We were sent a copy of the Happy Confident Me Journal for the purposes of this review. Full disclosure statement at the end of this post.
As lockdown here in the UK continues, looking after our children’s mental health is so important. Our kids have been uprooted from the routine that they have been used to since starting school and that can be really quite confusing for them. No matter how well they might understand what is going on, getting to grips with it all emotionally is so much harder. Especially as they are all missing their friends so much. That’s where I’m hoping the Happy Confident Me Journal will help my daughter in particular.
Nine year old Little Miss C has always been a bit of a worrier, but she’s the type of child that will seem fine on the outside for ages and then suddenly everything will come tumbling out in a hot, teary mess. What I’ve learnt to do is try to get her to release how she is feeling on a more regular basis and this is how I hope using the Happy Confident Me Journal is helping her.
LMC tries to sit and write her journal each night before bed and she’s admitted to me that it’s great put everything down on paper then, as it helps her to sleep better.
The journal is arranged so that each day children are asked to think about the different emotions that they have felt that day. It’s a brilliant way of making children see that emotions can change daily, and that while you might feel sad at one point in the day, you might also feel happy at another point.
They can focus on happy things like what they are grateful for that day, what has made them smile, what has made them proud, and who has been kind towards them. There are also weekly activities, and plenty of space to doodle and get their creative juices flowing.
One thing that my daughter particularly liked was the inspirational quotes that are included daily. And when she didn’t know the person that the quote was attributed to she simply asked her Alexa to tell her all about them. A perfect combination of modern technology and learning right there!
The other brilliant thing about the Happy Confident Me Journal is that as a parent you can often use it to help initiate conversations about emotions and feelings with your child. Some days my daughter is happy to share what she has written with me. On other days she’s not. Both of these are perfectly acceptable, and even if she doesn’t show me what she’s written on a particular day talking to her about why can often help her to understand how she is feeling even more.
As a parent right now it is challenging in a whole new way to anything we’ve ever been used to before. Not only are we responsible for our children’s education differently, but also, we are the only adult that they have any interaction with. We need to make sure that we don’t miss things that might be obvious to a fresh pair of eyes. A child slowly slipping down into an anxious, possibly depressed, state is something we all want to avoid, but there’s a risk we might miss as we are so caught up in a lockdown juggling act. For me, the activities in the Happy Confident Me Journal help to give us a regular temperature check as to how my daughter is doing emotionally through this. It’s not to be used instead of taking time to be with them and talk to them, but more as a tool to open up some of those conversations about both bad and good feelings.
The Happy Confident Me Journal can be *bought online here.
Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of the Happy Confident Me Journal for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links marked *. If you click through and buy anything from these links I will earn a small commission, but it will cost you no more than if you had gone to the site direct. Many thanks for anything that you do choose to buy.
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