Themes and Questions from the Midlothian Resilience Art Project: What do children and young people say helps them to cope?
Recently I have had the pleasure of being involved with the Midlothian Resilience Art Project.
The focus of this project has been understanding what our children and young people done to cope during lockdown. This was captured through artwork created by pupils from P1-S2 across the authority. It was tremendous to see a lot of children, young people and schools being involved.
There were a staggering 551 entries from 14 different primary and secondary schools. The artwork that was submitted was insightful, inspiring and uplifting. There were 150 entries selected as winners which are currently on display at several venues across Midlothian and there is an online gallery at www.midlothian.gov.uk/resilience. I encourage you to go along and see for yourself!
I have been conducting a thematic analysis of this artwork to draw out the coping mechanisms children and young people expressed as helping them through lockdown. There were several key themes which came through upon analysing the artwork. The five main key themes were:
- Spending time with family (including technology)
- Using technology (video games, movies/TV and mobiles/iPad)
- Going outdoors/exercising
- Doing something creative
- Connecting with friends (including technology)
The pie chart below provides a breakdown of these key themes.
Spending time with family has been identified as the most frequently expressed coping mechanism. However, using technology has also been identified as an equally important coping mechanism.
This information brings several questions to mind about our daily lives:
- How does technology support or get in the way of building resilience?
- If we identify that family and technology are both equally important coping mechanisms, how can we make ourselves available for our family members who may need us to help them cope?
- Are we spending too much time using technology as a coping mechanism that we aren’t present or making ourselves available to our family?
I invite you to consider how frequently you are accessing computers, tablets and TVs at the expense of being available for others who may need you for their own well being.
Exercise and going outdoors was also identified as a key theme. This is important as having regular exercise is an important part of living a healthy life. It is very encouraging to see this come through from our children and young people. On top of the physical benefits there are many psychological benefits of exercise such as improved mood, a reduction of stress and a decrease of symptoms associated with depression.
It is important that we ask ourselves:
- How often we are making time for exercise in our normal routine and lives?
- Has our routine for exercise and physical activity changed in any way since schools started back?
Doing something creative was expressed by the young people as being important too. There were a variety of different things listed such as drawing/painting, cooking/baking and making music.
However, a key finding from this data was that younger primary school children were more likely to spend time doing creative activities and upper primary school children and young people from high schools spent more time using technology. Again, this brings forth the question of digital wellbeing and shines a light on the importance children and young people put on their digital devices.
If you have any further questions about the outcomes of the thematic analysis you can contact me at christie.brown@midlothian.gov.uk.
Thank you to all the children, young people and schools who took part in this innovative project. I am sure it is making people all over Midlothian smile and reflect.
Best Wishes,
Christie Brown