Emotional wellbeing

Emotional wellbeing

Children and young people experiencing barriers to attendance are likely to be experiencing challenges in their emotional wellbeing, for example, worry / anxiety, low mood and/or frustration. Adults need to be aware of their own emotional literacy skills so that they can identify behaviours that suggest that a child or young person is feeling a certain way and can talk to them in a constructive way.

Ways of fostering emotional literacy and wellbeing for both the adult and the child or young person may include:

• Knowing when you are feeling a certain way;
• Naming that feeling or emotion;
• Sharing this feeling with trusted other/s;
• Identifying personal strategies that alleviate difficult emotions and encourage feelings of contentment or ease;
• Applying useful strategies to promote emotional wellbeing;
• Recognising that emotions are transient and will change; and
• Accepting that there will be commonplace stressors.

I've had several issues with my mental health (young person).

“We spend a lot of time discussing with the pupils, what is anxiety? How do you manage it? And actually, that it’s okay to be anxious” (school staff).

“I talk to the pupils about, and demonstrate to them that, to perform at your best you need to have that level of anxiety. It gives them comfort that they can be a bit anxious in situations and everyone successful in life has been or is” (school staff).

"They didn't get the fact that mental health was a thing" (young person).

“I do know that that early on in during lockdown… he mentioned that he was having suicidal thoughts” (parent).

"The parents that I speak to don't know how to deal with mental health issues or deal with their children’s anxiety, and they're pulling their hair out. How to deal with it; I think that's one of the key difficulties at the moment” (school staff).