It’s Mental Health Awareness Week (14th – 20th May) and I want to do my bit on educating and increasing awareness about mental health.

This year’s campaign asks the question: Thriving or Striving? That’s in relation to how we live in this crazy busy world where there is way too much stress for humans. We weren’t built to handle it.

I thought it would be helpful to share with you 5 things I think your child needs to thrive in this world.

I hope you find it helpful. If you are struggling, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Please DON’T struggle on alone.

Here are some Smiley highlights if you’re short of time…

2:00 What is Mental Health?

2:39 How can you help and make a difference?

3:28 Why I believe parents get triggered by their children.

5:47 How mental health issues affect my life.

7:45 What is self soothing and why is it vital?

9:45 How can you self soothe?

10:28 Some Smiley Tools to help you self soothe are: The Energy Pod, my Truly Madly Smiley podcast for validation and empathy and my self study pack How to Tame Your Angry Dragon (which is not just for anger but all overwhelming feelings like anxiety, sadness and worry).

11:25 What are boundaries and why you need them to help you manage stress.

12:53 How to say ‘no’ without actually saying the word no.

14:15 Some Smiley tools to help you set boundaries are: This blog post for parents and this one for kids. You may also want to check out my awesome self study pack: No More Power Struggles so you can learn how to set boundaries for yourself and as a parent.

16:20 Why you need to listen to your feelings and connect to your intuition (inner knowing).

17:15 Why your children need to know how to do this when you are not there.

18.57 What little Prince George might be feeling since his baby brother was born and why that’s OK.

19:39 Why it can sometimes be tough on the eldest child (I’m an eldest child so I’m speaking from my experience)

20:08 Some Smiley tools to help you help your child listen to their feelings: This bog post Are you really + truly listening? and this self study pack ‘How to Really Listen with Love’ so you can learn to interpret your child’s behaviour (all behaviour is a communication) and become an observer of what they do and don’t say.

20:54 Why mindset is everything and how certain ways of thinking keep us stuck.

21:20 My unhelpful thinking habit which is often a default setting that doesn’t help me at all.

22:16 Some Smiley tools to help you create a growth mindset: The Energy Pod, my Smiley Thought Cards and there is also a video on my YouTube channel ‘What to do when your thinking is stinking.’

23:06 Why Emotional Resilience is crucial to dealing with life’s disappointments and challenges (they are part of life).

24:00 You could also read my blog post ‘Are you taking it personally?’ so you can recognise how you can use adversity to learn and grow.

25:15 What to do if you feel overwhelmed with all this helpful information.

28:33 Top tips for managing your inner critic (mean girl voice) and there are some tips for kids on this in Episode 1 of the Truly Madly Smiley podcast.