How I Use a Mental Health Vision Board To Support My Child's Mental Health
We’ve been using Mental Health Vision Board for a few years now, and it has proven to be a really easy strategy for supporting my child’s mental health.
Good mental health matters. It affects how we cope with life’s challenges and stress. When our mental health is good, we are more resilient and we recover faster from stress. For our kids, it’s equally important that we help them learn how to manage their own mental health. Mental health is something they will have to manage at some time during their lifetime, so teaching them how to recognise what stress looks like for them and learning strategies that work for them, is an important lesson that they can take with them into the adulthood.
Anxiety is our body’s alarm system. It’s a completely normal part of our DNA, but sometimes when it goes off, it can be really difficult to stop it from interfering with our cognitive functioning. For some of us that alarm is also a bit too sensitive, and requires some serious effort to tame it. When we experience stress or anxiety, our prefrontal cortex (thinking brain) starts to go offline, which then triggers our stress response (either fight, flight, freeze, or fawn). It also means that our executive functioning skills don’t work as well as they should. With practise though, the brain can get better at keeping emotions under control and problem solving under pressure.
If you’re interested in some further reading about supporting your child during those emotional highs, I highly recommend The Whole Brained Child by Daniel J. Siegel, MD and Tina Payne Bryson, PHD. This book helps you understand the relationship between our thinking brain and our emotion brain. It will also help you better understand what’s going on in your child’s brain (and yours) when emotions run high, and provides some really simple strategies to help you coach your child through their emotions while their brain is still developing.
How We Started Our Mental Health Vision Board
It started with a few quotes on a wall. Before we even started therapy, I saw signs that something wasn’t right. Some days on our walk from the car to school, it was becoming clear that my son was unhappy about someting. His shoulders and head were always down. He just seemed noticably unhappy. Every time I checked in, I would get little hints that there was something bigger going on. As a past depression sufferer and also knowing my boy is a sensitive soul, it was really important to me that I keep tabs on his mental state. So I kept checking in and gently probing to try and get to the bottom of the issue.
At the same time I also started looking for a few quotes and asked him if he would like to start a collection. Together we decided to start putting them on a blank space of wall in his room. Eventually, we included a few other things. Reading was a struggle so I even added a quote relating to our impossibly confusing English language. The idea was to give him some gentle reminders that provided a little wisdom and hopefully help him feel a little stronger than his worries.
The thing I really love about this strategy is that it not only provides a visual reminder of any strategies he’s been learning, but as my son put it, the quotes give him wisdom.
It wasn’t long before we got a referral to a paediatrician and finished up with a diagnosis of Anxiety and Autism. We also started psychology sessions to help him learn to manage his anxiety. The mental health vision board stayed and continued to grow to include other things like a breathing technique and some strategies he was learning in therapy.
How We Decide What Goes on the Wall
If I come across something I think might be helpful or relatable, I show him and ask if he’d like to add it to the wall. If he agrees, then I print it off and attach it with blu tac. I’ve created some things in Canva, but often you can find quotes online with a nice image in the background. All you need to do is copy the image link, paste the link into a blank Word document, resize it according your needs and then print.
The Mental Health Vision Board has grown quite a bit since we started using it, but sometimes something may need to go if it’s no longer useful. If there’s a goal or a particular strategy we are working on, we make sure we include it somewhere.
Here’s a list of ideas, you could start with if you wanted to start a Mental Health Vision Board for your child:
- Quotes
- Affirmations
- Strategies learnt in therapy
- Things I can/can’t control/influence
- A mental health routine
- Zones of Regulation
- Gratitude
- Breathing techniques
- Relaxation strategies
A few quick tips if you’d like to try this idea with your child:
- Ask them first. There was a time when my son was wanting to be very private about his anxiety, so keep this in mind.
- If there is a particular goal you are working towards, be sure to include that.
- Check in regularly with child to find out what’s working or what’s not for them. Only keep what’s working, get rid of what’s not.
- Keep it simple and not cluttered.
If the strategies you are using at home aren’t working, make sure you seek help from a mental health professional.
Are you worried about your child’s mental health?
If you are worried about your child’s mental health, please seek help for them via a GP referral. There’s a lot of support out there for both kids and adults, and if you need help for yourself, make sure you get it. It’s really hard to support your child’s mental health if you are struggling mentally too.
You can search the directory to find a psychologist or counsellor either locally or via telehealth.
A final word about financial assistance. If you are planning on using Private Health Insurance, you will need to make sure that you have applied for and completed your mental health care plan via Medicare first. Most health funds won’t payout until you have used a Mental Health Care Plan.