Children's Mental Health Activities

The core logic of doing a good job in children's mental health activities is never to design elaborate links or explain thorough psychological principles. It is to squat down at eye level with the children and hide psychological support in content that they are willing to actively participate in. There is no need to pursue immediate "educational effects" and there is no need to force children to say the standard answer of "I learned it."

Last year, I was doing an emotional awareness activity in Puhui Park on the street. I saved PPT for three days at the beginning and made a short animated video. I was going to talk about "joy, anger, sadness and fear are the four basic emotions" according to the process. As soon as I started speaking, the little boy with a pot head in the front row raised his hands and stood up: "I was angry yesterday and kicked down my sister's building blocks. My mother said I was wrong, but I was just angry. Why could she tear up my painting?" ”

it's useless. I haven’t even opened a page of the PPT. I simply brought out all the colored pens and drawing paper and asked everyone to draw "What does it look like when you are angry?" Some children drew fire-breathing little dinosaurs, some drew rubber balls that rolled all over the floor, and a little girl drew a dark cloud. She said that when she was angry, "the clouds will rain and make my whole body wet." Just now, Jarhead, who had fried hair, drew an Ultraman with his hair blown into flames. As he painted, he muttered, saying that last time his sister folded the Ultraman cards he had been saving for half a month and folded them into a plane. His mother scolded him for being ignorant as soon as he came up. He had to hold back his anger and had no place to vent his anger. At the end of the drawing, he looked up and laughed: "It turns out that when I get angry, it's Ultraman who wants to come out to fight. ”You see, there is no need to talk about the big truth that "there are no right or wrong emotions", he will understand it after painting.

Speaking of which, I have to mention two completely different ideas in the industry. There is no distinction between them, but the applicable scenarios are different. Practitioners with a game orientation are more likely to give children enough safe space without deliberate guidance throughout the process. They can have fun with sandboxes, role plays, and free drawings. They believe that as long as they don’t judge and listen more, children will complete their emotional adjustment. This method is particularly friendly to children who have experienced traumatic events such as moving, death of relatives, and school bullying, and will not cause secondary stress. ； Teams with a cognitive orientation will prefer to embed simplified emotion management methods in activities, such as teaching children how to use "counting to 10" and "holding a small pillow for three minutes" to relieve anger. This approach is more efficient when placed in daily class inclusive activities and can help children quickly master practical skills. When I do activities on my own, I usually do it in a mixed way. Anyway, the bottom line is that "the children feel comfortable", and everything else is easy to say.

Oh, by the way, many people have a very common misunderstanding about this kind of activities. They always think that "results" must be produced - at the end of the activity, the children should come on stage and say "I will never lose my temper again", and a bunch of photos of the children laughing should be taken. It seems that the activity is effective if they don't cry or make trouble. In fact, this is not the case at all. What impressed me most was the series of activities held at a school for migrant children last year. There was a little girl who lived with her grandmother. She huddled in a corner for the first time and did not even dare to take the colored pens. I handed them to her and she hid behind them. She did not say a word for three consecutive activities. I was not even sure if she wanted to come. At the end of the fourth activity, she ran over with a piece of drawing paper and stuffed it into my hand, turned around and ran away. I unfolded it and saw that it was a little man with pigtails, and "teacher" was written crookedly next to it. Do you think this activity is useful to her? It must be useful, but she doesn't have to become the "cheerful and generous person" everyone expects for it to be effective. It is often said in the industry that "the highest state of children's psychological activities is invisible intervention." This is actually what it means. A child's emotions are like a small puddle. The more you block it, the deeper it accumulates. If you open a small opening for it and let it flow slowly, it will dry up quickly. A good activity is the small shovel that helps him open the opening, not the big guy who splits the mountain and clears the way.

It’s funny to say that when I first entered the industry, I was superstitious about the “perfect activity plan”. I bought a lot of activity manuals imported from abroad and followed them step by step. As a result, I was left blank several times. It wasn’t until I worked offline with an old consultant who had been in the agency for more than ten years for half a year that I realized that children are the group that least follow the script. No matter how good the plan you prepared is, it is not as important as when he suddenly raised his hand and said, “Teacher, I want to draw a dinosaur.” When we do activities now, we don’t even mention the words “psychological class”, we just say “Let’s play painting/building blocks/playing small theater games today.” If the child doesn’t want to play in the middle, he can always go to the reading corner nearby without forcing him to participate, and we won’t ask “Are you unhappy?” It’s too deliberate, but it will make the child nervous. We usually ask “What color is the little monster in your heart now?” and talk to him in his context, so that he will be willing to open up.

There is another point that many people tend to overlook: children’s mental health activities are never just for children. Sometimes a 10-minute sharing session with parents is more effective than an hour-long lecture with children. There was a mother who always complained that her child loved to bite her nails. She scolded her many times to no avail, and her fingernails were almost bald. After we finished that activity, we talked to her and said that the next time you see him biting his nails, don’t scold him. Just hand him a small orange or a small building block so that he has something to hold on to. There is no need to specifically mention "Why are you biting your nails again?" Half a month later, she sent a message specifically, saying that the child was biting his nails much less often. Before, the more she scolded him, the more nervous he became, and the more nervous he was, the more he bit. Now, instead of talking to him, he is gradually getting better. You see, the root of many children's emotional problems is actually the way adults deal with them. The activity helps parents understand this, which is better than anything else.

Finally, I would like to mention that daily mental health activities are only for emotional guidance and popular science. If a child is found to have problems such as low mood, abnormal sleep, social avoidance, frequent violent behavior, etc. that last for more than two weeks, he must contact a professional child psychiatrist or clinical psychological counselor in time. Do not rely on daily activities to replace professional intervention to avoid delays. After all, to put it bluntly, there is no universal activity template. The longer I do it, the more I feel that as long as you really treat your child as an equal little adult, are willing to listen to his weird little ideas, and don't judge him casually like "Why are you so ignorant?"