December 21, 2020

Supporting your child with building their self esteem Part 3

Lesson 5 – EasyStudy Choice

This lesson is all about teaching your child to select the correct subjects to better support their skills and abilities. This is a great way of finding out what skills your child has that best matches up to a given subject. Using the ‘My Study Choice Insights’ your child will be asked to circle two subjects within the 6 shaded areas that they enjoy the most (approx 12 in total). Then, reduce that down to about 6, sharing this in their learning journal. Following on from this, your child is asked to look their ‘My Career Choice Insights’ and see as to whether any of their choices match up to their career choice. Of course, we also have to think about how some of our children may not know what they want to do or be when they are older. But it’s interesting to see if they are subconsciously or consciously working towards their goal. It also encouraged a helpful discussion about how certain subjects play an important role in certain career choices, some that are not completely obvious.

Lesson 6 – EasyCareer Choice

The object for lesson 6 within the Mindscreen experience is to help your child to identify career options that they are more likely to enjoy. and to support them to recognise the importance of taking action to achieve their aims and career goals. It sounds pretty heavy stuff but it really is interesting and a great way to get the conversation going about what they like/dislike! Similar to lesson 5, your child is asked to select two career choices within the 6 shaded areas. This is then written down in their learning diary. Following on from this, they then have to select their favourite career. As the parent or carer, you are then expected to interview your child using the guidance, talking and sharing about what skills does your child need to fit with their chosen career choice.

We also completed a fun activity which involved a candle and with the moral of that if you want something, you should just go for it! No matter what. This was an interesting and insightful exercise to do together and it really made me feel passionate about my son’s expectations, hopes and dreams. Of course, I am expecting that this may change over time. But it was also really lovely to see that passion and drive for something that he really wants in life.

Lesson 7 – Easy CV

This was a lesson I was a little concerned about as Mr B is only 10 and really doesn’t need to consider how his CV is going to pan out just yet. With some small adaptations to fit his age range, we talked about what a CV is and gave us the opportunity to draw up a CV of what he may expect his to look like.

Lesson 8 – EasyFuture

This was a longer than average lesson, with a view and aim of showing your child the understanding of knowing what they want and how to get there. Within this lesson there are several exercises to help support you and your child with this. One of the exercises was ‘Success Recipe’, where your child is asked to understand what the ingredients are to meeting and achieving their goals. We started off with thinking about what we needed to bake a cake from start to finish. This really helped when it came to thinking outside of the box when it comes to wanting success. For example, having confidence, being positive etc.

Another exercise we did was called ‘Destination – get there’ which got us thinking about what we needed to get to a specific destination using the words Why, When, How, What, Who, Where.

Ship Story was the last activity to complete during lesson 5 of our Mindscreen experience. This was a 5 minute story. The purpose of this story is to explain that sometimes you get thrown off course in life. Having a goal or a purpose helps many of us to get back on track after the storm is over!

Finally, the ‘My goal’ activity is a heart warming activity to finish the lesson on. Here, your child has to think of a friend or family member and imagine they are saying a speech all about them. They have to share with you what that family member would say about them.

Lesson – EasyFeedback

This was an exercise to do as the parent in which we look over all the exercises we have completed with our child and review their results. It is also a good idea for your child to complete the Learning Improvement Measurement 2/3 online statements which will help with plotting on their learning improvement graph.

Our thoughts on the Mindscreen Experience

I think this is a great resource if you wish to support your child with their self esteem. There are some lovely activities and exercise to complete together and is lovely to encourage that quality and bonding time if you feel it may be lacking. Many teenagers do not wish to share much with their parents or carers so this is a great opportunity for this to happen in a relaxed setting. We thought some of the earlier lesson plans were more beneficial for us due to our sons age range, as they were more adapted for him. Some of the later exercises such as creating a CV were a little lost on him. However, it was helpful to have that conversation. However, if you find that this is the case for you, then you can simply revisit certain lessons over time.

There is a lot of ‘work’ involved, however if you are invested into supporting your child at home with their self esteem then it is worth a go. Personally, if you have any concerns about your child and their mental health and welling, then anything is worth a go! And this experience was great and definitely something that we’ll look back on. It is also really helpful to have the learning diary for us to look back on too, and perhaps see what has changed over time!

So, if you have any questions or simply want to read up more on what the experience is all about, head on over to their website for more formation about signing up.

Thanks for reading xxx