5 Calm Breaths

March 19, 2021 By Zoe Ross

Why is calming breathing helpful for children?

Calming breathing is very important and helpful for children to learn. It can help them reduce stress, anxiety and panic in many different situations. There are different exercises they can try out to see which they like best. This is one of the easiest to learn and use.

The 5 calm breaths technique

5 calming breaths is a really simple breathing exercise that uses counting to help children focus on their breath. By counting on their fingers or in their heads as they breathe in and breathe out, children can calm their breath and begin to relax.

How 5 calm breaths can help

When we are anxious we can sometimes take lots of quicker and more shallow breaths. This exercise helps children focus on making those breaths deeper and longer- which can help them to feel calmer.

Like all calming breathing techniques- it is best to practice them when we feel calm. That way when the anxious feelings come we know what to do to help calm them down. Practising this exercise with children regularly helps them to feel confident about using it whenever they fell anxious or overwhelmed.

Introducing 5 Calm Breaths to Children

Here is a video of Zoe demonstrating how to practice the 5 Calm Breaths exercise.

You can also download and print this 5 Calm Breaths Tally Sheet to help encourage a child to practice every day and see their progress.

You also might also like to try our bubble breathing demonstration and this NHS page has more calming breathing techniques you can use with children (or yourself!).

Children’s Mental Health Week Resources

February 5, 2021 By Zoe Ross

Over the past few years, Children’s Mental Health week has become increasingly popular. Along with the official ones, we have produced our own resources for the theme that you can use with your pupils – during the week, or at any time!
They are all free for you to download and written by our team of expert teachers.

‘Being Ourselves’ Resources

The theme of the 2018 year’s Children’s Mental Health Week was, ‘Being Ourselves, which encouraged children to celebrate their uniqueness.

One of the easiest and best ways to do this, is to encourage them to think about their ‘good qualities’. Here are a couple of easy activities that can get you started. They are really easy to fit into the school day and a warm glow afterwards is pretty much guaranteed!

As always, there are superb resources at Place2Be with more information about why this theme is so important, assemblies and more lesson ideas.

Children’s Mental Health Week ‘Kindness’ Resources

childrens-mental-health-week-mind-moose-free-resources 2017 had a theme of ‘kindness’ which is one of our favourites. We created 3 free lesson activities for teachers to use in class with their pupils to support their wellbeing and encourage kindness at any time of the year.

The first activity is a Kindness Poem; An activity designed to fit easily into a KS2 English lesson.

The second activity is a ‘Small Acts of Kindness Activity’ where children think of and create kindness cards featuring small acts of kindness they can perform throughout the school day’.

Lastly, the third activity is ‘Kindness Quotes and Slogans‘; An activity designed to improve pupils’ creativity and literacy skills and get them thinking about what kindness is.

Save

Transition programme evaluation results

November 24, 2020 By Zoe Ross

We are very proud to share the results of the Mind Moose transition programme evaluation, funded by Nesta.

This programme was developed and trialled with funding from the Nesta Future Ready Fund, designed to support interventions promoting social and emotional skills and resilience in young people.

Programme Overview
The transition from Year 6 to Year 7 is well-recognised as a stressful time for many children when their psychological health can suffer (Zeedyk et al.,2003).

Therefore, the Mind Moose Transition Programme is designed to support Year 6 children in their final term of primary school with their social and emotional health, focussing on preparing them for their transition to secondary school.

The programme consists of 6 lessons delivered through the Mind Moose online platform with additional full teaching materials.
Each lesson provides activities designed to build pupils’ skills in terms of resilience, self-awareness, and emotional competence, as well as teaching them effective coping skills for managing concerns, feelings, and other experiences relevant to their transition to secondary.

Impact Evaluation

Four primary schools were recruited to trial the programme with 130 pupils in the summer term of 2019.
The research project received ethical approval from the Evidence-Based Practice Unit at UCL/the Anna Freud Centre.
Pupils’ emotional health and well-being was measured and tracked (before and after completing the programme) using the student resilience survey, a valid and reliable quantitative measure.
After completing the programme pupils also completed a feedback survey, including open-ended qualitative questions to explore their views and experiences of using the Mind Moose transition programme.

The results
The data was independently analysed by psychology staff from the school of psychology at the University of Sussex and was found to show statistically significant results in the overall level of resilience and a number of sub-scales, shown to impact resilience.

The data analysis showed that taking part in the Mind Moose transition programme:

increased pupils’ overall levels of resilience as measured by the student resilience survey

Improved levels of self-esteem, goals, peer support and problem solving (sub-scales of the student resilience survey).

In addition, the pupils’ qualitative feedback was highly positive:

80% of Year 6 children said that they enjoyed using the Mind Moose programme.
82% stated that Mind Moose helped them to understand ways they could help themselves.
77% felt that Mind Moose transition helped them to understand how they could deal with problems.
72% said using the programme helped them to understand and talk about issues worrying them.

The analysis of pupils’ feedback demonstrates that most children find using Mind Moose enjoyable and feel it gives them useful advice about moving to secondary school, helping them to express their feelings and worries in a safe, private way.

“It helped me to calm myself and understand how to deal with present/future problems”.

“You can share personal worries with your teacher.”

“It’s a place for you to let all your emotions out.”

“It’s easy to use and relaxing.”

In conclusion
The evaluation provides strong evidence that using Mind Moose Transition Programme with their teacher in the last term of Year 6 can support pupils with their social and emotional health and build resilience prior to moving to secondary school in an engaging way. This is something of which we, as a social impact company, are very proud.

If you would like to find out more about our research or the Mind Moose transition programme, contact us by emailing support@mindmoose.co.uk

Reference:
Zeedyk, M. S., Gallacher, J., Henderson, M., Hope, G., Husband, B., & Lindsay, K. (2003). Negotiating the transition from primary to secondary school: Perceptions of pupils, parents and teachers. School Psychology International, 24(1), 67-79.

Helping a child notice their inner voice

November 20, 2020 By Zoe Ross Leave a Comment

What is an inner voice?

As humans, we all have an inner voice. It’s the one that talks to us in our minds and helps us to make decisions and complete tasks. For example, “Hmmm…what do I need to take to school today?”, “I wonder what’s for lunch today?”,”Don’t forget your pencil case!”.

Our inner voice can be helpful and sometimes it can be critical. i.e. “Oh no, I forgot my pencil case. You idiot!”. This critical inner voice can call us names, tell us we’re a failure or we’re not good at something and shouldn’t even try. If we listen to this critical inner dialogue too much, it can influence how we feel, think and behave. So we might form negative beliefs about ourselves and our ability to do something, which might lead to us to not doing it, not trying, or giving up.

Why is it helpful for a child to notice their inner voice?

Having awareness of the inner voice is a really important part of behaviour therapy, however it’s also very helpful for us all in looking after our mental health and wellbeing. We’re so used to it being there that we often don’t even notice it, but we can learn to tune into it and if necessary, take less notice of the critical things it tells us.

Becoming aware of our inner voice is a really important first step and it’s a skill that children (and adults!) can learn. It can be a tricky concept for some children. However, often with a little bit of patience and practice, most children (research suggests over the age of around 7) can learn to be aware of and notice their inner voice.

These tips can help you to help a child notice their inner voice:

Ways to help a child notice their inner voice

Normalise it – we all have an inner voice; an ‘always on’ dialogue that is going on in our heads.
Call it whatever works – it could be ‘your thinking’, ‘your mind’, ‘the voice in your head’, ‘your chatterbox’ etc.
It can help to explain that the inner voice is always there – it’s like a radio, talking away in our head and telling us what is happening, or about to happen, or reminding us of what did happen.
Help them to understand it can take practice and time to be aware of and focus on it – don’t put pressure on them, or yourself, but do give it a few tries before you give up.
You could ask them to sing their favourite song in their head, or do a simple sum – were they able to ‘hear’ themselves? That’s their inner voice.
Do exercises to tune in together – experiment to see if you can find what your thinking voice is saying (see exercise below)
1. Firstly, create the right atmosphere to ‘tune in’ – make sure you are in a quiet, calm place with no distractions and the young person is engaged.
2. Invite them to take a ‘mindful’ moment before you start (ie feet on the floor, back straight, close their eyes if they want, or look at a spot on the floor, take some breaths in and let it out).
3. See if they can just ‘tune in’ to what they are thinking and notice their thoughts (in their head or out loud)
4. Model noticing your thinking…”I’m thinking that this room is a bit cold” / “I’m thinking that the spot on the floor I’m looking at is dirty”.
5. Invite them to just notice what their thinking mind is saying/doing – there is no right or wrong, this is just about being aware and noticing.
6. Remind them it takes practice, so keep it short and encourage any noticing at all.

Helping children to understand and manage their inner voice is an important part of our Mind Moose online programme. Find out more how it could help you if you work in a school, or are a parent.

Cuddly Toy Breathing

March 19, 2020 By Zoe Ross

What is Cuddly Toy Breathing?

Cuddly Toy Breathing is a really fun and comforting way to help children to practice calm breathing. Placing a cuddly toy on their tummy helps children to be mindful of how their body moves as they breathe in and out.

How Does Cuddly Toy Breathing Work?

Lying down and focusing on their breath helps children to feel calm and relaxed. Focusing on how their body is moving as they breathe can help children feel less anxious or worried by any other thoughts in their mind.

Practising regular mindful breathing can be good to help children to cope with anxiety or worry from other things happening around them. Doing this exercise in the morning can help children to feel calmer as they go about their day.

Introducing Cuddly Toy Breathing to Children

Here is an animation of Mind Moose demonstrating how to practice Cuddly Toy Breathing