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What’s New This Week? – Coping with Christmas Grief, 12 Days of Mindful Christmas – Plus Lots More!

Posted on by Brandon Hudson
Snow has blanketed most of the UK giving us all the festive feels – and we’re about to bring you even more Christmassy vibes with these week’s resources! We have 31 new activities for you – let’s take a look at some of them below.
Did you know that 10,000 children in the UK lost a parent to Covid during the pandemic? That is a staggering statistic. This week, we’ve decided to focus on bringing you resources to help children cope with grief at Christmas. Grief can seem especially hard during the holidays and for young children who don’t understand death and struggle to understand and communicate their emotions, it can be even more confusing and upsetting.
 
Plus, this week our 12 Days of Mindful Christmas is back! We’ve brought you 12 new, calming activities designed for the period between Christmas and 5th January. Keep scrolling to find out more.
12 Days of Mindful Christmas – Our 12 Days of Mindful Christmas is all about bringing you some much needed calm to the chaos and the emotional rollercoaster that is the festive season, particularly the period between Christmas, New Year and the start of January. There are such a huge range of emotions during this time for many children – the excitement of Christmas Day, changes to routines and then heading into January – the comedown of all that Christmas cheer (for those who enjoy Christmas – as we know, not every child does). For children celebrating Christmas – or for those who find the festivities a bit too much – we have designed a mindful activity to complete each day, ranging from 10 minutes to half an hour. You can do them in order, or you can print and use as you wish. Read more about our 12 Days of Mindful Christmas and each of the resources here.
 
 
Coping with Christmas Grief Resource Pack – This week we also bring you a small resource pack to help children navigate grief at Christmas. Grief can be especially hard around the holidays where there is a big focus on family. Christmas also has a way of re-stirring old feelings of grief that may have settled over time, this can be especially confusing for children. Help children to explore and cope with their grief during Christmas with our resource pack, featuring 10 Christmas themed activities. Explore our Grief pack here.
 
Feeling Ho-Ho-Hopeful – Hope is an important emotion in mental health recovery – this week we bring you a resource exploring the feeling of hope and looking forward to the future. Have your child draw something they are hopeful for and looking forward to in 2023 in the snow globe.
 
Take a Reminder – Trim Santa’s Beard by Tearing off a Positive Statement! – Spread some festive cheer this Christmas by reminding your children just how amazing they are! Also comes with a blank version if your child wishes to create their own.
 
In My House I Feel… – We’ve created this resource to help vulnerable children communicate how they feel at home. This is a great resource for social workers or charity workers who may be supporting young children from homes where there has been a history of abuse or neglect, or just to get an account of how a child feels when they are in their home environment. Do they feel safe, happy, calm? Or are they scared, worried and sad? Have the child shade in the emotions they feel.
 
How Do You Feel Today? – A fun activity for our little minds this week, have younger children colour in the Santa’s sack that best represents the emotion they feel. Older children can write the emotion too!
 
Christmas Bauble Colouring – We have more mindful colouring for you this week including this fun Ho Ho Ho bauble, find it in our Christmas section for all ages!
 
Christmas Activity Sheet – This is a perfect resource to lay out on your Christmas table this year to keep little minds active and calm as they wait for food or enjoy the festivities. Featuring four different puzzles and activities!
 
If I was an Elf… – Have you ran out of ideas yet for your visiting elf yet? Perhaps he could leave this fun mindful activity! Have your child imagine what it would be like to be an elf in Santa’s workshop using all their senses. Using our senses is a great way to feel calm and grounded.
 
More Christmas Colouring! – Another Christmas colouring sheet – because we know that you may need lots of mindful activities to keep little minds calm and busy over the next few weeks!
 
Christmas Word Search – Word searches and puzzles are great mindfulness and calming activities that take children away from bright screens and help them focus.
 
January Mood Tracker – Manage the Christmas come down and track your child’s emotions throughout January using our winter-themed mood tracker. Find it in the WinterFest section of our Hub!
 
All our new resources mentioned above can be downloaded from the Be Happy Hub right now. Not a member? You can sign up here.
Have you signed up to our Secret Santa? – Get Free Mental Health Resources to your Inbox now!
Our third secret resource was sent out on Friday evening to our Secret Santa members – have you signed up? You can still download all our previous activities and sign up to receive our next two activities here.

What’s New This Week? – 10th December – New Mindful and Calming Christmas Resources Plus More!

Posted on by Brandon Hudson
Christmas is getting closer by the day and we have lots of new calming and mindful resources for you to use with your children this month. Let’s take a look at what’s new to the Hub this week.
We have a mixture of resources this week as we look at how we can help children feel calm in the run up to Christmas, we’ve also got a new FREE feel-good download and some new resources around toilet anxiety.
 
Spread Christmas Cheer with our New Free Download!
Make someone smile this month with our free festive kindness tags. Simply download, print and write positive messages on the tags that you think people would like to read (click here for some ideas!) Then cut out and leave in public places for other people to find. The person who finds your message can either choose to leave your message somewhere else, or visit our website and download the tags themselves. Download here:
Kindness Tags
.pdf
Download PDF • 46KB
 
What’s New for Members?
 
New to our Christmas Section
The Christmas Worry Tree – The Christmas Worry Tree features three calming exercises in one to help children with anxiety or intrusive thoughts this Christmas:
  • Go through the prompts to notice and explore the worry
  • Colour in the baubles
  • Complete the breathing exercise
 
Christmas Themed Breathing Exercises for Kids – 12 printable flashcards – Looking for ways to help children feel calm this Christmas? Download our printable Christmas Breathing Flashcards! Features 12 easy breathing exercises that your child can do from anywhere. You can even do them too. Downloads as three A4 pages with cut lines.
 
Colour your own Christmas Flashcards – For our younger minds we have uploaded our new colour your own flashcards. Help children learn all about Christmas and enjoy the mindful art of colouring in each card!
 
Christmas Mood Colouring Activity – Pick four colours to show how you’re currently feeling to complete this Christmas colouring activity sheet.
 
Colour your own Christmas Bookmarks – Encourage children to pick up their books this month by colouring in our festive bookmarks. They can choose the one they like best or use all three!
 
Design and Ugly Christmas Jumper – An Activity with a Thought Provoking Message – This activity has a lovely message for children. Have them design an ugly jumper and make it as ugly as possible. When they’ve finished, they have to show their design to as many people as they can. We bet they will find at least one person who likes their jumper – showing that nothing is ugly, everything in life is subjective!
 
Fill your Christmas Stocking – This activity is based on the bucket filling principle that says that we all carry an invisible bucket, when our buckets are full we are calm, content and happy. When our buckets are empty, we are sad, angry or weary. Instead of a bucket, this Christmas themed activity uses a stocking! – Can you help your child to fill their stocking with all the things that will make them calm and happy?
 
Write a Thank you letter to Santa – New Kids Gratefulness Activity – Many of us understand the true power of gratefulness on mental health. This simple but effective activity asks your child to send a thank you letter to Santa – what do they want to thank Santa for?
 
New to our WinterFest section
Snowflake Breathing Exercise Sheet – We have two new winter-themed breathing exercises for you this week including our Snowflake Breathing. Have your child trace their finger along the lines of the snowflake, slowly breathing in and out.
 
Snowman Breathing Exercise – Our second winter themed breathing activity features our snowman – or snowperson. Have your child trace around the snowperson’s head whilst slowly breathing in, and then around the inside of the snowperson’s belly slowly breathing out. Repeat 3-5 times.
 
New to our Mental Elf on the Shelf Section
The Mindful Christmas Elf-abet – Have your visiting elf can drop off this fun mindful activity this December. Fill in the ‘Elf-abet’ with all the things of Christmas!
 
New to our Baby and Toddler Section
Black and White Baby Sensory Christmas Flashcards – If you don’t know how amazing black and white resources are for babies you can read all about the benefits here. We have lots of black and white brain stimulating flashcards on our Hub for our littlest minds, and now we have Christmas themed ones too! Find them in our Baby and Toddler section.
 
New to the Hub:
Toilet Phobia/Anxiety Resources – Did you know that over 70% of early years practitioners have come across children with toilet anxiety? We’ve put together some fun resources to help your children with this surprisingly common disorder. You can read more about toilet anxiety and these resources here.
 
All our new resources mentioned above can be downloaded from the Be Happy Hub right now. Not a member? You can sign up here.
 
Have you signed up to our Secret Santa? – Get Free Mental Health Resources to your Inbox now!
Our second secret resource was sent out on Friday evening to our Secret Santa members – have you signed up? You can still download all our previous activities and sign up to receive our next two activities here.

Toilet Anxiety – How Common Is It and What Resources Can Help?

Posted on by Brandon Hudson
As a society, we’re pretty useless when it comes to talking about poo! And this is something our children pick up on from an early age. If your child is going through a phobia or feeling anxious about sitting on the loo, we have some resources that can help. Keep reading below.
What is toilet anxiety?
Toilet anxiety is mostly associated with children of potty-training age, but an aversion to the loo can happen at any age. Yes – lots of older children, teens and even adults can suffer from toilet anxiety too. It is – as the name suggests – an uncontrollable anxiety around going to the toilet, commonly children become anxious about pooing, but they can also develop a phobia about weeing too.
 
Toilet anxiety can manifest in lots of different ways and the worries can be very specific, from fears of poo getting ‘stuck’ to not wanting to poo in public or at school. Toilet anxiety can be very debilitating and can lead many children to hold in the urge to go. In the long run, this can result in changes to the bowel and can be extremely harmful to their health. It’s best to address toilet anxiety as soon as it appears to prevent any long term physical damage to the bladder or bowels.
 
How common is it?
Toilet anxiety is more common than you think. The toilet paper company, Andrex, has stated from their own research that as many as four children age 4-6 in every classroom can suffer from toilet anxiety. Plus, over 70% of early years teachers have reported to have encountered children with toilet anxiety. New research further suggests that as a result of the pandemic, more children than ever have started school this year without being fully toilet trained.
 
Why do we get it?
Like many mental health disorders there can be a variety of reasons children develop toilet anxiety and there may not even be one specific cause. Some common causes that can lead to toilet anxiety are:
  • A previous bad experience using the toilet
  • Noises or smells – children can find things like hand dryers especially scary and equate these with going to the bathroom
  • Changes at home, a new baby, parent separation, new move etc.
  • A stressful life change e.g. starting school, death of a loved one.
 
How can I help my child?
One of the main ways you can help your child is to be understanding and supportive. Do not punish them for accidents. Here are some tips below:
  • Open up the conversation around wee and poo
Children learn from an early age that there are things we don’t like to talk about! It’s certainly why the majority of 5-8 year olds find poo hilariously funny. But as a society, we’re useless at speaking about it. We get it – it’s pretty gross, but we all do it! Talk to your child openly about the toilet, the human body and about wee and poo – let them know it’s the most natural and normal thing in the world.
  • Help them understand their worries and emotions
Explore your child’s fear, teach them about why they are anxious (our brains are always trying to protect us but sometimes they get it wrong!). Talk openly about their worries around going to the toilet – our resources are great for helping children explore thoughts and feelings. More importantly, let your child know that their thoughts, feelings and worries are normal and valid.
  • Help them to learn about the human body
Learning about the digestive system and what happens to the food we eat and what we drink can help children learn to trust their body more. If there are fears around constipation or poo getting ‘stuck,’ you can show them how the human body works, and tell them how amazing it is that it takes all the vitamins we need from food and discards the rest!
  • Don’t scare them with stories about what will happen if they don’t go
Don’t scare children by telling them that by not going they may end up poorly or in hospital. This can cause them to worry more.
  • Make your toilet a friendly place
Give your bathroom a makeover and make it a friendly, calming place. You could even get your child involved too.
  • Visit your GP for advice
As with any mental health disorder, if you have concerns about your child’s physical or mental wellbeing, please don’t hesitate to arrange a visit with your GP. Your GP may refer your child to a specialist, or will give you some advice and help that you can’t find on the internet!
 
Take a look at our Toilet Anxiety Resource Pack below!
 
Our resource pack helps children to explore their toilet anxieties and what may help them. Let’s look at some of the activities:
Lou’s Poos Calming Activity – This activity is all about helping your child feel in control by thinking of things that can help them when they feel anxious about going to the toilet. They can use our print below for inspiration, or think of some things themselves. Write these on the poos, decorate and then stick to our Lou! Display in your bathroom as a reminder.
 
Ways to Stay Calm on the Loo Print – This poster gives your child techniques to use when they feel worried or scared to go to the toilet. You could display this in your bathroom where they can see it, or ask them to circle the ones they think will help them.
 
Mindful Toilet Games – We’ve come up with four mindful activities your child can do when those worries about going to the toilet appear. These can help distract and calm your child when they visit the bathroom.
 
My Digestive System – Help children learn about their digestive system and how food and poo moves through their body. Can they draw it on our diagram? Can they label the body parts?
 
Our resources encourage discussion, openness and learning around toilet anxiety, plus gives you some effective calming techniques to try at home. If you’re a member, you can download this right now from the Be Happy Hub.
 
Not a member? You can sign up from just £1.99 a month to download this and over 400 mental health resources for kids. Click here to view our pricing plans!
 
Did you find this helpful? Let us know.

Spread Kindness This Christmas With Our New Free Download!

Posted on by Brandon Hudson
Make someone smile this month with our free festive kindness tags. Download now and find out more below.
Despite the daily dreary news reports, we know there are a lot of good people in this world. Let’s show just how many of us are looking out for others. Our new free kindness tags can help to spread some much needed festive cheer. Wish to give someone a boost? See how it works here:
 
How it works
Simply download the PDF below, print and write positive messages on the tags that you think people would like to read (we’ve included some ideas below). Then cut out and leave in public places for other people to find. Hopefully, they will then do the same! The person who finds your message can either choose to leave your message somewhere else, or visit our website and download the tags themselves.
Kindness Tags
.pdf
Download PDF • 46KB
 
But, why?
Not everyone enjoys Christmas. For many people, Christmas is an extremely lonely or triggering time of year. You don’t need us to tell you how tough the last two years have been, and this year, a lot of people are struggling. As we navigate the cost of living crisis, we think that our kindness tags are a relatively cheap and effective way to spread some much-needed love and happiness. Hey – we know that these tags aren’t going to cure world hunger or solve any pressing societal issues, but we hope they may make someone smile who needs it.
 
What do you get out of it?
Completing acts of kindness is good for our mental health – it makes you feel good and it makes others feel good too.
 
What shall I write?
A mixture of positive and simple messages work best! You could write the same message on every tag or change it up. Here are some ideas:
  • Have a wonderful day
  • You make the world a better place
  • You are amazing
  • Sending all the positive vibes your way
  • Happy holidays
  • You are needed in this world
You could even Google some positive statements and see what comes up.
 
Why is this the perfect activity to do with my child?
This activity teaches children the importance of kindness and how small acts can impact someone’s day. Plus it’s an amazing feel-good activity for them too – can they come up with their own messages of kindness? Please note we do not encourage children to approach strangers with their notes, simply leave them where someone will find them.

What’s New This Week? – 3rd December – Mental Elf on the Shelf, Winter Resources & More!

Posted on by Brandon Hudson
December is here! And Christmas can be an incredibly stressful and triggering time of year for some of us. Take a look at what calming and confidence-boosting resources we have for your little ones this week.
This week we’ve been focusing on bringing you fun and engaging Christmas and winter themed resources, but we also have two new activities covering jealousy and swearing. Read on to find out more.
 
New to the Hub
The Green Eyed Monster – Exploring Jealousy Resource for Kids – This monster-themed resource explores the feeling of jealousy with your children. Children can feel this emotion a lot during the Christmas period as they see other children celebrating in different ways to them or receiving different gifts. Help children to explore this emotion, how it makes them feel and what they can do when it rears its ugly head!
 
Bad Word Boggle – New Swearing Resource for Kids – We’ve had a few requests for swearing resources recently. Unless living in a cave – and we certainly don’t recommend that – your children will hear swearing, whether it’s in the playground or from you (we’ve all been there!) Children can pick up ‘bad words’ absolutely anywhere. We’ve created this activity to help children replace the bad words in their head with silly words instead. Have them think of 16 letters to place in the grid, then ask them to come up with as many of the silliest sounding words they can. You can even replace your every day swear words with some funny words your children made up too! This activity helps them learn that some words can upset others, but some can make people laugh – and what would they rather say?
 
Mental Elf on the Shelf
Our Mental Elf is here to give your elf a break from being naughty and bring a calming and mental focus to a morning or too! Have a look at some of our Mental Elf resources below.
Mental Elf on the Shelf – ‘Elf Esteem’ Activity – Have your visiting elf leave this confidence-boosting activity for your little one to fill in! Feel-good vibes guaranteed.
 
Mental Elf on the Shelf – ‘Elf Care’ Activity – When elves take time for self care, it’s called ‘elf care’ – fact! Help children learn about self care and explore what kind of things they can do to help give a boost to their mental health in this activity. Have your elf take some time for elf care and teach children all about the importance of looking after ourselves!
 
Mental Elf on the Shelf – How Do You Feel Today Emotion Mat – There are so many ways you can use our Elf on the Shelf emotions mats – your children can draw on their emotions using pen, or you can use play-doh – or you could laminate and use a washable marker. A fun way to ask your children how they feel each day.
 
Mental Elf on the Shelf – ‘Believe in Your Elf’ Print – Display this feel-good print with your elf to give your child a confidence-boosting start to their day.
 
Mental Elf on the Shelf – Candy Cane Breathing – When all that toy welding and mischief making gets too much, what do elves do to feel calm and relax? Candy Cane breathing of course! If it helps our stressed out elves, it can certainly bring some calm to your children. Breathe in slowly whilst tracing the candy cane on the left with your finger, then breathe out tracing the candy cane on the right.
 
Mental Elf on the Shelf – Make an Elf Bauble – This fun calming craft can act as a reminder to practise calming techniques and focus on our mental ‘elf throughout the Christmas season. Hang your calm elf on your tree in a visible spot and ask your child to complete a calming activity whenever they see or walk past it. Perhaps it’s a deep breath, or counting to 3, this is the perfect visible cue to remind your children to find their calm and they go about their day.
 
 
WinterFest Resources
WinterFest is a new section in our Hub focusing on winter-themed mental health and emotional literacy resources for children. We know that not everyone celebrates Christmas and for lots of children, this can be a particularly tough and triggering time of year. This section focuses on bringing you fun and engaging non-Christmas related activities to take you through the next few weeks.
Emotion Penguins – Emotional Literacy Resource for Kids – Draw some emotion faces on our penguins and label each emotion. Bonus points for thinking of fun and imaginative stories as to why each penguin is feeling that way!
 
My Proud Cloud – Self Esteem / Confidence Boosting Activity for Kids – During the winter months the clouds are full of snow or rain and the gloomy weather can take its toll. We’ve turned those snow clouds into a fun and feel-good activity, asking your children to draw a time when they felt proud in our cloud.
 
New Christmas Resources
The Mindful Christmas Tree – Calming, Mindful Colouring Activity and Breathing Exercise for Kids – Our Mindful Christmas tree combines some calming colouring with a fun breathing exercise, ask your child to colour in and decorate their tree, then when they’ve finished, have them follow the stars around the tree breathing in and out.
 
My Proud Cloud – Self Esteem / Confidence Boosting Activity for Kids – It’s the time of year where we naturally become thankful for all the things we have, but also for some of us, we can become very aware of the things we don’t have too. Help children to think of all the nice and wonderful things in their lives in this activity. What are you grateful for at Christmas?
 
Draw How You Feel at Christmas – Emotional Literacy Activity for Children – Ask your child to draw how they feel on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day – we purposefully chose these three days because of the wide and wonderful range of emotions your children will feel as the festivities take hold. Take a moment to think and recognise those feelings throughout the festive season.
 
All our new resources mentioned above can be downloaded from the Be Happy Hub right now. Not a member? You can sign up here.
 
Have you signed up to our Secret Santa? – Get Free Mental Health Resources to your Inbox now!
Our first secret resource was sent out on Friday evening to our Secret Santa members – have you signed up? You can still download last week’s activity and sign up to receive our next three activities here.

Christmas at the Be Happy Hub! Here’s What’s Coming Up…

Posted on by Brandon Hudson
See what we’ve got planned for the festive period – lots of Christmas themed mental health and emotional literacy resources and even a visit from the Elf on the Shelf himself! Plus some new free activities for you to download at home or in the classroom.
Christmas can be a stressful, exciting, anxious and frustrating time for children. So many emotions! Nativity plays, parties, stressed out parents and of course the excitement of the visit from the man himself. We’ve got lots of resources and activities planned to help your children feel calm and confident this Christmas and to give a big boost to their ‘elf esteem!’
 
Free Printable Mindful Advent Calendar
Have a calm Christmas on us! This free calendar gives you a calming and mindful activity to complete each day using things from around the house, your senses or your imagination! Simply download, print and stick together!
 
Directions: Our free mindful advent calendar prints out as two a4 pages, simply staple or glue the top of the countdown page to the activities page. Optional: punch two holes in the top and push through some string or ribbon to hang on your wall! Each day you can either lift up the top sheet to reveal the day’s calming activity, or cut around the square with some scissors. Click below to download now!
Christmas Advent Calender
.pdf
Download PDF • 629KB
 
Be Happy Secret Santa
The Be Happy Secret Santa is here to deliver a free resource to your inbox every week in December. It could be Christmas themed or a colouring sheet, or anything at all! It is – of course – a secret! Sign up here.
 
12 Days of Mindful Christmas
We are pleased to let you know that our 12 Days of Mindful Christmas is back this year! We have 12 printable, mindful resources to take you from Christmas Day right through to the 5th January. You can also access last year’s 12 Days of Mindful Christmas right now on the Hub too – find it in our Seasonal Section. It doesn’t have to be completed during this period – you can do these activities at any time. 12 Days of Mindful Christmas is for members only. Make sure you’re signed up to access these resources!
 
Winterfest 2022
We know that not everyone celebrates Christmas, and that for many children, Christmas can be a stressful, traumatic or triggering time of year. Therefore, we want you to know that we’ll be focusing on bringing you fun, calming winter-themed resources too! From penguins to snow and snowmen to heart-warming activities, we’ll be adding a new Winterfest section to our Hub.
 
Mental Elf on the Shelf
Do you have a visiting Elf? Is your elf naughty or nice? For any parents scratching their heads each evening thinking of something for their elf to do, we will be bringing you some fun, inspiring and calming Elf on the Shelf ideas and resources! – Because even the famous Elf on the Shelf needs some time to wind down.
 
This can be a great way to give your child a boost to their day or just to simply introduce a mental health focus to a morning or two. If your mischievous elf wants a break from being naughty – and you want a break from thinking of activities – sign up to download and access some of our Mental Elf on the Shelf printables instead! For members only.
 
Not a member? You can sign up here!

Take a Look Inside our New Trauma-Informed Workbook for Kids: Over 40 Pages of Activities!

Posted on by Brandon Hudson
Download and print from just £1.99! We know that positive experiences in childhood help to build healthy brains, but everyday, children across the world experience life-altering traumatic events. What can we do to support them? Take a look inside our new Trauma-Informed Workbook for children age 5-12 and see how this could help a child in your care explore their trauma response and support their recovery.
What Is Trauma?
Trauma is an emotional response to an intense event that threatens or causes harm. The harm can be physical or emotional, real or perceived, and it can threaten the child or someone close to them. Trauma can be the result of a single event, or it can result from multiple events over time. The mental and emotional impact from trauma occurs when a stressful experience (such as being abused, neglected, or bullied) overwhelms a child’s natural ability to cope. For some children, trauma can interfere with normal development and can have long-lasting effects. Everyone’s perception of a traumatic event is unique to them and it’s important to remember that every child will perceive and process things differently.
 
How Trauma Affects the Brain
Psychologists have known for years that trauma in early childhood can result in real changes to the structure of the brain, impaired emotional regulation and mental health problems that can last into adulthood. When children have experienced trauma, particularly multiple traumatic events over an extended period of time, their bodies, brains, and nervous systems adapt in an effort to protect them. This results in behavioural and emotional changes that we know as the trauma response. Children who are struggling post-trauma need to be supported by a professional.
 
If you’re a parent or carer wondering how you can support your child as they go through this process of recovery with a professional, or if you’re a mental health professional looking for interactive and engaging resources to support children in your care, then take a look inside our new trauma activity journal for kids below.
 
This activity workbook has been reviewed and approved by our Clinical Psychologist.
 
About our printable Trauma Workbook for Kids
Our trauma response workbook for children has been created to support children recovering from traumatic events. Our activities have been designed to support, explore and prompt discussions about their reactions to the trauma. We have over 40 pages of drawing prompts, writing prompts, visualisations and coping techniques to help address the root of each response.
 
Informative and Educational Resources
At the beginning of our workbook you will find easy to understand information on what trauma is and normalising phrases to help your child understand what they are going through and why. We also provide information on how to use this workbook and a section for your child to write down who they feel comfortable discussing this workbook with.
 
Trauma Reaction Resources
Get to the root cause of your child’s trauma response and help your child to feel in control by exploring the way their trauma impacts them and their thoughts, behaviour and emotions. Activities such as our Blame Pizza can help your child to realise that they are not at fault and had no control over what happened to them. Our Flashback Fighter can fight your child’s flashbacks and help them control how they respond, and our Trauma Triggers worksheet helps your child identify and manage their triggers.
 
Help children manage overwhelming, critical or negative thoughts
You can help children with trauma by using our thought management worksheets and activities. Children who have experienced trauma can experience overwhelming negative and self-critical thoughts, our Belief-o-Meter helps children to see how true their critical thoughts are by writing them down and seeing how much they believe them. If they still believe their thoughts to be true, they can move on to our Thought Capture worksheet, which encourages children to analyse and explore their negative and critical thoughts.
 
Explore emotional responses and track feelings
Moving through the booklet we then come to our emotional resources. These resources help children specifically navigate and learn more about their emotional response to trauma. Working through worries, anger and tracking emotions to help them identify and manage their emotional reaction more effectively.
 
Interactive coping tools and techniques help children to learn coping skills to take into adulthood
We also have a range of coping skills and techniques that help children to explore what helps them to feel calm. Here they can learn about the importance of mindfulness, grounding and self care. Our Rainbow Breathing gives children visual breathing cues, helping to regulate their breathing by tracing the stripes. Our Coping Toolbox activity helps your child to think about techniques work for them.
 
Set goals for the future and track your child’s progress through the workbook
Children who have experienced trauma can be fearful for the future. Our goal setting activity encourages your child to make small goals, instead of focusing on the bigger picture. Perhaps it’s learning something new, improving their wellbeing, or building a lego house, a small goal feels much more attainable and once your child completes this, they will begin to realise that things can happen within their control. This can then lead them to feel more positive about making bigger goals. Our Small Steps activity also helps your child to write down and think about all the small steps they are taking during their recovery, it could be completing an activity in the workbook, or visiting somewhere that they wouldn’t have before, all these small steps build up to one giant leap!
 
 
Can We Talk cards encourage children bring up discussions of their own
Our Can We Talk Cards are a great way to encourage your child to start discussions of their own about their feelings, thoughts or anything that’s on their mind. We all know the importance of talking about our mental health, learning this from an early age will mean children are more likely to seek help and support as they grow. But we also understand that sometimes it can be hard to start a conversation about how we feel – you can leave these somewhere accessible for your child to pick up when needed. We also have our wonderful Pocket Wisdom cards which give your child boosts and reminders as they go through their day.
 
A range of activities that boost confidence as they navigate through our workbook
We have lots more activities to help children explore their thoughts, worries and emotions. A lot of this booklet talks about what helps your child to feel calm and happy, here, our Not To Do List can help them to explore what makes them feel the opposite. What makes them feel worse or upset? What is on their Not To Do List? Our Strength Shield activity tasks your child with designing a shield full of all their strengths. We know that sometimes it can be hard to think of our own strengths especially when we feel highly critical, so this task also asks your child to speak to trusted people around them to find out what others think their strengths are.
 
Put children back in control and help them to feel safe and supported
This trauma booklet is all about helping children to feel calm, safe, supported and in control. These factors can help boost your child’s mental health and self esteem during their recovery from trauma.
 
These are just some of the mental health resources activities for children that you can find in our trauma-informed workbook for kids.
 
Sign up to download this workbook here!
 
Our Recommendations
  • This booklet may bring up some upsetting thoughts and feelings, please ensure your child has somebody to discuss this booklet with. On page 3 of this workbook, you will find space where they can write down the names of the people they can talk to.
  • We recommend this booklet to be used by professionals or alongside professional support. You can speak to a professional about this workbook and any of the activities.
  • We recommend that an adult is present at all times when filling in this workbook.
  • This resource is suitable for age 5 and above.
 
Our Tips
There are a lot of activities in this book. The book does not have to be completed in order although we would recommend this.
  • Tell your child to take their time – there is no rush to complete this workbook.
  • They don’t have to do every activity. If there is something they don’t like, or which you don’t think is working, try something else instead.
  • If you find something too upsetting, try a different activity or a calming technique and come back to it later.
 
Disclaimer
We recommend that your child uses this workbook with a professional or alongside professional support. This booklet is not a replacement for professional support. If you are concerned about a child in your care, please consult their GP or a trained mental health professional.
 
This trauma workbook has been reviewed and approved by a registered Clinical Psychologist in November 2022. The next review date is scheduled for November 2024.

What’s New This Week? – 25th November – Trauma Informed Workbook for Kids plus MORE!

Posted on by Brandon Hudson
Our trauma informed workbook for kids has finally landed! With over 40 pages of activities to help children age 5+ recovering from trauma. Plus more new football themed mental health resources and a feel-good self love activity. Continue reading below!
This week we have nine new resources including our new trauma-informed workbook with over 40 activities. Our workbooks and resource packs are included for all members at no extra cost! Find out more below.
 
Working Through Big Feelings – Our New Trauma-Informed Printable Workbook for Children Age 5+
This trauma journal for kids has been months in the work and these support based activities have been approved by our clinical psychologist. This printable workbook has been designed to address children’s post trauma response, filled with creative and interactive activities that help them to explore and process their thoughts and feelings.
 
Activities include:
  • The Flashback Fighter
  • Blame Pizza
  • My Safety Plan
  • My Not To Do List
  • Can We Talk Cards
  • Changing My Thoughts
  • My Strength Shield
  • Rainbow of Self Care
  • My Trauma Triggers Plus lots more.
Some important information: • This resource is suitable for age 5 and above • We recommend this resource be used by professionals or alongside professional support • We recommend that an adult is present when filling in this workbook.
 
We will be bringing you another post all about this resource soon where we will explore some of the activities in more detail.
 
Design a Football Armband – New World Cup / Football Themed Activity for Kids
Footballers wear armbands for lots of different reasons. It can be to show their position in the team, or sometimes, it can be to highlight an important cause. This activity encourages your child to think of something that’s important to them to design an arm band about. They can then cut out and wear their armband with pride! Some examples could include an armband about friendship, bullying, kindness or something they want people to know about them.
 
My Coping Statements – 24 Calming Statements for Children
New this week also includes our Coping Statements print for kids. This print features 24 calming statements to help children with anxiety or overwhelming emotions feel calm fast. Saying calming statements such as these can be an extremely powerful way to calm down, by helping children to realise that their thoughts and bodily responses are not dangerous and that they are in control.
 
My Coping Balloon – Create a Coping Statement Activity
Ask your child to come up with their own coping statement and decorate their coping balloon! Coping statements can work to put a quick stop to spiralling thoughts that lead to anxiety, by replacing those thoughts with realistic, rational thoughts. When these rational self-statements are practiced and learned, the brain can automatically take over, reciting this statement to put a stop to bothersome thoughts. Helping your child to come up with their own, will mean they are more likely to remember and practise it.
 
Self Love Bulletin Board – Feel-Good Confidence and Calming Activity
When your child feels calm and well, ask them to fill in notes to remember on our Self Love Bulletin Board! They can display these notes or, when they feel low or need a boost, they can look back at what they wrote to remind themselves just how amazing and important they are. We’ve included a printer friendly version too!
 
Football Heart Breathing – Football Calming Activity for the World Cup!
Football Heart Breathing is for those who just love football! Football can be a sport of big emotions, help children to calm down and regulate their breathing with our Football Heart Breathing exercise. Ask your child to place their finger on the dot, then trace round one half of the heart whilst slowly breathing in, and then breathing out as they trace back to the dot.
 
Football Shirt Breathing – Another Football Calming Activity for Big World Cup Emotions
In this fun breathing exercise, ask children to slowly breathe in and out whilst tracing their finger up and down the yellow and green stripes of our football shirt. Having a visual prompt can act as a distraction technique by having children focus on tracing the lines and controlling their breaths rather than spiralling thoughts or emotions.
 
My Calming Strategy – Football Themed Calming Exercise and Worksheet for Kids
This calming activity for kids works in two ways – firstly, you can use the Calming Strategy sheet provided to help children calm down fast by cutting out our football and having your child follow the prompts around the pitch. We also have a blank worksheet for your child to come up with their own calming strategy, thinking of five fun techniques to calm down fast. This gets them thinking about the techniques that work for them when they feel anxious, angry or frustrated. They can then put their own strategy into action when they need to feel calm.
 
World Cup 2022 Football Mindful Colouring Sheet – Download and Print at Home!
Help children relax after watching or playing football with this mindful colouring sheet. Channel those high emotions and wind down by colouring in all our football related items!
 
You can sign up and download all these activities right now from the Be Happy Hub for just £1.99! Not a member? sign up here.

8 Football Themed Mental Health Resources to Use During the World Cup

Posted on by Brandon Hudson
The World Cup has kicked off and football fever has well and truly landed in the UK! We know that a lot of football-mad children will experience a range of emotions over the next few weeks, so why not try some of our football themed resources below?
Looking for ways to help children feel calm and focused during the World Cup? Or perhaps you’re looking for some fun football-themed emotional literacy resources to help children learn about and manage their feelings? Then join the Be Happy Hub today! Here are some of our most popular football-themed mental health and calming resources…
My Thought Goals – Help children with anxiety, intrusive thoughts or critical thinking with our thought management worksheet. This football-themed activity asks your child to pick their three most bothersome thoughts, encouraging them to come up with alternatives to place in the goal.
 
Football Themed Breathing Exercises – We have three football-themed breathing activities on the Hub, including a football tracing exercise where your child can follow the football to the goal, football shirt breathing and football heart breathing for the children who just love football!
 
Zones of Regulation Football – The Calm Pitch – Emotion / Self Regulation Activity – With the world about to go a little football mad – you can now download our Zones of Regulation Football from the Be Happy Hub! This activity combines the zones of regulation with football, helping children to identify their emotions and think about how they can stay in the green zone (in the game) using the rules of football.
 
???? The Calm Pitch is our green zone
???? The Bench is our blue zone or rest area
???? Yellow Cards are our yellow zone
???? Red Cards are our red zone
 
Use football to help your child learn about the zones of regulation and what each zone means. For example, if they get a red card, this means they are sent off the calm pitch and need to do a calming technique. If they get a yellow card, this is a caution – what can they do to ensure they can stay in the game? If they are on the bench, what can they do to get their energy up and back onto the pitch? We’ve included a How To with this activity, but we think you could use this lots of different ways!
Football Mindful Colouring – Help children to wind down after the emotional rollercoaster of a football game by colouring in our fun football-themed mindful colouring sheet.
 
Football and Feelings Card Matching Activity – Fun Emotional Literacy Resource – This activity helps your child identify the emotions they feel whilst playing football by asking them to match these game scenarios with the emotion card they feel. Download, print and cut out the scenario and emotion cards, and ask your child to imagine themselves in each scenario and how they would feel.
 
Football Emotion Flashcards – 16 emotion football-themed flashcards, why not use these throughout the World Cup to ask your child or class how they are feeling each day?
 
Football Calming Strategy – Cut out the football provided and use this to trace the game strategy, starting at our first player, follow the line until the football reaches the last player, doing each calming activity as you go. We’ve included a blank template for your child to come up with their own football calming strategy too!
 
Football Feelings Emotional Literacy Worksheet – Some more World Cup resources for the classroom and at home! We all know that football is an extremely emotional game, we’ve put some of the most common emotions that your child might feel when they watch or play football – can they guess what they are?
 
You have to be a member to access and download these resources. Not a member? You can sign up here from just £1.99 a month.

What’s New This Week? – 18th November

Posted on by Brandon Hudson
With the start of the World Cup looming, we bring you some new fun football themed resources as well as an interactive activity to get your children practising the techniques to good mental health every day!
This week we have more fun mental health learning activities and resources for primary school age children. Our mental health activities are fun, interactive and engaging and help your children learn how to identify and manage their thoughts and emotions. Let’s see what’s new below…
Which Hat Are You Wearing Today? – Learn the techniques to good mental health! – In this fun activity each hat represents a different technique of good mental health. Cut out the hats and each day ask your child to pick a hat for the day – can they think of ways to build that factor or technique into their day?
 
Zones of Regulation Football – The Calm Pitch – Emotion / Self Regulation Activity – With the world about to go a little football mad – you can now download our Zones of Regulation Football from the Be Happy Hub! This activity combines the zones of regulation with football, helping children to identify their emotions and think about how they can stay in the green zone (in the game) using the rules of football.
 
???? The Calm Pitch is our green zone
???? The Bench is our blue zone or rest area
???? Yellow Cards are our yellow zone
???? Red Cards are our red zone
 
Use football to help your child learn about the zones of regulation and what each zone means. For example, if they get a red card, this means they are sent off the calm pitch and need to do a calming technique. If they get a yellow card, this is a caution – what can they do to ensure they can stay in the game? If they are on the bench, what can they do to get their energy up and back onto the pitch? We’ve included a How To with this activity, but we think you could use this lots of different ways!
 
My Self Esteem Rocket – Confidence Boosting Activity for Kids – Let your child’s self esteem sky rocket with the self esteem rocket! We had a request for more space-themed resources, and the self esteem rocket is the result. The more nice things your child can write about themselves the higher the rocket will soar!
 
My Safe Place – Where does your child feel safe? Who is it with? What do they keep there? Is it a designated space in your house, or perhaps it’s at a grandparents’ house? This mindful activity gets your child thinking about where they feel the most safe in the world and asks them to use their senses to describe what it’s like.
 
Football Feelings – Football Themed Emotion Literacy Worksheet – Some more World Cup resources for the classroom and at home! We all know that football is an extremely emotional game, we’ve put some of the most common emotions that your child might feel when they watch or play football – can they guess what they are?
 
Football Emotion Flashcards – Emotion Literacy Flashcards for Kids – 16 emotion football-themed flashcards, why not use these throughout the World Cup to ask your child or class how they are feeling today?
 
Emotion Pairs – A fun emotion literacy game for younger minds this week, emotion pairs is a card game that encourages your child to match the emotion card with the word card. Simply download, print, cut out and match!
 
Football Breathing – We love a good breathing exercise and this one is all about getting the football to the goal! Have your child take a slow deep breath in as far as they can go, then, trace the line with their finger from the football to the goal as they slowly breathe out. Can they count to four as they breathe out and trace the line? Optional – why not print this resource twice and cut out the footballs from one page, then your child can physically move each football to the goal using their finger?
 
That’s it for this week’s resources! What would you like to see on the Hub next week?
 
You have to be a member to access and download these resources. Not a member? You can sign up here from just £1.99 a month.

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