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young minds matter
Like adults, many children might show stress through changes in their behaviour, such as through tantrums, often due to the inability to cope with multiple stressors such as lack of sleep, hunger, or multiple setbacks in a day.
Whether you are entering grade school, high school, college or university, this time of year can indeed bring conflicting emotions. You can start to positively impact your mental health right now, and every action you take to improve your mental health can positively impact your results (that includes your grades, your relationships and your overall sense of joy)!
When you teach your child "calm breathing," you are using a technique that works to slow down his/her breathing, combating upset, stressed and anxious feelings. Teaching a child to use calm breathing to regulate their emotions is important because it shows them how to change their breathing to minimize the effects of their emotions.
There are places in a child's life where choice is minimal. However, that is true at any time in life. Choices, power and control are all elements of possible confusion and frustration in a child's world.
In a teaching career that spanned 40 years, I knew that my students were going to learn, in varying degrees, the core subjects. Learning how to get along with others and get along with themselves was a universal lesson. Every student needed those skills no matter where their future took them.
When I read Kim John Payne's book, Simplicity Parenting one message leapt off the page. Normal personality quirks combined with the stress of "too much" can propel children into the realm of disorder. A child who is systematic may be pushed into obsessive behaviours. A dreamy child may lose the ability to focus.
The ability to imagine what another person would think or feel is referred to as the theory of mind. It is this that helps us realize that another person's mind is distinct from our own. When six-year olds point out physical flaws they are simply responding to their own curiosity. They have no idea that this might hurt people. To realize the impact of these observations would require the ability to be in someone else's head.
I have been to 14 funerals since turning 17 years old. Fourteen people who were friends, co-workers, crushes, debate partners, school mates and amazing members of the world's community. Fourteen people whose families and friends I sat next to at funeral services, whom I heard whisper "If I would have known," "How could I miss the signs?" and the awful "How could they do this to us?"
“Girls with ADHD are often missed and misdiagnosed right up to adulthood.”
"We have 10-year-old kids taking their lives. Something is terribly wrong."
