How well do you know your child?

The Health Promotion Board (HPB) launches a new tool to help parents understand their kids better and bring them up to be happy and confident with a healthy state of mind.

As parents, we want only the best things in life for our kids. We put high hopes on them for the future. Also, we go to great lengths to ensure that they are ready to face the challenges in life. But how much do we know of our child’s mental health?

To address the lifestyle needs of parents in Singapore, HPB, in collaboration with a panel of professors, has developed a comprehensive tool. This will help parents better understand the mental wellbeing of their kids through the way they think, feel and behave.

Know the colours of your child’s mental health

Aptly named ‘Colours of the Mind’, the tool comes in the form of a quiz. It helps parents with kids aged 6 to 12 gain insights on their child’s mental wellbeing.

Take the scale to know more about your child’s mental health

The 25 questions in the tool are on the basis of two-years’ worth of research. And results of a 2011 survey that involved 1,000 Singaporean children, as well as 100 parents, teachers and counsellors.

As parents go through the questions, they’ll be able to get an insight on how their kids think, feel and behave. This, in addition to various aspects of their life, such as school and their interaction with friends.

Upon completing the quiz, parents will be able to identify the key strengths of their kids. Plus, they will know how they fare based on the three domains of Positive Functioning, Social Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence.

There is also a list of suggested activities that parents can do with their kids to build up their child’s mental wellbeing by focusing on their strengths.

Questions are put across in a simple and child-friendly manner.

Parents can complete the Colours of the Mind quiz based on their own assessment of how their child think and feel, or to get their child to complete the quiz on their own.

According to Mummy blogger Meiling Wong (www.universalscribbles.com), the setup of the quiz was “attractive, child-friendly and easy to navigate”. As she sat down next to her 9-year-old to complete the quiz, she found that most of the questions were “pretty straightforward and easily understood”.

Parents who’d like to keep a record of the quiz can opt to have the results sent to their email. After 3 months, HPB will then send an email. This is to invite parents to take the quiz again to check for improvements in their child’s mental wellbeing.

To keep up with the latest updates from HPB, be sure to ‘Like’ them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.

Justina Goh

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