Guest Posted March 7, 2006 Posted March 7, 2006 Hi Everyone! I am desperately looking for ways of helping families at our Nursery. At least two Mum's have asked me for help to explain about mental health problems to their Nursery children. There are men in both families who are suffering from severe depression and this is obviously having a detrimental effect on the children who are very confused. I've written to mind who have sent me ideas of books and info leaflets for juniour age children but these are way above even adapting for 3 to 5s. It is particularly sensitive as both families are from the Muslim community and do not want anyone else to know, (I wish I could even let them know about each other so they would have someone to talk to but obviously can't). Can anyone help? Debs x
Rea Posted March 7, 2006 Posted March 7, 2006 First off, hi and welcome to the forum I suppose you'd just have to do something about feelings, happy, sad, etc. Stories may help but it will have to be something thats ongoing rather than a topic for the week. Use circle time to talk about how everyone feels, have you got a puppet you could use? Somewhere on the forum will be a thread about feelings and stories, if I find any I'll post a link, but hopefully someone else will be able to help.
Rea Posted March 7, 2006 Posted March 7, 2006 Try this for some ideas on feelings, sorry it's all I could find I'm off to bed feelings
Deb Posted March 7, 2006 Posted March 7, 2006 Could you say that by coincidence another family is experiencing a simiar problem, without mentioning names, if you're interested and the other family were too I could help you make contact. There's nothing like sharing you're problems, especially with someone in the same position, as we all know on this forum! Deb
Guest Posted March 7, 2006 Posted March 7, 2006 Hi Debs and welcome to the forum from me too, I agree with advice already given. Have the mums indicated at all exactly what sort of support they need, can they even identify what they need? Is the dads depression showing to have an effect on the children, I'm just thinking that if the children have lived with this all their lives, they may not yet realise that it is not the norm, so to speak. A close family member of mine has suffered severe depression and her family got support from a local charity group who offer support for families of people suffering mental health, it was called "Casper" I don't know if this is just a local name or the name of a national charity, I could find out for you if you think it would help. Peggy
Recommended Posts