Healthy Minds Compact: Building - Choosing Helpful Stories
Children begin to explore the relationship between an event and the interpretation their brain makes of it. Children are not being taught to replace uncomfortable thoughts with positive ones. They are learning to become more flexible thinkers. A simple structure supports the learning: What happened? → What is my brain telling me? → What else could be true? → What could I do next? Core idea: The first story our brain tells us is not always the only possible story.
Learning Outcomes
Outcome 1:
• understand that the stories we tell ourselves can influence how we feel and what we do
Outcome 2:
• separate what happened from what they think it means
Outcome 3:
• notice when a story may be missing information
Outcome 4:
• consider other possible explanations
Outcome 5:
• find a more accurate and useful thought that creates more choice.
What's included
A quick look at the classroom-ready resources that come with this lesson.
Available after purchase
Available after purchase
Contributing Experts
People who helped produce this lesson.
Lucy Bailey
Lucy Bailey is Founder of Bounce Forward and Healthy Minds for Parents. With two decades of experience in mental resilience and emotional wellbeing, and training 1000s of teachers, parents and other adults around children and young people. Lucy is proud of her early career in youth work and children services. Lucy had a poor experience of school and that has driven her passion to influence UK policy to form a positive system of change with psychological fitness at the core. Lucy has directed national research projects (including the Healthy Minds five year study), is certified by University of Pennsylvania, has an MSc in Practice Based Research, a BSc in Social Policy and Criminology, and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education. Her published book Raise Resilience: Teach your teenager well has led to the creation of the Psychological Fitness Nana bridging old school wisdom with modern psychology for parents of the 21st century.
About the Organisation
Bounce Forward is a registered charity on a mission to transform how we think about mental health, shifting the narrative from deficit and crisis to strength, prevention, and psychological fitness. They create evidence-based programmes, curricula, and training that give young people, school staff, and the adults around children the knowledge, language, and daily habits to build genuine mental resilience. From whole-staff training to five-year school curricula, everything they do is practical, grounded in science, and designed to make a lasting difference not just in the moment, but across a lifetime.