Children’s Group Workshops

Burden of Childhood Emotional Problems

Children and adolescents bear an astronomical burden of psychological turmoil. Mental disorders among children are essentially serious changes in the way they typically learn, behave, or handle their emotions. This causes distress and makes it difficult for them to even get through the day. The World Health Organization (WHO) agrees that globally we need to enhance our efforts to reduce mental health disparities in children and make emotional care more accessible to them. While therapy seems more stigmatizing and denouncing to many, preventative care and wellness are more acceptable and approachable for children and parents both. Hence the idea of group programs and workshops for children.

Delivery of Socio-Emotional Education to Children

Emotional education is not a novel concept. We have heard of moral science as a subject and teach our children through stories and fables, but that isn’t sufficient and doesn’t do justice to their social and emotional developmental needs. Emotional empowerment ought to be an ongoing and permanent didactic process wherein emotional advancement compliments intellectual development. The number of research articles in journals worldwide, repeatedly highlight the role of emotions in facilitating or impeding academic engagement and success. With that evidence in place, parents need to fulfill emotional basics in order to supplement academic and personality goals for children.
workshops transform children into happy achievers

Approaching Emotional Issues in Children

Health in children is not merely an absence of disease (physical and psychological). It is a state of universal wellness. With that in mind we envision 2 core models of emotional wellness delivery in groups.

Therapeutic Approach

We know that children struggle with academic and extra-curricular competition, interpersonal chaos, peer pressure, parental conflict, career struggles, pubertal changes, sexuality concerns and more. A proactive approach involves spreading awareness of problems like anxiety, depression, social anxiety, stage fright, shyness and suicide; destigmatizing them, and offering motivating to seek help. This also challenges and breaks negative attitudes and stigma.

Preventive Approach

This aims at promoting positive emotional health, also called ’emotional intelligence’ or ’emotional literacy’. It assists children in developing emotional and social skills that improve behavior, and support academic learning. There isn’t a direct attack on anxiety, depression or psychological illness that already exists; rather it’s a preventive focus to assure these problems do not arise. It looks at life as a whole, and how to make children live it wholeheartedly.

MindFrames Group Activity and Learning

Learning is more efficient when combined with activity and fun, more so for children. Children learn by imitation, inspiration and introspection. The MindFrames group programs for children offer intellectual and emotional knowledge through experiential and hands-on learning tasks. This activity-assisted learning, also forms a good platform for building social skills and enhancing the social quotient (SQ) of the child.

Educative workshops are conducted for children of all ages. The toddler and preschool kids are accompanied by parents. Workshops target global developmental dimensions and include but are not limited to personality build-up, gender education, stress free living, study skills, career guidance, building intelligence and spiritual growth; to name a few. They enable children to open up to the world, express their opinions, share ideas, set positive peer impressions; and adds to their self-confidence. The net outcome is first-class learning and personality enhancement. Children perceive these group programs workshops as a ‘fun experience’ and learning becomes a worthy by product.

Children’s Assessment

  • Aggression and impulsivity
  • Anxiety, fears and phobia
  • Assertive communication
  • Attention span and focus
  • Career personality style
  • Depression and moodiness
  • Emotional Quotient and EI
  • Interpersonal communication
  • Multidimensional intelligence
  • Pessimistic thinking style
  • Self-esteem and confidence
  • Study skills and strengths

Children’s Workshops

Group Learning and Group Dynamics

Children can be restrictive, defensive and poor with self-expression. Groups make them identify with other kids and open up about their concerns. When placed with others like themselves, they express their ideas, apprehensions and anxieties more freely. This way they get engaged in the form as well as the process of learning new skills and establishing self-reliance and resilience alongside.

At MindFrames we are committed to providing stimulating out-of-the-box learning experiences. So, we focus on interpersonal, emotional, intellectual, as well as spiritual development. The sessions may involve small groups (with 5 to 6 participants) to allow deeper personal attention as well as larger group programs (with 20 to 25 children) that facilitate greater interactive focus. Sometimes kids with similar emotional and behavioral issues are clubbed together to allow greater interpersonal insight. Cooperative and participative, these sessions involve activities, discussions, games and audio-visual aids to offer multi-sensory focus that enriches proficiencies.

We are eager to help you help your children. All our programs are customized, with flexibility in frequency, duration of workshops, analysis, assessment, educational material, and more. Please feel free to connect with us. We’re here to make a difference.

Dr Shefali Batra is a Feature Writer in the Teenager Today (India’s first Teen Zine) since 15 years. The magazine is focused on child and adolescent wellness. 

References

  • Gruber. T., Deschenaux, A., Frick., A, Clément, F., (2019). Group Membership Influences More Social Identification Than Social Learning or Overimitation in Children. Child Dev; 90(3):728-745.
  • Master, A., Walton, G. M., (2013). Minimal groups increase young children’s motivation and learning on group-relevant tasks. Child Dev;84(2):737-51.
  • Fawcett, L. M., Garton, A. F., (2005). The effect of peer collaboration on children’s problem-solving ability. Br J Educ Psychol;75(Pt 2):157-69.

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