This practical self-help guide introduces "Psychological Fitness" – a powerful combination of mental resilience and emotional well-being that can transform how your child navigates life's challenges.
This practical self-help guide introduces "Psychological Fitness" – a powerful combination of mental resilience and emotional well-being that can transform how your child navigates life's challenges. It provides brain training methods that parents and teachers can adopt and use to foster the skills and knowledge in children and young people, so they can navigate and live in this uncertain and changing world.
This book shares simple, proven techniques developed over two decades of successful programs with children and young people. You'll find easy-to-implement tools that help children express their worries and build their own solutions, alongside effective brain training methods that promote both mental and physical health. This guide empowers you to help your child embrace their unique identity and develop crucial life skills. Through practical exercises, your child will build a foundation of resilient thinking, emotional awareness, optimism, and empathy—essential abilities that support their wellbeing now and throughout adulthood.
Whether you're a parent or work with children professionally, this straightforward guide offers life-changing opportunities to support the young people in your care. The refreshingly simple techniques can be implemented right away, creating lasting positive impacts on mental and emotional health.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Being a child is different now: teaching your teenagers well?
2 Our amazing brains
3 The art of self-regulation: using our emotions strategically
4 Slow and steady: the link between thoughts, feelings,
and behaviour
5 Dont believe everything you think: reframing with optimism
6 Why did I react that way? Identifying what matters most
7 Where the superpowers begin
8 The sky is falling in: when our thinking snowballs
9 One step beyond: the power of moving on
10 Making it real: resilience in action
11 You are one of a kind: using unique strengths to thrive
12 A messy kind of magic: achieving mastery of the skill
13 Reflections on the future of parenting
Index
Lucy Bailey is chief executive officer and founder of Bounce Forward a charity that specialises in building psychological fitness in children and the adults around them.
Voula Tsoflias is a trustee of Bounce Forward. She is a chartered psychologist, specialising in the development of resilience, through her work with corporate leaders.