Healthy Minds Compact: Building - Choosing What We Notice
Children are introduced to optimistic and pessimistic thinking as different ways attention can be directed. Optimistic thinking is not presented as ignoring difficulty or pretending everything will be fine. Children first acknowledge what is hard and then practise looking more widely. They use four practical questions:
- What is hard here?
- What else is also true?
- What can I control?
- What could I try next? Core idea: We can practise widening our attention when our thinking becomes stuck.
Learning Outcomes
Outcome 1:
• understand that the same situation can be viewed in different ways
Outcome 2:
• notice when attention becomes stuck mainly on what is difficult or might go wrong
Outcome 3:
• recognise that noticing risks can sometimes be useful
Outcome 4:
• deliberately widen their attention to include what else is true
Outcome 5:
• look for what is possible, helpful or within their control.
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.