What my body can do

The activity

Now and then, each of you writes a few things your body did this week: something it managed, something it felt, something it mended. Nobody mentions how anyone looks.

What it is for. What a child hears at home about bodies, including what adults say about their own, affects how the child sees their own body. Noticing what their body did this week, from running for the bus to healing a graze, gives them a way to think about it that has nothing to do with how it looks.

• The first step. Go first, with plain facts about your own body this week: “My legs got me up four flights of stairs when the lift broke. My body got over a cold.”
• Ask your child to write or draw a few of theirs. Anything counts: a cartwheel, a hug, laughing until it hurt, tasting something new, sleeping, growing, healing a graze.

When to get help. If your child has hurt themselves, or talks about not wanting to be alive, stay calm, thank them if they have told you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day: help them ask the surgery for an urgent appointment, and if it is closed, use the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page. If your child tells you that someone is hurting them, stay calm, thank them for telling you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day, using those routes; if the person hurting your child lives in your home or your child’s other home, go straight to children’s social care or the police. If your child is badly hurt, or may have taken too much of a medicine, get medical help straight away, even if they seem well. If your child seems to spend a lot of time worrying about their weight or shape, is eating very little, is exercising too much or has strict rules about food, tell them you’re worried and see your GP soon; don’t wait to be sure. If harsh talk about their body goes on for several weeks alongside a low or anxious mood, talk to their school and your GP.

The other three steps, and your part in it, are in the library.

The sheet that goes with it comes with a subscription: What my body can do.

It goes with

• Body Image. For parents who want their child to grow up comfortable in their own body.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full.

Free on this subject

• Body image. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.
• Self-esteem. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.