Help Children Make Sense of their Feelings with the HappySelf Journal

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Mental health is being talked about such a lot at the moment. We are becoming better at talking about our own mental health and how to help others who may be suffering mental health issues. More and more is being done to help anyone with mental health problems but what do we as parents do about our child’s mental health when they are too little to explain to us properly how they are feeling? How do we help children make sense of their feelings?

We worry, as most parents do, about our children and especially Mia and the way she deals with stressful situations and her emotions. We have a book called ‘My Hidden Chimp’ which has been really useful when it comes to Mia understanding why she gets so angry sometimes, but we are still trying to get her to open up about her emotions more. We were recently sent the HappySelf Journal made specifically for children and I was really looking forward to seeing how Mia would use it.

The HappySelf Journal is a little daily journal made to help support children aged about 6-12 years, understand, better explain and make sense of how they are feeling. It has been designed to be filled in every day for 3 months by your child and takes just a couple of minutes to fill in. There are no dates so it doesn’t matter if you miss a few!

Each page is beautifully decorated in a child friendly style with plenty of room to write about how they are feeling and to get it down on paper.  Not only does the journal promote talking about negative things but also has a quote of the day, a space to write down 3 good things that have happened that day, and a little checklist of things they did that day so they can see what they have accomplished.

Mia really likes the HappySelf Journal, the bright colours and funny characters are perfect to keep children engaged in what they are doing. The fact it takes such a short time to fill in each day means Mia isn’t distracted and doesn’t find it a chore to do! This is a great tool for Mia to use and I love the idea of doing this for myself too! Lukeosaurusandme has a great post about mental health journalling if this is something you’re interested in yourself.

The HappySelf Journal promotes positive daily behaviours in children that they can then use in their lives. Practicing gratitude increases a sense of happiness and encourages random acts of kindness which can only be a good thing! Writing things down that maybe haven’t gone as planned that day, helps to get rid of the negative feelings in the same way as it does for adults. I know I always feel better once I have got things out of my head and down onto paper or my phone. It’s no different for our children!

Mia has now been filling it in for a week and although I won’t ‘check’ her entries as they are personal to her, she knows she can show us or talk to us about anything she has written down at any time. Encouraging her to acknowledge and begin to understand her emotions and her behaviour is definitely having a positive impact on her and the house as a whole.

If you’re looking for some affirmation cards specifically aimed at children, Jodetopia has a great post why you might need them!

The HappySelf Journal is available now for £19.90 and is suitable for every child, whether they are struggling or not. It promotes great daily actions that can be taken through their whole life and gives you the tools to help your children make sense of their feelings when sometimes life is too tricky to understand. If you need any more info on how to manage your child’s emotions, Three Little L’s have written a great post about just that!

Do you keep a daily journal? Would you consider one for your child?