Self Care

The Fairfax Early Childhood Partnership Team Wishes You All Well!

  5 Things to Know or Do

1. Physical Self Care: 
1. Practice healthy habits
2. Eat healthy, get exercise, get enough sleep
3. Receive regular, preventive medical care
4. Take time away from the phone, email, TV, etc.
5. Spend time outdoors in fresh air and natural light
2. Emotional/Social/Psychological Self Care:
1. Stay in touch with others
2. Express emotions, allow yourself to cry and find things that make you happy
3. Read for pleasure (not work)
4. Work on maintaining healthy relationships
5. Say no to extra responsibilities
3. Artistic/Creative Self Care:
1. Give yourself quiet time for self-reflection
2. Write in a journal
3. Spend time out in nature
4. Enjoy a hobby and/or learn something new
4. Ask for help! Reaching out to others to ask for help is not a weakness. In fact, asking for help shows strength and resourcefulness. 
5. Self care isn’t just for adults. Modeling self care and actively teaching children to practice self care when they are young helps them build the foundation for taking care of themselves throughout life.

 4 Children Read Alouds

1.  The Way I Feel, by Janan Cain. This book can help children learn how to identify their feelings and connect words with corresponding emotions.
2.  Helpful Ninja: A Children’s Book About Self Love and Self Care, by Mary Nhin. This Ninja series was developed to help children learn valuable life skills.
3.  Share Your Rainbow: 18 Artists Draw Their Hope for the Future. “Inspired by kids across the country displaying rainbows in their windows, acclaimed illustrators come together to imagine everything these rainbows represent…”
4.  Puppy Mind, by Andrew Jordan Nance. “A young boy discovers his mind is like a puppy, always wandering away, into the past or the future.” He learns how to “train his puppy mind to heel the present moment.”

3 Links to Visit

1. Zero to Three: Young Children at Home during the COVID-19 Outbreak: The Importance of Self-Care (zerotothree.org)
2. PBS: Parenting During Coronavirus: You Are Enough (pbs.org)
3. Child Mind Institute: Self-Care in the Time of Coronavirus (https://childmind.org/)

 2 Videos to View

1. Small Ways to Practice Self-Care in Difficult Times | Andy Crisis Wisdom
2. Sipping Water for Self-Care During the School Day (Edutopia)

  1 Resource to Access (a self care tool based on research)

1. Self-Care Assessment Adapted from Saakvitne, Pearlman, & Staff of TSI/CAAP (1996). Transforming the Pain: A Workbook on Vicarious Traumatization. Norton. Adapted by Lisa D. Butler, PhD.

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