{"id":57,"date":"2019-12-02T16:49:20","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T16:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/healthierminds\/?page_id=57"},"modified":"2024-08-06T13:13:25","modified_gmt":"2024-08-06T13:13:25","slug":"universal-approaches-to-supporting-children-and-young-people","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/healthierminds\/practitioners\/universal-approaches-to-supporting-children-and-young-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Universal Approaches to Supporting Children and Young People"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #003366\"><strong>Key Adults<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366\">Most children and young people will develop coping strategies to deal with life\u2019s challenges with the support of key people around them. The people most likely to support them are <strong><em>parents<\/em><\/strong>, other <strong><em>family members<\/em><\/strong>, <strong><em>friends<\/em><\/strong> and <strong>trusted adults <\/strong>who feature in their daily lives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366\">The presence of \u2018<strong>One Key Adult\u2019<\/strong> in the life of a child or young person has a positive influence on their mental wellbeing. Children and young people with the support of one key adult are more connected to others, more self-confident, future looking and better able to cope with difficulties.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366\">Parents and other key adults in the child or young person\u2019s life can do the following to help them to develop coping skills.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #339966\"><strong>Do <\/strong><strong>\u221a<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #339966\"><strong>Listen <\/strong>to the child or young person and <strong>connect<\/strong> with them<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #339966\"><strong>Validate<\/strong> the child or young person\u2019s feelings e.g. <\/span><span style=\"color: #339966\">\u2018<em>It\u2019s clear you are feeling really anxious right now because of all that is happening at school\/home.\u2019<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #339966\"><i><strong>Comment<\/strong> on what you see \/paraphrase e.g. <\/i><\/span><span style=\"color: #339966\"><em>\u2018So you say you are feeling a bit fed up at the moment.\u2019\u2019 <\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #339966\">Look for <strong><em>exceptions<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 times when the young people says things are going better.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #339966\">Encourage the child to focus on these \u2018exceptions\u2019 and do more of the things that make them feel better.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #339966\">Help the child or young person to generate their own <strong>coping strategies<\/strong> building on things they are doing already, e.g.<\/span><span style=\"color: #339966\"><em> \u2018So you said that you feel better when you talk to your friend\/take the dog for a walk\/go to the gym\/listen to your music.<\/em>\u2019<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #339966\">Be aware of <strong>body language<\/strong> and of what this is communicating about how the child or young person is feeling<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #339966\">Ask how you can be of<strong> help <\/strong>e.g. <\/span><span style=\"color: #339966\"><em>\u2018Is there anything I can do to take a little bit of the anxiety away?\u2019<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #339966\">Encourage the child or young person to <strong>seek help<\/strong> from others if needed e.g. <\/span><span style=\"color: #339966\"><em>\u2018How about you speak to your sister\/pupil support teacher to see if they can help you find other ways to make things a little easier right now?\u2019 <\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #339966\">Encourage the child to be <strong>active<\/strong> and to do sport or any kind of exercise that they enjoy<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>Don\u2019t\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><strong>x<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">Judge \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">Overreact<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">Avoid the issue <em>\u00a0(this will not help a child or young person to address a situation)<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">Talk just about problems <em>(focus on the <strong>exceptions<\/strong> too)<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">Rush to solve the problem <em>(Remember, we all cope better when we have been supported to find our own solution to a problem)<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">Dismiss their concerns and say they\u2019re wrong to feel a certain way <em>(only the child or young person knows how they are feeling; being told we are not feeling a certain way makes us feel worse)<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key Adults Most children and young people will develop coping strategies to deal with life\u2019s challenges with the support of key people around them. The people most likely to support them are parents, other family members, friends and trusted adults who feature in their daily lives.\u00a0 The presence of \u2018One Key Adult\u2019 in the life &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/healthierminds\/practitioners\/universal-approaches-to-supporting-children-and-young-people\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Universal Approaches to Supporting Children and Young People<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30990,"featured_media":0,"parent":13,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-57","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/healthierminds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/healthierminds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/healthierminds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/healthierminds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30990"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/healthierminds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/healthierminds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/healthierminds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57\/revisions\/103"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/healthierminds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/healthierminds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}