Self-Care Menu for Kids & Teens: Free Self Care Menu PDF
Self-Care for Kids: Helping Your Child Create a Feel-Better Toolkit
When it comes to children’s mental health, most children can tell you what makes them feel worse. Fewer can tell you what helps them feel better.
That skill takes time, and your child will usually need your support to build it. One of the most helpful things you can do is guide them to notice what lifts their emotional well-being, calms them, and helps them cope.
Download the free Feel-Better Self Care Menu
Alongside this article, you can use my free printable self-care worksheets: the Feel-Better Self Care Menu. This 7-page activity booklet is for kids and teens aged roughly 8 to 17. It helps your child build a simple, personal plan for hard days.
Print it off, sit with your child, and work through it together. It can act as a gentle self-care planner, so your child has clear ideas ready when they need them.
What is self-care for children?
When parents hear the phrase what is self-care, they often picture treats or pampering. For children, it means something much more practical.
Self-care is having a set of tools that supports your child’s mental health, helping them feel steadier when life feels heavy, stressful, or out of balance.
Stress affects children too. School pressure, friendship upsets, family changes, and big feelings all build up without stress management. If your child has no plan, they may turn to unhelpful coping mechanisms like scrolling, withdrawing, or snapping. Those reactions are common, but they rarely help for long.
The good news is that self-care ideas can be taught. With time and practice, your child can learn to use them on their own.
Start by noticing the signs
Before your child can use self-care well, they need to spot when they are starting to struggle.
Many children only notice once they are already overwhelmed. That is why the first step is learning their early signs.
The worksheet includes a mental health checklist called Signs I May Need Support. This helps your child spot clues to their emotional well-being, such as:
- racing thoughts
- tight muscles
- feeling very quiet
- wanting to avoid things
- getting cross quickly
- feeling tearful or flat
These signs matter because they give your child a chance to act earlier, building resilience for their development.
You can help by keeping the conversation simple. For example, you might ask:
- What does stress feel like in your body?
- What happens when you start to feel overloaded?
- How do you know you need a break?
Your child may not know straight away, and that is fine. The important part is helping them start to notice.
TAKE THE QUIZ!
Five types of self care to explore
The worksheet groups self-care activities into five areas. This works well because different moments call for different kinds of support.
In other words, there are many types of self care, and your child will not need the same self-care activities every time.
1. Physical self-care: Move the body
Physical movement is one of the simplest and most helpful strategies. It can calm the nervous system and release built-up tension.
This might include:
- going for a short walk
- stretching
- dancing to music
- bouncing a ball
- shaking out arms and legs
It does not need to feel like exercise. Small bursts of movement often help most.
2. Settle the mind
Some children need gentle mindfulness practices that give their brain something safe and steady to focus on.
This could include:
- listening to music
- drawing
- reading
- deep breathing
- colouring
- a simple puzzle
These activities can interrupt anxious thoughts and help your child slow down.
3. Use sensory comfort
For some children, especially those with sensory sensitivities, the environment makes a big difference.
Helpful options may include:
- a soft blanket
- low lighting
- headphones
- comfortable clothes
- a warm drink
- a quiet corner
This is a good self care example of sensory care and how small changes can help your child feel calmer quite quickly.
4. Build connection
Social self-care is something children often need most when they are least able to ask for it.
Connection might look like:
- talking to you
- texting a friend
- sitting beside a trusted adult
- spending time with a pet
- playing a simple game together
Feeling safe with another person can reduce stress very quickly.
5. Express feelings
Sometimes your child does not need a solution. They need a safe way to let feelings out.
That may include:
- writing thoughts down
- listening to music that matches their mood
- watching something familiar
- drawing how they feel
- talking things through
This helps emotions move, rather than staying stuck inside.
Create your personal self care menu for kids
The final part of the worksheet is where everything comes together into a self-care plan.
Using the worksheets, your child chooses the ideas that help them most, then turns them into their own self care menu.
A personal plan is far more useful than a general list. When your child chooses their own strategies, they are more likely to remember them and use them.
Try to keep the finished self care menu somewhere easy to reach, for example, for primary school children:
- on a noticeboard
- inside a school planner
Or for secondary school students:
- in a bedroom drawer
- saved as a photo on their phone
- tucked into a journal
Then, when things feel hard, your child does not have to think from scratch. They can simply pick from their self care menu for kids.
Add a few helpful reminders
The pack also includes a page of short, calming phrases, serving as positive affirmations. These can help when your child feels stressed or low, acting as emergency self-care during moments of high stress.
- this feeling will pass
- I can take this one step at a time
- doing one small thing can help
- I do not have to fix everything at once
These are not empty words. They remind your child of something true. Feelings change, and small actions often make a real difference. You could keep them in a gratitude journal for easy access alongside other reflections.
Make self-care part of everyday life
The goal is not to only use the menu in a crisis. Over time, you want self-care habits to become part of ordinary life.
That might mean your child goes outside after school, listens to music before homework, or practises good sleep hygiene before bed as part of their daily routine. These small habits build emotional strength over time.
You can support this by modelling it yourself, which is going to help both you and them develop healthy habits. Let your child see that looking after your mental health is normal and sensible. When you talk openly about what helps you reset, your child learns that self-care is not a last resort. It is part of staying well and supporting long-term well-being.
Final thought
When your kids and teens know what helps them feel better, they gain more than a list of activities for mental health. They build self-awareness, confidence, and a sense that hard feelings can be managed.
That is a powerful gift for emotional health, and it starts with small steps.
Dr Lucy Russell is a UK clinical psychologist and Clinical Director of Everlief Child Psychology. She qualified as a clinical psychologist from Oxford University in 2005 and worked in the National Health Service for many years before moving fully into her leadership and writing roles.
In 2019 Lucy launched They Are The Future, a support website for parents of school-aged children. Through TATF Lucy is passionate about giving practical, manageable strategies to parents and children who may otherwise struggle to find the support they need.
Lucy lives with her family, rescue cats and dog, and also fosters cats through a local animal welfare charity. She loves singing in a vocal harmony group and spending time in nature.
