Children’s Activity: My Nervous System
Nervous Systems
When children’s nervous systems are hypervigilant, their body and brain is not in a place to:
- Listen
- Learn
- Talk
- Express themselves
- Relax
- Sleep
When we are in our sympathetic nervous system, our body and brain is alert and active, seeking out any threats in the environment as though they are TRex dinosaurs. Our greatest misconception is that children can relax and learn when they feel like this. The reality, is that children are often exhausted from being permanently ‘switched on’ and their quality of sleep diminishes, this often causes avoidance of activities as they are trying to stay safe.
Activity:
Teaching children about how their bodies works is therefore an important part of emotional regulation as it allows us to understand the WHY of what is happening to us. This week’s activity is therefore an activity to share with children so that they know WHAT is happening.
What to do:
- Download the worksheet here
- Explore the nervous systems and what they do
- Consider what activities create these feelings?
- Consider what activities reduce these feelings?
- Explore what can create their own plan to reduce sensations
- Extend – couple this with our regulation activities to create a personal toolbox (here)
Want to learn more?
If you want to learn more about emotional literacy you can join our Level 4 training (here) or keep an eye out for our online emotional literacy courses coming soon (here).
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Further help
For more articles about mental health visit – ARTICLES
To learn more about child and adolescent mental health visit – COURSES
For resources to support child and adolescent mental health visit –RESOURCES