Mental health, children and the power of reading

In what has been a tumultuous year, talking about mental health, anxiety and the importance of expressing your feelings with children is more necessary than ever.

But what is the best way to bring up these complicated topics with children?

A new genre of children’s literature has broken through in recent years, broaching these difficult, and perhaps formerly taboo, subjects, through accessible writing and illustration.

Áine Murray’s first book, which was released earlier this year, discusses anxiety. The Pain in the Chest uses rhyme and whimsical illustration to start a conversation with children about the topic. “The main message is to start talking about these things, normalising discussing mental health, and making people aware that it is okay to talk about it from a very young age,” says Murray.

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A primary school teacher with a background in psychology, Murray has an avid interest in the mental health of young people, and hopes this book can help destigmatise mental health. “I thought it would be a great resource for parents and teachers to explicitly teach young people about mental illness and mental health problems, giving them the language and enriching their emotional literacy.”

Through her work, Murray became aware of what resonates most with children, which is how and why she decided to write the book through rhyme and chose an illustrator, Dublin-based artist Bronagh Lee, who she discovered through Lee's Instagram page.

As someone who was a very anxious child, Lee was conscious of the story she wanted the illustrations to tell, to ensure children are aware their anxiety does not define them.

“I had the idea of making anxiety into this little Anxiety Monster as a way for kids to access the feeling, and to make it into a metaphor. I also wanted to separate anxiety from the character. It makes it easier for kids to visualise it,” she says.

“It meant a lot to me to do this project, because I didn’t have books like that as a child. I just thought I was really weird.”

The Pain in the Chest is by no means the first book of this genre to appear. Niall Breslin, musician, motivational speaker and author, also known as Bressie, has delved into the world of children's literature in recent years.

I look at my own life, and it wasn't the mental health issues that were impossible to deal with, it was the constant need to hide it and disguise it, to not be able to communicate it

Having first become interested in mindfulness in children while studying for a master’s degree in mindfulness-based interventions in UCD, Breslin has already written three children’s books – The Magic Moment which addresses anxiety, Take Five which looks at jealousy, and The Chill Skill which touches on the topics of anger and frustration and was released late last year.

Like Murray, Breslin is very appreciative of the work illustrators do, particularly the one with whom he regularly collaborates, Sheena Dempsey, saying that in children's books "illustration is everything".

He feels passionately that children need to be encouraged to talk about their feelings and discuss why they think they might be feeling that way, rather than dismissing them out of hand: “When I was a kid, we were always told not to be sad, not to be scared, not to be angry, and I thought, these are really valid emotions, why are we confusing children, telling them not to feel these things? So when we become adults, we become confused by it too?”

This line of thinking is what inspired Breslin to write the books. “That became really interesting to me and I wanted to find a vehicle of using what I was learning to help kids not only to deal with their emotions, but to communicate their emotions with their guardians.”

Based on his personal experiences, Breslin wants to ensure that children learn from a young age not to be ashamed of their feelings and worries, and to feel comfortable communicating these issues, hoping that this can continue throughout their adult lives. “I look at my own life, and it wasn’t the mental health issues that were impossible to deal with, it was the constant need to hide it and disguise it, to not be able to communicate it. Let’s teach kids how to do that.”

Tom Percival, an English-based author and illustrator, has written a series of children's books called Big Bright Feelings, addressing a host of these topics, including celebrating your differences, coping with worry, and addressing anger and frustration.

Having written several other books that were lighter in tone, Percival decided to write books “that actually conveyed something that felt important”. Stemming from his own journey to understand his emotions and feelings, he decided to write the Big Bright Feelings series on the understanding that “if I can create something which is fun, accessible, interesting and potentially can get children to a good point quicker than it took me to get there, then that can only be good”.

Over the past few years Percival has received positive feedback for his work from parents, teachers, librarians and more, but none more so than over the course of the past year.

“Schools in particular have been using the books over lockdown, particularly Ruby’s Worry, because that is the one that really resonates with this present situation, that idea of I feel unsettled, I can’t communicate quite why I don’t feel right, and encouraging children to try to communicate about what’s bothering them. That message is everywhere at the moment and it’s really important that children do feel like they can talk about it.”