Emotional health is a common issue faced by Hong Kong citizens in the 21st century. Traditional mindsets have led people to become accustomed to suppressing emotions, such as considering crying a sign of weakness. This has resulted in emotions not being expressed or heard. Many people also start experiencing emotional distress from childhood or adolescence and have to seek medical help. Therefore, we hope to organize two group activity sessions for young children, using games, art, and gardening activities to promote emotional health, and teach them to be aware of and embrace their emotions.
This experience has made me more attentive to young children's emotional health and development needs. At the same time, this program has made me realise that the target audience for emotional activities should not be limited to young children alone, but parents should also be involved. Initially, the team did not have the idea of inviting parents to participate, focusing more on the participation of young children. However, due to the impact of the pandemic, we had to shift to online activities, and we reflected that if we want to achieve our service goals in the long run, parent participation is of great importance. In the future, when I work in the early childhood education industry, I also need to constantly reflect on how to establish a support network with parents or other resources, in order to promote the growth and development of young children more effectively.