It’s children’s mental health week, an initiative created by Place2Be in creating awareness and building support around young one’s mental health.

This year’s theme is ‘Express Yourself’.

The lockdowns, guidelines and general domino effect caused by the pandemic has left a lot of the population’s mental states in poor condition and kids are no exception. 

School has been cancelled and lessons at home have been introduced where a lot of children find it hard to concentrate – I mean, they’re iPads and PS4’s are in the next room, how could they?!

But this week (Feb 1st – 7th) marks an important week for child mental health awareness. The charity, Place2Be began the CMH week for that exact purpose, to shine more light on the importance of young people’s wellbeing, especially during these troubling times.

Here are a few of our suggestions that you can adopt to nurture your child’s MH and get their creative juices flowing and their hearts racing! 

Get creative 

This year’s theme for Child Mental Health Week is ‘Express Yourself’ and self-expression is key to an individual’s happiness. Allowing your child to be creative keeps up moral and wellbeing, here a few activities you could adopt:

  • Painting / sketching 
  • Dressing up as characters 
  • Creating a play/show 
  • Pot making / sculpting 

Exercise 

A crucial part to keeping healthy both mentally and physically is to get them 30 minutes in a day. Due to gyms and leisure centres being shut for the foreseeable, we’re left to use our immediate environment to get active – confined to the local park, the living room or the garden.

Thankfully, YouTube is free to access and has an endless amount of exercise and fitness videos across many different genres of workout. A virtual coach to get you and the kids motivated makes keeping fit while confined to the indoors that much more achievable. 

Portrait of African American man and his teen son sitting together on sofa in living room laughing while watching 3D movie and eating popcorn

Movie night 

Film is the best escapism, especially watching movies made for young people. The animation, narrative, characters and music are vibrant and feel more rewarding to absorb. 

We’ve suggested some heartwarming, stunning pictures in the list below that you can stick on this weekend:

  • Spirited Away (2001)
  • Big Hero 6 (2014)
  • Ratatouille (2007)
  • Lilo & Stitch (2002)
  • My Neighbour Totoro (1988)