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My Awesome Selfie!

Introducing

self-compassion

to children

A quick and easy art activity to teach children empathy for themselves

By Chanel Tsang

Families, childcare, and schools are doing wonderful work in promoting social-emotional development and encouraging a “culture of kindness” within children. From learning manners to thinking of others’ feelings to supporting children in making good — and kind — choices.

Kindness means being compassionate towards others and ourselves (Malti, 2020). So, it makes sense to encourage compassion and care for themselves in parallel to the message to be kind to others.

Me, myself, and I

This is a quick and simple art activity you can do at home or in the classroom to make space for children to begin practicing self-reflection and mindfulness as they pause to notice their feelings, as well as positive self-talk (positive affirmations, being under-standing towards ourselves when things go wrong, etc.). These are all important and useful practices that can support success in all aspects of their life, from relationships to academics.

By encouraging them to do so early and consistently, this can help children build up their self-image and focus on their positive: I am kind. I am strong. I am funny. I can run very fast! This becomes more important as they reach adolescence when self-esteem

generally drops during this time until they reach adulthood. We can see how their self-worth may become more tangled up with external forces such as comparing themselves to their peers, the opinions of their friends, and, increasingly, images from media. This is especially true for girls as their self-esteem tends to take a larger dip during these years compared to boys (Mlawer et al., 2021). So, it is helpful to build up our children’s inner voices now so that they can grow strong and be heard clearly over the noise of these challenges.

My Awesome Selfie Activity (all ages)

What you need

Paper, pencil crayons or crayons, photos of friends and family (optional), mirror (optional)

What you do

(Optional) Look through some photos of family members and friends together. Ask your child what they like about each person. Ask your child to draw a picture of themselves. Older children might like to use a mirror or photo todraw from. (Another option for older children is to make an abstract collage of themselves using magazines, flyers, etc.!)

Once they’re finished drawing, ask them to think of three things they like about themselves. Encourage them to think about things they can do, their actions, and other parts of their personality rather than how they look. They can write down some words on their picture as a reminder if they like.
Your child can keep their self-portrait in their room or somewhere they see often to remind themselves of how awesome they are!