I am a teacher. I still see myself as such even though I haven't been in a classroom since 2009. I became too ill to work and although I have managed to return to employment, so far it has been as a cleaner or shop assistant although I have recently gone up in the world by getting an admin job.

When I was working as a teacher I had a picture of NED and what he stood for in my classroom. Not my own idea but adopted from something my children had been told at Primary School:

Never give up

Encourage others

Do your best

NED!

I found it really inspirational that Primary school children were being encouraged to think like this. The degree to which mental health issues exist in our young people is becoming clearer and more disturbing every day. Anything we can do to make them aware, to teach them to help themselves and that encourages them to help others, will help develop their resilience. It is never too early to start building resilience that they can use for the rest of their lives. My first born started showing signs of depression at 8 years old and children, as you probably know, can be depressed a lot younger than that.

I am a Secondary school teacher - so I took NED and any other ideas I had to the teenagers there. They seized upon whatever I could offer them, however simple my offerings were, like a drowning person clutching at straws. I only wish I could have offered them an entire programme of life skills, but I was there to teach English so I had neither the training nor the remit to do so (Mr Gove was insisting on Shakespeare and syntax instead).

Only the other day I found myself encouraging my two daughters with those simple statements (still, after all these years!) And it made me think that maybe the Moodscope community would find encouragement from them too:

Never give up

Encourage others

Do your best

I don't know about you but I need it short, pithy, simple but also powerful when I am struggling (Keep It Simple Stupid! KISS - another mnemonic I use). So if you are struggling, write down NED. Tell yourself what each letter stands for and try to follow those instructions. I hope it helps a bit.

Lots of love,

Marmaladegirl

A Moodscope member