Children's Mental Health Week 2022
This week we are celebrating Children's Mental Health Week and this year's theme ‘Growing Together’. As we come together, we are encouraging children (and adults) to consider how we have grown over the last year, and how we can help others to grow.
Place2Be’s campaign explains that ‘Growing Together is about growing emotionally and finding ways to help each other grow. Challenges and setbacks can help us to grow and adapt and trying new things can help us to move beyond our comfort zone into a new realm of possibility and potential’, something that we are passionate about here at ROMBi.
In this week’s article we are exploring the growth that can take place and the opportunities that can become possible through structured handplay.
ROMBi founder, Penny Georgiou describes how ‘allowing your concept of yourself to be enriched allows your capabilities to develop as potential being realised.
Adults and children experience suffering when beliefs oppose desire and, thereby, obstruct its realisation. We feel better when we ease up on beliefs that oppose our desire, and our sense of what is really possible for us begins to change in creative ways.
It takes exploration, and a little time and attention to develop our consistency for tuning in to our desire…But, if we want to discover and experience our being well, then it is the way to go, in whatever form it takes for us.’
We are encouraging children to explore puzzles this Children's Mental Health Week. The regular tactile contact with the physical structure of the puzzles allows our thinking process to draw upon structural properties for organising ideas, and this organisational process is what makes what we understand as growth a ‘natural’ outcome.
Cultivating (daily) consistency in these kinds of practices can do much of the ‘heavy lifting’ that allows structure, organisation, equanimity and clarity to emerge in our experience.
Results with ROMBi
ROMBi is helping children and adults worldwide to grow by prioritising spatial awareness as a basic component of perception. This is as vital for effective learning and problem-solving as it is for physical dexterity.
Previous research with Vanessa Duncan, Young Person’s Senior Worker for St Giles revealed that ongoing use of ROMBi with her pupils had resulted in:
- Greater focus, especially with day-to-day tasks
- Decreased behavioural issues
- Acceptance of praise (where previous praise had been disregarded or ignored)
Vanessa commented ‘We need to encourage people to be patient with the puzzle. Most of the students we work with have a lot going on in their lives. There’s so much change for them. ROMBi is a constant. It’s a safe haven amongst the chaos. It might take a few weeks but it definitely works!”
Improvements in pupils’ ability to do the puzzle indicate improvements in the ability processing information more effectively, which bears out in many diverse practical ways.’
Supporting Children's Mental Health
Are you a parent, guardian or teacher wanting to support a child or pupil with mental health?
Place2Be have created a host of helpful information to help people get involved, including virtual assemblies and free training for teachers and schools.
In addition, ROMBi is promoting the ROMBi Partner Programme, a research project with ROMBi founder and Education Specialist, Penny Georgiou and primary schools working collaboratively to support those pupils most in need.
Penny’s Quora account is filled with useful answers to a range of life’s questions and her bio includes a list of useful links. View Penny's Quora here!
For more insights from Penny follow our social media accounts:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ROMBiPuzzleGlobal
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/11487587/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RombiPuzzle
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rombipuzzle/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/RombiPuzzle
