Well-being in young children ideas for home

Introduction

What is well-being?

Well-being is a broad term that covers how you feel about yourself and your life. It incorporates the physical, emotional (and mental), social and spiritual areas of a person.

What do we mean by physical well-being for young children?

Physical well-being covers everything physical to do with the body:

Growth and development
Moving and keeping physically fit
Caring for personal health (e.g. washing, cleaning teeth, etc.)
Eating a balanced and nutritious diet
Rest and appropriate sleep patterns.

How we encourage physical well-being at home?

Offering and encouraging different kinds of play when at home and out and about both inside and out and about using our whole bodies, arms and legs or fingers and toes!
Providing a healthy balance diet at home
As an adult, role modelling making healthy choices e.g. food, snacks, sleep and exercise
Encouraging and supporting the move toward independent personal hygiene, explaining the reasons for hand washing, tooth brushing and bath-time
Encouraging and supporting the move toward independent self-care, e.g. putting own coat on, wearing a hat outside, getting dressed
Supporting your child to take calculated risks in their play, using a common sense approach to keeping safe.

What do we mean by mental and emotional well-being for young children?

Acknowledging, expressing and coping with feelings and emotions
Thought processes
Reducing stress and anxiety.

What do we mean by social well-being for young children?

Developing healthy relationships with family and friends
Encouraging the feeling of belonging and acceptance
Developing compassion and caring for others.

How can we encourage mental, emotional and social well-being at home?

Naming emotions can help as by giving something a label we can start to talk about it and manage it; for instance naming emotions you or your child might be feeling eg angry, happy sad
Reading stories is a great way of exploring emotions of the characters and so how we might feel as humans
Being consistent with your strategies to help your child overcome ‘unwanted’ behaviours both at home and between home and nursery
Again, helping your child to take some risks in their play
As your child grows helping them resolve their own problems and issues. This can start from a very young age
- e.g. encouraging your child to be persistent and not give up for instance a baby reaching for a toy that is slightly out of reach
- allowing your child to experience failure and not getting it ‘right’ first time. We learn through the process; rather than the end result and so it is the process that we can celebrate.