When We Live Apart, is a small resource pack of 10 activities to help children explore and communicate their feelings around separation from caregivers or loved ones.

There are many reasons why a child may not live with loved ones such as parents and caregivers. Perhaps you're a military family, recently separated or you have moved abroad away from close family members. This toolkit is here to help your child during this period of separation.

About this resource:

Our resource pack includes 10 activities to help your child explore their emotions around separation and encourages them to feel happy and calm, including:

Activities that explore your different locations

The first activities in our toolkit are all about helping your child explore the similarities and differences between where they live and their loved one lives. If it's in another country, this is a great opportunity for your child to explore the difference in cultures. If it's a different city or place in the UK, they can have fun asking their loved one all about it to write about in their journal. Can they do their own research too and impress their loved one next time they speak? This activity is all about keeping minds busy and focused, being able to picture where their loved one lives in their mind can bring comfort.

Activities to help children look forward to connecting

One of the hardest parts about being away from people we love is wanting to tell them everything that happens as it happens! We have built activities all around helping your child to process the things they want to say - writing down things they want to tell or ask their loved one can help them to feel calm and prepared. This also helps if phone calls or video calls are time sensitive, as it helps your child know what they want to say before the call.

Activities to reflect on happy times

This resource pack also has activities designed to help your children explore positive emotions, by thinking back and ahead to happy times. In Our Happiest Moment - can your child think back to and draw their happiest moment with their loved one? And don't forget to fill in our When We're Next Together Bucket List so they can think about all the fun things they want to do when they are reunited!

Activities to explore emotions and coping techniques

Lastly, this resource pack also includes activities to help children explore their separation anxiety and how they feel when apart from their loved ones. We ask children to come up with things they can do when they are missing their loved one - it could be doing an activity from our toolkit, talking to someone they trust or doing something calming and distracting. Our last activity, 'My Needs' gets your children thinking about what they need to feel their best selves when living apart from their loved one - how can they ensure they get their needs met? Who can help them?

Download this toolkit now to help children explore living apart from loved ones and learn how to identify, communicate and address emotions and worries.