Children's Mental Health Week - Ballybeen Preschool
We continue to celebrate Children’s Mental Health Week
Today we hear from the Early Years Practitioners at Ballybeen Preschool, about a strategy they use to connect, using Callie the Calming Cat.
At Ballybeen Pre School, we place emphasis and importance on promoting and nurturing young children’s mental health and well-being, which has been at the forefront of our minds this year. One way that we have encouraged children to begin talking about and understanding their own well-being is through our new resource, ‘The Calming Cat’ or as we know her, Callie.
Callie is an amazing resource for our children, and our staff too. Callie is an engaging, huggable and tactile cat who really helps us to engage in conversations with our children about their feelings and emotions, helping them to discover different coping strategies to get them through many diverse situations.
Callie has very soft and soothing fur, a weighted body and various other materials throughout her design. There is a tummy pocket which our children love to put their hands in to give Callie a big hug.
We set aside time, as often as we can, after what can be a very busy day in preschool; we turn down the lights, put on some calming music and allow Callie to be passed around our circle. This helps children to bring their bodies down into a very calming state and begin to open up and have a chat or even just have a quiet minute and a hug from Callie.
Being able to talk about mental health has promoted our little ones well-being through an understanding of their own and others, emotions and feelings, and has created a space for the development of healthy coping strategies, which is so vital from a young age.
