You can teach Wholeself Care at home
Teaching wholeself care to kids is about supporting their growth on the path to caring for themselves physically, socially, and emotionally. Caregivers help children in all of these areas with the goal of the child being safe, healthy, and happy while they are kids and for when they grow-up.
Teaching wholeself care is different from taking care of a child’s daily needs.
The caregiver is helping the child in the present, while considering the child’s future well-being at the same time! When teaching wholeself care while taking care of kids, the caregiver is intending for the child to learn how to do elements of the task, be motivated to learn and do the routines and practices themselves, as well as to learn why these skills are important. Caregivers also teach self care by how they role model their own wholeself care attitudes and methods.
Maintaining your focus on a child’s future can be difficult (or even impossible!) to do sometimes! Just getting a child’s needs met in the present moment can be overwhelming enough! And, with the busy lives of parenting/caregiving, it can also be hard to role model self-care.
That’s where my book Wonderful Me: A First Guide to Taking Care of Yourself along with the album SongsToGrow can be helpful!
These tools can be thought of as a creative manual on self-care and growing up, designed to help you support a child during the longest and one of the most important “courses” that they will take; learning to become their own parent. And, built right into the book and songs are ideas and moments for you to pause and perhaps get something for yourself too! Extra note: Research shows that how caregivers take care of themselves impacts a child’s well-being!
Wonderful Me: A First Guide to Taking Care of Yourself is meant to be read to children in sections There are many themes, and the child and’or adult can choose which ones to read in each sitting. In most situations, the adult will read the text out loud while the child looks at the pictures. Some sections of the book offer suggestions for activities that the adult can help the child to do, and most sections also offer questions and prompts for reflection that could spark conversation. You might also consider how these themes are relevant in your experience of caring for yourself.
The songs in the SongsToGrow album can be listened to on their own, or used to reinforce particular themes of the book. You can play the songs to help with morning and bedtime routines, and to introduce or reinforce particular themes at meal times, in the car, when traveling, or just to enjoy during down time. Sample themes include: Respecting self and others, promoting sleep, making choices, finding peace, befriending yourself, and reducing screen time.
Here are a few questions that you can take with you to consider when you are caring for a child:
How will the way I am providing care affect this child today, and tomorrow?
How will the way I am providing care to this child affect how they learn to care for themselves?
What am I role modeling for kids with how I take care of myself?
What parents are saying:
“Wonderful Me steps beyond a healthy diet and getting plenty of exercise to healthy friendships, learning to trust yourself when something doesn’t feel right, and establishing boundaries.”
“I recommend this book to any parent. I have 3 children and each one could use different lessons of this book right now as they learn to navigate social situations.”
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“This was SO cute and so helpful. I read this to my 6 year old, he was so interested and loved it. I think everyone should read it child or not.”
“As an adult reading this book, I can honestly say that I learned a lot from this book. It is suited for kids but Adults can learn a lot and how to be patient and kind with their children. I liked all the illustrations and how everything was explained in detail with a child in mind as the reader. I recommend reading this with one's child as it can be a bonding experience. It could help to cope with emotions and understand one's child's behavior. It provides activities that help children learn as they read.”
“The book encourages self-reflection and resilience through interactive activities, making it a valuable resource for parents, educators, and caregivers. Overall, it's a must-read for anyone looking to support children in their journey towards self-discovery and personal growth.”
“As someone that works with kids on their social and emotional learning this book describes concepts in a great way for kids to understand.”
“In addition to offering information and helpful suggestions, it also asks questions, giving kids a chance to think about how the subject just discussed might apply to them. This book covers important topics like boundaries, respect, feelings, communication, health, and other self-care matters in healthy, accessible ways. Because they're broken down into sections, it's easy to handle one topic at a time, if you want to read a small piece and then talk about it together.”
“There’s a lovely thread of normalisation and validation throughout the book, gently balanced with encouraging children to take steps to increase their autonomy and independence through self care.”
“Wonderful Me not only teaches why it is so important to care for yourself but it goes into detail of how you can do it! It starts with things that may seem simple like physically caring for yourself but also goes into setting up healthy boundaries. and how we can love ourselves well in different aspects of our lives.”
“This book tackles a wide number factors involved in self care, and explains them thoroughly and in language children can understand. These are skills many adults still need to work on, and learning to look inward at a younger age will help set children up for success.”