults we are only now learning that this is the foundation for our sense of wellbeing. When we practice self care we are noticing that we need something, either for our mind, body or soul. For children, this can be translated as simply ‘taking care of ourselves’. Of course as we grow up, we learn that - when we are thirsty we need to get a drink, when we are tired we need to sleep, when we are angry we need to calm down, and this helps us manage ourselves and stay mentally and physically healthy.
When we tap into our minds and our bodies, we are taking the first step to ‘noticing’ what we might need. To nurture emotional intelligence in children, we need to start integrating this early on. For example, if we are feeling worried or anxious, we need to consider what might help us calm down and process some of those feelings. For a child, stimulating their mind with something creative like Lego could help, or even drawing some of those emotions on paper. Whilst self care can sometimes be viewed as ‘self-indulgence’, anyone who has used self care to support good mental health, knows it is a more complex picture. It is our job, to re-enforce the importance of these little ‘acts of kindness’ in order to help achieve that sense of wellbeing and content.
Taking care of ourselves, is a great way to start the journey to self love as well, and as we all know creating a stable relationship with ourselves, can be a complex and often winding road that many of us don’t begin until we are in adulthood. If we can start this journey of loving ourselves enough to seek out the tools to help ourselves from a younger age, the chances are we will have a more positive relationship with our mental and physical health later on down the line.
One way to talk to your child about self care (or taking care of ourselves) is to ask them what their future self would be thankful for. How do you think your future self would feel if you decided not to wash for a month? Might it be quite unpleasant? What do you think you would smell like? Some children think that activities that don’t involve play are boring, so, using these visualisations can sometimes help them understand WHY we need to take good care of ourselves. By using their future self as a way to engage their imagination to create alternative realities, we can help them see the value of self care and understand the consequences of not taking proper care of themselves!
Another way of helping them understand why we make these conscious decisions to keep healthy, is by rolling the notion of ‘physical’ and ‘mental’ wellness into the same conversation from a young age. Of course, as adults we know that one can’t really exist well without the other, and they are very much interlinked. Health is health, both physical and mental and we need to make that clear right from the beginning. Being happy and healthy is something that is both on the outside AND the inside.
So, how can we instil these very adult concepts in a child's mind and introduce them to a new routine? The very best way to do anything with children is to model it. If you show them how you look after yourself, they will watch and learn in the best way. Explain to them (even if it seems obvious) why you are doing an act of self care. For example, if for you being quiet with a book and reading helps you relax, invite them to join you and explain why this is self care for your mind. Explain the positive benefits such as calming your heart rate down; regulating your breathing; and the physical act of resting your body. Most children are now familiar with mindfulness in schools, so try and work it into your home life too. As their positive belief system around taking care of themselves grows, you will start to see them doing it for themselves too. They will begin to find their own coping mechanisms, like breathing techniques, when they are feeling panicked, or using affirmations to help boost them up.
At the Positive Planner, we have formulated a way for adults to find a better balance of life through writing, mood tracking and planning self care. So we wanted to do the same for children as well. We created a journal called The Positive Doodle Diary which empowers children with confidence though the act of creativity. It builds resilient mindsets, provides a screen free space to work through emotions and includes the calming act of colouring to bring a sense of peace. The link between the brain and the hand is a powerful and important one. Anything that goes through muscular memory will be retained much longer than visual or auditory stimulus. Messages we send to our brains though writing and doodling form new pathways and that’s why focusing on the positive and showing ourselves acts of kindness really works when boosting morale and a sense of wellbeing.
Our children live in a world that has many stressors, combined with a rollercoaster of hormones they experience as they grow. So, emotional literacy is one of the most important skills we can impart to them. Ultimately by allowing them to find what makes them feel joy, stay calm and be well, we are allowing them to access their own bank of oxytocin and coping mechanisms that will help keep them happy and mentally more stable.
Writing in a journal can help them work out what they might need, and by articulating their emotions they can start to understand themselves more as they grow, build resilience and show themselves compassion. Emotional wellbeing has been shown time and time again to be one of the foundation stones to not just our social relationships, educational attainment and life satisfaction, but even to our physical health too.