There are many reasons why a child may not live with loved ones such as parents and caregivers. Perhaps you're a military family, recently separated or you have moved abroad away from close family members. Our new toolkit, When We Live Apart, is a small resource pack of 10 activities to help children explore and communicate their feelings around their separation. We also have three more new resources for you. Keep reading to find out more!
We recently had a message from a Be Happy Hub member who was supporting a child whose mum lives abroad. The child lives in the UK with her aunt, but due to time differences, the child doesn't get to speak to her mother as much as she would like. Whilst we had a few resources that could help, we wanted to make something more specific as we know that this could help lots of other children too. Take a look inside our new activity pack below.
When We're Apart - A Resource Pack For Children Who Live Away from Parents, Caregivers and Loved Ones
Our resource pack includes 10 activities to help your child explore their emotions around their separation and feel happy and calm. Let's run through the activities below!
Explore your different locations
The first activities in our toolkit are all about helping your child explore the similarities and differences between where they live and their loved one lives. If it's in another country, this is a great opportunity for your child to explore the difference in cultures. If it's a different city or place in the UK, they can have fun asking their loved one all about it to write about in their journal. Can they do their own research too and impress their loved one next time they speak? This activity is all about keeping minds busy and focused, being able to picture where their loved one lives in their mind can bring comfort.
Look forward to when they next speak
One of the hardest parts about being away from people we love is wanting to tell them everything that happens as it happens! We have built activities all around helping your child to process the things they want to say - writing down things they want to tell or ask their loved one can help them to feel calm and prepared. This also helps if phone calls or video calls are time sensitive, as it helps your child know what they want to say before the call.
Look back and forward to happier times
This resource pack also has activities designed to help your children explore positive emotions, by thinking back and ahead to happy times. In Our Happiest Moment - can your child think back to and draw their happiest moment with their loved one? And don't forget to fill in our When We're Next Together Bucket List so they can think about all the fun things they want to do when they are reunited!
Explore emotions and think of ways to feel calm
Lastly, this resource pack also includes activities to help children explore their separation anxiety and how they feel when apart from their loved ones. We ask children to come up with things they can do when they are missing their loved one - it could be doing an activity from our toolkit, talking to someone they trust or doing something calming and distracting. Our last activity, 'My Needs' gets your children thinking about what they need to feel their best selves when living apart from their loved one - how can they ensure they get their needs met? Who can help them?
If you like the sound of this toolkit, you can download it by signing up to the Be Happy Hub now! Already a member? Click Enter the Hub at the top of the page.
What else is new this week?
My Wishing Well
Oh wishing well, wishing well, how do you do?
Wishing well, wishing well, I have three wishes for you!
A wish for happiness, and for love too,
And finally a wish I hope will come true!
My Wishing Well is all about helping your child explore what they need to feel happy and loved, can they make a wish for love and happiness? They also get another wish for free - here they can wish for anything they want! Don't forget to read out our poem aloud to help those wishes come true.
Why this activity helps you as the caregiver or professional - This activity can help you tend to your child's needs by seeing what they wish for to feel happy and loved. It could be something like, 'for mum and dad to stop arguing' - which means that you can work to put positive changes into place. Of course, we know that not all wishes can come true, such as asking for an expensive gift or to fly! This activity is all about putting the child in control in exploring and communicating their needs.
New Coronation resource! - The King's Feelings
The King's Feeling is a fun activity for younger minds this week, can they draw the emotion labelled on our King's faces? Bonus points for making up a story as to why he may be feeling each one! Looking for more Coronation-themed resources for schools or at home? Click here to view more!
This week's *FRIDAY FREEBIE!* - For Mailing List subscribers only
I AM A VIP!
This week we want everyone to feel like a VIP! This activity gets your children thinking about the word important, why are they important? When do they feel important? What can they do when they don’t feel important?
Directions: Have your children fill in their very own VIP pass by filling in our prompts. This is best completed as a discussion activity, you could talk about what the word important means, reaffirming that even though we are all different and unique, we all matter.
Missed this resource? Paying members can access all our Friday Freebies at any time in the Hub.
Join our mailing list to receive our future Friday Freebies - just scroll to the bottom of any page and input your email.
留言