Articles & Resources

Activities
Nicky Edwards

Children’s Activity: Challenge Limiting Beliefs

Limiting Beliefs Limiting beliefs are negative thoughts or beliefs which hold us back from achieving things, or trying things in life. They can be about anything, from ourselves and our personalities, to our abilities and skills, to the world or other people. They keep us in a negative mindset, where they can cause chaos as

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social media
Nicky Edwards

The perils of sadfishing

Disclaimer – the content of this article is not medical advice, if you have a concern about the mental health, safety or well-being of a child or adult, please raise with the appropriate services to activate help for them **** With so many parents and professionals raising the question about how we manage young people’s

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Activities
Nicky Edwards

Children’s Activity: Bumblebee Breathing

Teaching children breathing activities has multiple benefits: Teaching children how to slowly engage breathing techniques and practice them regularly supports them to relax and respond more constructively when they are feeling overwhelmed. Bumblebee Breathing Download Here Next Steps Want to learn more?  Would you like to deliver emotional literacy interventions in your work? Our Level 3

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Adult Mental Health
Nicky Edwards

Taking the lessons from challenges

When challenging things happen, it can be difficult not to fall into the trap of asking ‘why me’ and experiencing the spirals of anxiety and sadness that feed from it. So, how do we claw our way out of it? Being able to take the lessons from the challenges that we experience has been found

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Activities
Nicky Edwards

Children’s Activity: Butterfly Breathing

Butterfly Breathing When we are relaxed, our minds are clearer. This means that we can make decisions easier, feel more in control and manage situations more effectively. Teaching children breathing exercises helps them to learn to breathe deeply, as well as feel more relaxed and calm. B breathing is a fun and simple activity, which

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Child Mental Health
Nicky Edwards

Why reading supports empathy

Whilst I appreciate that I am biased, being a child Matilda and the author of 30 books, I cannot pretend that I am not a lover of reading. However, something that is less spoken about is the role that books play in mental health, and I am not referring to the role of self-development books

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Activities
Nicky Edwards

Children’s Activity: Journal Prompts for the Future

Journal Prompts Journalling can help us to calm our minds by structuring our thoughts. Journal prompts help us to explore different aspects of our lives and develop a deeper understanding of them. By taking time to deeply think about different concepts, we can find peace, solutions or identify areas for support. Journal prompts are questions

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Emotions & Feelings
Nicky Edwards

Does your love language alter your expectations?

Love Languages were developed by Gary Chapman (PHD) in his book ‘The 5 Love Languages’, it has since been updated numerous times and gained popularity as the years have gone on. Its purpose was to identify the different ways that people express and receive love, to develop a deeper recognition of how this influences our

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Activities
Nicky Edwards

Children’s Activity: 8 ways to regulate

Being able to regulate when we are overwhelmed or overstimulated, or underwhelmed (tired or bored) is an important skill in both childhood and adulthood. Finding our own unique combination of strategies that work for us builds our confidence and self-compassion as we stop thinking ‘what is wrong with me?’ and instead ask ‘how can I

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Child Mental Health
Nicky Edwards

What is functional freeze mode?

We often talk about fight-flight-freeze-fawn and their role when our nervous system is activated by a potential threat. Traditionally, these states were activated when we were in potential danger, but now they can also be activated by long term stress, overwhelm and exhaustion which is not managed. We discuss how, in these states, we can

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Activities
Nicky Edwards

Children’s Activity: Nature Colouring

Benefits of colouring: Colouring has multiple benefits, including; enhancing creativity, promoting well-being, stress relief, increasing a sense of mindfulness as well as providing a sense of achievement on completion. Colouring allows us to unwind and let our minds focus on just the task in front of us. So, we’re sharing a free nature colouring sheet

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Behaviour
Nicky Edwards

Making decision-making easier

Making decisions is something that causes many people anxiety or worry. This can be for many reasons: For younger children Break decision making into 1-2 choices rather than free reign to build confidence, ‘would you like to do X or Y?’ and give time to think it through. When they make a choice, give them

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Activities
Nicky Edwards

Children’s Activity: 5 Important Questions

Learning about ourselves and what makes us ‘us’ is an important aspect of self-esteem and happiness. If we develop a strong sense of what we like, what makes us feel good, and how we want to be it allows us to live our lives more authentically and be less swayed to be something we are

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Emotions & Feelings
Nicky Edwards

Should we stop praising independence?

If you attended the Dandelion Conference in April 2024, you will have heard my presentation about attachment styles and the expression of feelings. The role of attachments, is something I am hugely passionate about as it influences so many aspects of our perception of child behaviour and feelings. Attachment theory was first proposed by Bowlby,

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Activities
Nicky Edwards

Children’s Activity: Therapeutic Colouring

Free Activity So, this week, our free activity is a downloadable therapeutic colouring sheet, so you can unwind together. Why not make it a family affair and all have a go…. Download here Next steps Want to learn more?  Would you like to deliver emotional literacy interventions in your work? Our Level 3 Emotional Literacy Mentor qualification

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Emotions & Feelings
Nicky Edwards

4 ways to support children to externalise their feelings

When it comes to feelings, there are two routes that we can take: In the reverse to a first aid situation, when we cannot see someone’s expression of feelings this is a warning sign that a child or young person needs support. When we can see a child’s behaviours or hear their expressed words, this

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Activities
Nicky Edwards

Children’s Activity: Feelings Colouring

Identifying that our feelings are fluid, and ever moving supports children to understand that they do not need to always feel ‘happy’. For so many children and adults, there is a pressure to always be ‘happy’, when in reality our feelings move continually throughout the day. Learning to differentiate between different feelings is an important

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Emotions & Feelings
Nicky Edwards

Creating safe spaces for feelings

Emotional literacy sits at the core of our well-being, mental health and management of needs such as stress. When we have positive emotional literacy skills, we have a greater capacity to: However, to be able to do this we also need the right environment. The development of emotional literacy awareness requires support as well as

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