Children's Mental Health Week

Dear parents and carers,
6 - 12 February 2023 is Children’s Mental Health Week. The week is run by children’s mental health
charity Place2Be to raise awareness of the importance of children and young people’s mental health.

This year’s theme is Let’s Connect.

What's it all about?
Let’s Connect is about making meaningful connections, and for Children’s Mental Health Week 2023,
Place2Be is encouraging people to connect with others in healthy, rewarding and meaningful ways.
As parents and carers, you are an important role model to your child. How you connect with friends
and family will influence your child, and how they develop their own friendships and relationships. For
example, how you greet people and maintain friendships, but also how you forgive people or say sorry
when you need to.

What can you do?
Here are a few simple ways you can connect with your child and help them to make
meaningful connections.

1. Connect with your child in everyday ways
   Moments of connection (and re-connection)
   are really important in child-caregiver
   relationships. For example, when you pick them
   up from school, or come in from work, try to
   give them your full attention and see if this
   helps you feel better connected as you hug,
   talk, smile and hear about their day. Watching
   your child play and joining in is really important
   to them – so put your phone away and have a
   bit of fun – being playful is good for adults, too!
   With your older child, you may find times such
   as car journeys a good time to talk, or to reconnect by playing music you both like. It is
   important to be accessible to a teenager when
   they need to talk. You may have to be there ‘on
   their terms’ and be ready to listen.

2. Talk to your child about important
connections
This could include talking about family
members, friends, neighbours, childminders,
people in the local community and others in
your faith group (if you have one). Remember
it’s ok to talk about people they miss, for
example, family members who live in a
different country or people who have died.
Children learn a lot from their parents about
how to express their feelings, including the joy
that comes with feeling connected to others
and the sadness that comes with missing
others.

3. Talk to your child about their friends
As children become teenagers, their friendship
groups become increasingly important to them.
Be open to hearing about their friendships and
try to listen without judgement.
tips for parents and carers
childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk
Ask them about their life in real life and online. You
may not think online friends are ‘real friends’, but your
child may feel differently. Losing friends, feeling left
out or being bullied is very painful and your child needs
to know you will support them through these difficult
times.

4. Connect by taking an interest in your child’s world
As adults we can sometimes be dismissive of the things
that our children and teenagers are interested in, e.g.
their music, fashion, what they watch etc. If you do take
an interest in these things, however, you may feel better
connected to your child and the important things in
their world. This can lead to other conversations about
other things in their lives that matter to them.

5. Find time to connect as a family
Family life can become busy and stressful, so it’s
important to find some time where you connect
together. This could include simple things like cooking,
watching a film, playing a game, going to the park or
even doing the family shop together.

6. Try to resolve conflict and re-connect after arguments
Arguments and moments of disconnection are bound
to happen in families - between your children, between
yourself and your children and between yourself and
your partner, if you have one. It is important that
children learn how to disagree in appropriate ways,
how to say sorry and how to make amends when they
have done something wrong. They will learn a lot about
how to do these things from you - so try to model the
behaviour you want to see in your children. Talk to them
about how to re-connect with friends after arguments
including what they can do to help repair relationships.

For more information visit: 

https://www.childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk/schools/