I don’t know about you, but when I wake up in the morning now, it takes a few moments before reality catches up with me and after that, I’m basically going through a rollercoaster of emotions during the rest of day. I may feel inspired and hopeful when I see people singing from their balconies or the many acts of kindness that are springing up everywhere. Later on, I might see people being selfish and unkind and I feel angry. In a quiet moment, I start thinking of loved ones who are working at the frontlines and I feel worried and scared. And when I start to contemplate the enormous suffering that people are experiencing all over the globe and the thousands of people who have lost their lives, I feel very sad.
 
All of these feelings are normal and totally legitimate. It’s ok to have them. There are no ‘bad’ feelings. But there are difficult feelings and we want to make sure we don’t get stuck with them or let them take over our minds to a point where it’s no longer healthy. The word emotion contains the word ‘motion’, because they are calls for action. They need to go somewhere.
 
So the two main pieces of advice I’d like to give is to make sure you don’t judge yourself for any of the feelings you are experiencing and to make sure you express them in some form so they (and you) can move on.
The same is true for your children.
Yes, it’s good to keep them busy and distracted but please, also make sure you give them space and opportunity to express their feelings and to ask questions you may find difficult to answer.
Children will normally only ever ask as much as they need to know. So you don’t need to give them all the information at once but only deal with what they ask for.
It’s important to be calm and measured but also not to lie. This is a difficult and scary situation but it’s also an opportunity for your children to learn from you about resilience and how to deal with challenging times.
It’s also a great opportunity to talk about your family’s values and how you apply them to this situation and in fact, to talk about how situations like these make all of us ask ourselves who we want to be: helpers who try to make things better or people who add to the problem and make things worse?
Often, thinking about ways that you and your children can help and make things better is one of the best ways to help them deal with their emotions.
 
Here’s a list of 6 activities you can do with your children to help them manage their emotions:
 

1. Breathe. Do some easy deep belly breathing activities with your children. Lie on the floor together and place a hand (or their favourite toy) on your belly and make it rise and fall with the breath. Maybe then follow with a guided meditation or progressive muscle relaxation together. There are lots of free ones that you can access on YouTube or Apps such as Calm, Headspace or Insight Timer.
2. Ground yourself in nature. If you are living somewhere where you are still allowed outside for walks, get out in nature. Walk barefoot on the grass, hug a tree or lie on your back and watch the clouds pass by. Being in nature makes us feel connected, grounded and gives us a bigger perspective.
3. Get creative. Draw or paint a picture about the situation or, even better, get them to draw a picture of what life will be like afterwards. How we will celebrate and hug and dance and laugh when this is all over.
4. Write letters or emails of encouragement. Maybe write to your elderly relatives or an elderly, lonely neighbour. Maybe your children would like to say thanks to the people working in hospital. Let them reach out in ways that will make them feel like they are doing something to help. Smaller children could just draw a picture instead of writing something.
5. Eat healthily. Involve them in cooking nutritious food for the whole family to help keep everyone healthy.
6. Exercise. Anxiety and fear in particular are emotions that want us to move (fight or flight) and that activate all the hormones in our body accordingly so it’s important to use the body to exhaust them. Again, there are lots of videos on YouTube that you could use to learn a dance routine together or do some other form of exercise. The Body Coach Joe Wicks now also does a PE session every morning at 9am for children.

 
These are my Top 6.
​Other than that, don’t stress about your ‘performance’ as a parent.
This situation is already difficult enough without stressing about things such as whether or not you’re doing homeschooling right, if they spend too much time in front of a screen or anything else like that. What they will most remember from this time is how it FELT. So focus on that. Make sure they feel loved, safe, calm and cared for. This is an extraordinary situation. There is no rulebook. Just do what works best for your family and keep yourself and others safe, wherever you are.

In the same way that yoga has boomed in recent years and increased in its popularity, mindfulness and meditation are also receiving increasingly more attention. Sports people and business leaders use it to help them stay calm and focused under pressure. Health professionals and psychologists are looking into it and are finding that it can improve mental as well as physical wellbeing and now even schools are starting to offer it to their students.

Maybe you are sceptical and think that this is just another fad - something that may be nice to have but not really a priority for your school. Maybe you are more interested in improving your students’ attendance, behaviour and exam results or your next Ofsted inspection is just around the corner and you can’t really see how a mindfulness or meditation programme will help with that.

I hope that the following summary of results from controlled studies that have been carried out on mindfulness programmes in schools will get your attention and change your views.

1)   Mindfulness improves self-awareness, self-regulation and self-control

Increased self-awareness, self-control and self-regulation have been observed by teachers and reported by students after they participated in mindfulness programmes.

2)   Mindfulness improves attention skills and decreases symptoms of ADHD

Primary school teachers observed improved attention skills and a decrease in symptoms of ADHD in pupils who took part in a mindfulness programme.

3)   Mindfulness improves social skills and reduces aggression and misbehaviour

Improved social skills and a decrease in aggression and misbehaviour have been found in students who took part in mindfulness programmes in school.

4)   Mindfulness improves positive emotions and general wellbeing

Students who took part in mindfulness programmes in schools reported an increase in positive emotions as well as general wellbeing and a decrease in symptoms of depression.

5)   Mindfulness improves attendance

Absences as well as the number of exclusions decreased in schools that took part in a mindfulness programme and consequently attendance figures improved.

6)   Mindfulness reduces stress and anxiety levels

One of the most reported effects of mindfulness programmes in schools is a reduction in stress symptoms and anxiety levels. This includes test anxiety.

7)   Mindfulness improves academic performance

It is therefore not at all surprising that academic performance improved as well.

8)   It works fast!

The most amazing outcome from all this research, however, is the fact that the majority of studies looked at programmes that only lasted for 8-9 weeks with no more than 30 to 60 minutes of weekly mindfulness sessions.

9)   The effects last!

In one study, researchers went back after 3 months, during the stressful summer exam period, and found that the effects were still maintained. They also discovered that those students who used mindfulness practices more frequently also performed better in their exams.

Still wondering what the benefits are? I hope not.

We all experience nervous anticipation when faced with important events such as an exam. This is a natural response that helps us rise to the challenge and perform at our best by keeping us alert and focused. It stops being beneficial and becomes an obstacle to peak performance when it turns into anxiety and fear. This may manifest as extreme feelings of worry and dread, self-defeating thoughts and physical symptoms such as shaking hands, outbreaks of sweat or even vomiting or fainting. Rather than keeping us concentrated and alert, anxiety and fear make our mind go blank and prevent us from focusing on the task at hand.

Here are 4 powerful ways that can help you overcome your anxiety and will stop you from sabotaging your own performance:

1)    Give yourself permission to fail

This may seem counterintuitive but it is important in order to take the pressure off. Test anxiety links to fear of failure and you need to face this fear head on. What is the worst that can happen? Try and get a bigger perspective on the event. Although the exam is important and you want to do well, it is just an exam. It is not a matter of life and death and many brilliant people, such as Albert Einstein for example have not performed well in school or standardised tests, yet went on to achieve great things in life. Make yourself familiar and comfortable with the option of failing.

2)    Remember: You are enough!

Do not allow your self-worth to be defined by an exam. Use positive, daily affirmations to remind yourself that you are enough, worthy and loveable regardless of how you will perform in the exam. A passed exam may be the icing on the cake but remember that the cake without icing is still edible.

3)    Practice mindfulness

Mindfulness is the practice of non-judgmental present moment awareness. Focusing on an object such as your own breath lessens the mind’s tendency to run away with every thought that comes along and brings you back to the present moment. All anxiety feeds off repetitive thought patterns around events that have not happened yet but may (or may not!) happen in the future. Mindfulness will help you break through these worry cycles and root you more firmly in the present moment.

4)    Use visualisation

Visualisation is a very powerful method to prepare for the actual exam situation and athletes use this method frequently to prepare for big sporting events. It involves you visualising the day of the exam in as much detail as possible, from the moment you wake up until you actually write the exam. It is important to hold the image of you being calm and confident throughout every part of the visualisation. Stop as soon as you start to feel anxious and then, after a break, start again from the beginning. Step by step you will be able to visualise the whole day all the way through to the exam while feeling calm and confident. By practising in this way you re-programme your mind to view a situation that you used to perceive as threatening in a more balanced and realistic light.

Good luck! :-)