Child Nation helps your students grow emotionally to develop essential lifelong skills in wellbeing literacy.
Wellbeing Literacy is the ability to understand and communicate wellbeing - to be able to talk about and reflect on how we feel, how others feel, and what we can do to improve or maintain a sense of wellbeing. It’s important because it enables us to be more aware of, and interpret emotions and mental states in a range of environments including work, school, home, or different social settings.
Research tells us that genuine resilience can be built through imaginative play in childhood. Using playful and imaginative scenarios, children learn to recognise their own emotions, express themselves in diverse ways, and understand the impact of context on their feelings.
When children face the dilemmas or challenges of the ‘play’ situations set up in Child Nation - like navigating a creative ‘place hack’ or figuring out how to make an object come to life - they use all three dimensions of Wellbeing Literacy; Internal Awareness, External Communication, and Context Sensitivity.
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Read below how RMIT's Dr Nancy An explores Child Nation's benefits.
The 3 dimensions of wellbeing literaCy
Internal Awareness
Recognizing and reflecting on the physical and mental signs of emotions and being able to develop coping mechanisms.
Child Nation’s imaginative scenarios guide children to tap into their emotions within unusual contexts enabling self-reflection, emotional processing and self-regulation. Children learn to identify what they feel and explore their feelings through different creative mediums (visual arts, movement, writing etc) using colours, creatures and their bodies to enhance their ability to understand and manage emotions.
External Communication
Expressing those emotions to others.
Child Nation encourages children to articulate their thoughts and feelings, without fear of judgment, in response to real places and objects. When they shape this material into creative expressions, it helps develop the communication skills needed to share emotional experiences with others.
Context Sensitivity
Recognizing how different environments, social norms, and relationships impact how you and others feel and communicate and being able to manage emotions to align with the social dynamics at play.
Child Nation’s most powerful characteristic is how it enables an active reimagining of familiar places - such as a library, a playground, a classroom - helping children become more aware of how different contexts influence their feelings and behaviour. They may feel a sense of wonder or excitement when imagining a room holding a secret, and this new emotional connection can transform their relationship with that environment. It teaches children to be sensitive to how their surroundings and interactions shape their emotional responses.
Increased confidence
Child Nation’s safe and supportive child-friendly language encourages self-expression without direct adult oversight. By removing the gaze of adults, children communicate their emotions in an uninhibited way. Then, by validating their responses, it fosters a sense of emotional safety.
Emotional resilience
Children learn to navigate playful yet unfamiliar scenarios, which involve managing various emotions, such as excitement, curiosity, fear or frustration. This ‘practice’ helps them adapt and respond to challenges in their daily lives.
More versatile communicaiton
Child Nation helps children become literate with a diverse range of communication mediums to express themselves. For example, if they struggle to verbalize feelings, they may be more inclined to use drawing or creative storytelling to communicate. .
Empathy
When children imagine and role play situations through the eyes of other people, cultures, nature and non-human things, they better understand the emotions of others. The empathy they build equips them to support themselves and those around them, making it easier for them to form meaningful connections in real life.
Independence
Coping and problem solving
Low-pressure playful environments empower children to face real-life challenges more effectively. For instance, they may draw on coping strategies learned during Child Nation, such as taking a moment to calm down, connecting with nature, or expressing their feelings through drawing.
By allowing children to explore their surroundings independently, Child Nation instils a sense of autonomy. Children learn that they can safely navigate new environments and solve problems on their own, building their self-efficacy. Independence enables them to take initiative in their real lives, including voicing opinions and expressing needs.
Increased likelihood of seeking help
Children learn multiple ways to express feelings, and experience being heard. This reduces fear and nurtures self-efficacy, making children less hesitant to express their needs openly and more comfortable to take positive action including seeking help from teachers, parents, or peers when they encounter difficulties.