- Have a daily routine, and stick to a regular wake-up and bedtime to help programme your brain to have more sleep.
- Having a routine around self-care, and looking after your belongings and your room promotes your independence. This encourages your parents/carers to view you as being responsible and more likely to compromise with any reasonable changes to their rules.
- Aim for a balanced diet that is low in fat, sugar and salt and includes 5 portions of fruit and vegetables per day. Take a look at the NHS Eat Well Guide.
- Ensure you have breakfast each morning. Drinking 6-8 glasses of fluid daily is also important to maintain health. A good diet enables the brain and body to work well. Help with making family meals this is adding to your independence skills.
- Children of all ages need 60 minutes of exercise daily to maintain good health. Regular exercise and being outdoors increase the endorphins (chemicals released by the brain) which have a positive effect on mood.
- Teenagers need on average between 8-10 hours of sleep per night. Not enough, poor or interrupted sleep can affect school and home life. Good sleep hygiene and routine should be practised. Avoid playing electronic games 2 hours before bedtime and no TV, computers or phones in the bedroom.
- Aim for a balance with school, home, friends and any activities/sports.
Mental Health 11+
Talking to your young person about their mental health can feel like walking into a lion's den. Find more information below on how can you best approach the subject.
Top Tips to Start Talking About Mental Health
- Prepare the ground with your general approach at home. If you create gentle spaces, the conversations will happen. It does not have to be you (the parent) who talks to the child and it is fine to show concern but realise your child might want to speak to someone else and not you.
- Remember to give children the space and time to talk.
- Do not say: "I am disappointed" - this is a killer phrase from a parent.
- Do not say: "It was worse in my day". It wasn't.
- Respect their worries. If it matters to them, then it matters.
- Ask questions of them. Remember that life as a teenager today is very different from when you were their age - don't assume.
- Treat others in your family with respect. Your children will be watching how you respond to others before they decide to trust you.
- Keep the conversation between you unless you have their permission (unless there is a risk of danger).
For more information on resilience and emotional well-being visit the Family Lives website.
Tips to Promote with your Young Person
Maintain Good Self-Care
Have Fun
- It’s important to do activities you enjoy with friends and family, making memories and strengthening bonds.
- Smiling and laughing boosts your mood and everyone else’s around you.
Connect
- We all need to feel like we belong. It’s important for us as human beings to be with others who care about us and make us feel good.
- Having positive close relationships with friends or family is valuable.
Help Others
- Helping others makes us feel valuable, promotes our self-esteem and makes others feel supported and cared for.
- Helping out at home with household chores and with younger siblings’ homework is a good place to start.
- Consider building your profile at school; can you volunteer for any activities/jobs within the school like peer mentoring or helping out with the school library? Are there any local charities or groups you can volunteer with?
Learn Problem Solving and Goal Setting
- This is a learned skill; focus on one small problem at a time rather than the bigger picture to avoid feeling overwhelmed.
- Setting realistic goals that can be achieved through small steps will help you to see what you are capable of. Questions to consider asking, what do I need to do? How might I do it? And who can help? Or what has worked before?
- Use a list to write out the pros and cons of the problem as a visual aid to solving it.
- Praise and encouragement will support what you have achieved along the way, so make sure you include your parents/carers in your goals, they may have some helpful suggestions so make sure you ask for help when you need it.
- Getting support towards your goals is better than allowing parents/carers to do it for you. You will learn more and can build your ambition by thinking to the future, about what you would like to do beyond school or as a career.
- Change and failure are normal parts of life and new goals can be swapped for goals that have become unachievable.
Be Brave and Facing Fear
- Feeling uncomfortable, scared and unsure is a normal part of life and usually means we are in an unknown territory and facing something new. Taking positive risks is how we learn and develop; think back to when you tried something new how did you feel afterwards? What did you learn from it?
Try New Activities
- Find opportunities that allow you to take a risk and try something new. Attempting to do something brave and difficult is more important than the outcome.
- Plan the activity then review it with a parent/trusted adult to see what worked well and not so well. This encourages you to think about making decisions and how to cope with things that go wrong.
Acknowledge Mistakes and Fails
- Rather than viewing an event such as a poor test result as a failure or a huge mistake, see it as a learning opportunity. What have you learned from the experience? What can you do differently next time?
- Talking about failures you have overcome can make you a role model for others.
Encourage Optimism
- Avoid catastrophic thinking and keep a hopeful, positive outlook.
- Try to use more positive self-talk don’t be so hard on yourself!
- Encourage your family and friends to have a more optimistic outlook too. Focus on what went well on a daily basis and talk about that with friends and family. Keep a diary of 3 positives and 1 negative and review every week. Over time you will see that the negatives were not that big or important.
Understanding and Managing Feelings and Behaviours
- Recognising that all emotions and feelings are normal and that we all feel them at some point or another.
- Talking about how you feel to someone trusted like a parent or carer is important to help you make sense of what might be going on for you and help you understand and manage your feelings, you might need further advice or support and a parent/carer will know how to access that if you do not.
- Learning to understand emotions and feelings will also give you empathy for others and enable you to recognise why they may be behaving differently and that they might need your support.
Useful websites
- NSPCC have a wide range of downloadable publications on keeping safe.
- Winston Wish Bereavement website for children and their parents.
- Young Minds website has a range of information for parents and young people on all aspects of mental health and emotional wellbeing.
- Sleep for Kids website for parents and young people about sleep and how to get a good sleep routine.
- NHS Live Well website has advice and information about talking to your child about feelings.
- Kooth website has free online counselling and support.
- Rise Above website has information and resources for young people about health-related topics.
Mindfulness and coping skills
Mindfulness, in simple terms, is the state of being conscious of something and focusing your awareness on the present moment. When you're practising mindfulness, you're also calmly aware of your thoughts and feelings. Mindfulness, as a practice, isn't just for adults. Children and teens can benefit from it as well. There are a number of digital apps you can share with your children and teens to help bring the concept and practice of mindfulness into their lives and your home
Mental Health Services in West Cumbria
The West Cumbria Mental Health Partnership provides a range of support services for Adults (18 years and over) and young people (under 18 years). Including skills and management resources, agencies that can support you and your young person, LGBTQ+ support, bullying, 1-2-1 support and mentoring.