Children, like adults, aren’t always 100% on top form all the time. They experience worries, doubts and fears too. But often, children’s emotional health issues are either overlooked or underestimated, despite being commonly diagnosed.
Young people also get depressed. They also face stress and relationship issues they typically suppress because they don’t yet have the tools and maturity to deal with them. Some might show ADS tendencies, which makes them more susceptible to meltdown and burnout.
And this is where Freeflow empowerment coaching can prove a gamechanger in terms of emotional health and development. What we do know is our personal growth has nothing much to do with the academic, social, political and economic demands and expectations placed on us from early infancy.
In contrast, when we give children the tools to acknowledge, own and communicate their current emotional state, we empower them to take responsibility for their feelings, physical needs and choices, as well as the consequences of their actions.
They are more likely to become good, open communicators as adults, develop an inquiring growth mindset and have a clearer sense of what makes them happy in life, which in turn impacts on families and society as a whole. In short, the benefits of empowerment coaching resonate beyond the individual.
Schools are naturally geared to focusing on intellectual and social development. However, prioritising emotional wellbeing is fundamental when it comes to shaping well-rounded, happy, growth-oriented adults and future generations.
I have worked with young people in an educational capacity for over 20 years and notice the increasing pressure kids are under today, both socially and academically – their childhoods more hectic and yet less grounded in real human contact.
Trust and self-confidence are rooted in the body. But with modern lifestyles requiring us to communicate with each other via robotic gadgets and social media, never have we been so distanced from other human beings – not to mention our own bodies.
It’s tough being a teenager these days. How often do you see your kids hanging out with their friends, eyes fixed on each other’s phones, but not actually looking one another in the eye and really acknowledging the person in front of them?
And how much time do they spend trying to create flawless photos of themselves because anything less than perfect means fewer likes, less popularity and banishment from the community news feed? It’s survival of the fittest gone berserk.
And they take it to heart, don’t they?
It’s a new kind of failure. How much are you worth when your Insta, Snapchat or TikTok posts get relegated, not celebrated? Because to be visible is to exist, regardless of whether you are displaying the true you. Main thing: you are seen.
Though ironically, you’re not seen in the true sense of the word!
The boundary between truth and fiction is harder to differentiate. And it makes it harder for us to identify truth in ourselves. With so much fake news around us too, does it really matter whether we are being fake too? Well, of course it does!
And our bodies let us know how truthfully we are acknowledging our individual needs. When we feel both physically and emotionally at home in our own skin and more finely attuned to what motivates us, we open ourselves up to real happiness.
Freeflow empowerment coaching sessions are intended to equip young people internally for the challenges of teenage and adult life, so that they have the tools at hand to check in with themselves, dig deep and establish their specific needs at any given point.
Choosing a path that is genuinely suited rather than one we are pressured into or one that just pays the bills is the secret to creating a happy, fulfilling life within an equally strong, positive-minded community – and the key to real personal growth.