What is Wholeself Care?
Only part of our work with children is to help them with the “presenting problems”. We are always thinking about how these sessions might impact their future. Working with children on building their attitudes and feelings about themselves, which they will take forward into their lives, is a key foundational element of the work. Clinicians may have a role in helping children develop their wholeself care abilities both directly in sessions, and through their work with their caregivers.
Wholeself Care is just what it sounds like- caring for your entire self including your physical, social, internal/emotional, and spiritual selves. The ideals of Wholeself Care include caring for all parts of yourself in the present while giving consistent consideration for your future self at the same time. Wholeself Care also includes having a commitment to building your ability to take care of yourself, while cultivating your awareness of where you have the agency to take care of yourself.
In practice, Wholeself Care includes making choices that take care of your entire self in the present and with an eye towards your future self, both at the same time. This practice involves constant consideration of how your choices affect your present and future selves almost like you are having to arbitrate between two different people, even though you are only making decisions for yourself. It can be like a balancing act!
What clinicians are saying about the book for themselves:
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. Will continue to use this book in sessions!”
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“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.”