Have you ever really thought about the value of you? How special you are and why you matter? This is another of our special focus blogs on our mental health concepts and in particular for this feature, the concept of Self worth.

Our self worth is at the centre of who we are. It helps us to really believe in ourselves, to have pride in who we are. It affects our relationships, our friendships, our interests and our hopes and beliefs in what we can achieve and what we want to become.
With people around us who care about us we can feel loved and loveable, special and valued and this helps us to know inside that we matter and helps us to believe in ourselves and to go on to have confidence in our abilities and strengths throughout life. When we believe in ourselves and know we matter we are confident in the world around us and can take pride in our abilities and interests. It helps us to feel happy, content and safe and gives us confidence to stand up for what we believe in.

Watch our special animation all about Self worth and why at stormbreak we believe it is important to have confidence in ourselves, to feel valued, special and to know inside that we matter.

WATCH OUR SELF WORTH ANIMATION

So why is Self-worth so important and what is it all about?

Self-worth is:
Knowing how we feel inside about ourselves, knowing we are important, special and that we matter.

• Knowing and feeling loved and cared about
• Feeling good about your own abilities and skills
• Recognising your own strengths and interests
• Being able to receive compliments and praise

Our Stormbreak mental health lead, Clare Williams talks about self-worth, helping us to understand this concept more fully.

WATCH CLARE WILLIAMS TALKING ABOUT SELF WORTH

Try this stormbreak: Classroom rockstars as Darryl shows us how to have fun, to believe in yourself and how it is important to feel good about ourselves.

Classroom rockstars · Darryl · self-worth

Helping our children with Self-worth
We want children to have a sense of their own value and self-worth, to be confident about who they are and to believe in themselves. They receive this first and foremost from their primary carers and trusted adults by the way we show delight in them, show we believe in them and that they matter and are valued. It is through the way we talk with them, how we listen to them so that they feel listened to, understood and how we show them through our facial expressions and our body language that they are important, they matter and they are worth believing in.

• We can help our children by showing delight in them, who they are, their interests, their characteristics and their uniqueness.
• By conveying belief in them in being able to be who they are and who they want to be.
• Celebrating their uniqueness, their interests and their personalities.
• We can help them by listening, by validating their thoughts and their feelings.
• We can help them to feel valued and supported using language that creates a sense of value, that celebrates diversity and individuality.
• We can encourage them by using language that conveys it is ok to be you, it is ok to be different and to have opinions and it is great to feel good about yourself.

Helping children to believe in themselves, to feel valued and special is at the centre of emotional wellness and living life to the full.

Join Clare, our Stormbreak mental health lead, in thinking about how we can help our children with a sense of self-worth

WATCH HELPING OUR CHILDREN WITH SELF WORTH

Being out in nature and combining this with physical activity can also help us to feel good about ourselves and helps us to be emotionally well and to value ourselves.

Dr Lucy Loveday talks about how physical health as well as being out in nature can help us to have good mental health and well being and how accessing and experiencing nature can enable us to feel well, and can help us value ourselves and our sense of self-worth.

WATCH DR LUCY LOVEDAY - EXPLORING NATURE FOR MENTAL HEALTH

Try this stormbreak with Mrs Dorrill which helps us notice the seasons and helps us celebrate being out in nature and being a part of nature.

Move to the seasons · Mrs Dorrill · self-worth

Try another stormbreak, this time Classroom compliments with Darryl, Kate and Clare as they help you to believe in yourself and to be able to accept compliments from others.

Class compliments · Darryl, Kate and Clare · self-worth

This stormbreak helps us to notice things about each other and to give compliments with kindness and compassion. It can be difficult to give and receive compliments but this stormbreak shows us how to internalise them and begin to value ourselves.

Have a look at other stormbreaks that focus on self-worth. Which is your favourite one and how might it help you? See if you can notice which ones help you to feel happy inside, to feel cared about and special.

We really hope that you can believe in yourself and can have a real sense of how much you matter. It is important to value ourselves, to be assertive and to say what we like and don’t like, to have pride in ourselves and to do things that help us to feel good inside.