An Alsager woman has launched a workshop to nurture emotional literacy in children and young people through creativity and self-expression.
Once an assistant headteacher, Felicity Hawkins’ priorities have changed over time and five years ago she decided to leave her career of 15 years. She now runs her own creative consultancy business, Fledgling Education, creating art and film projects for organisations including charities and schools, with one of her projects commissioned by the Commonwealth Games.
Her latest project, We are Sky, is a workshop focused on helping children to understand and value their emotions and she credits her former profession, as well as being a mother, as one of the key reasons she has come up with the idea.
“It’s We are Sky – learning to stand the storm,” she says. “And it’s born out of, obviously, being very experienced in the school sector, but also being a parent and wanting to empower children to understand their own fast and varied emotional spectrum.
“Now, at the moment, it’s not across the board, but a lot of the ways that people explore emotions with children is they sometimes inadvertently and unconsciously label the emotions, so you’ve got good and bad ones. We push this kind of agenda that happy is good. Clear skies are always good.”
Hawkins believes this is an oversimplification of a complex issue and such attitudes invalidate the way children feel. She hopes to offer a different perspective through We are Sky by sharing a message of acceptance towards natural emotional responses.
“However you feel, when you feel it, that’s you. That’s part of who you are,” she says. “You’re bringing your own experience to that emotion and that feeling is completely valid, but it’s what we do next that is the most important.”
According to Hawkins, the consequences of failing to value how someone feels is where problems in behaviour stem from. This is why placing labels on so-called good and bad emotions can be problematic.
“If we don’t accept that these emotions are going to come up, if we don’t process them properly and pinpoint where, why and how they came about, and if we can’t learn to communicate how we feel to people in an effective way, then it can come out in behaviour that negatively affects those around us, but also ourselves.
“So what I’m trying to promote and instill in children is that emotions are valid, but behaving in certain ways isn’t good for anybody, and we want to build a community where we talk through these things rather than using physical behaviour or negative verbal responses to other children, but also to themselves, you know, having a very negative mental mindset because they’re embarrassed about something. Internalising it can be as damaging to the community in the future than if they kind of lashed out physically.”
To avoid such behaviour, Hawkins has come up with a way to look at emotions which replaces a negative outlook on certain feelings, with an understanding that they can be a necessary part of life.
“What I do is, instead of linking emotions to a scale or a colour or two emojis, which are quite often done, which I believe subconsciously promotes the message that happy green go, you know, smiley face, angry red stuff. What I do is I link emotions to weather patterns.
“We talk lots about how you cannot change the weather, just like we cannot change our emotional response. It’s there. We’ve got to learn to understand it, adapt to it, communicate it, and sometimes just accept it and embrace what those feelings bring.”
On top of attempting to take away the negativity surrounding certain emotions, Hawkins wants to send the message that they can actually be useful.
“Feelings that we’re taught are negative ones like nervousness, anxiety, anger and frustration. Well, actually, these all play a part in our journey as humans,” she says. “And if people who have gone on to do absolutely incredible things, shied away from when they failed, if you like, or when they were frustrated, some magical things wouldn’t happen in the world.
“It’s about harnessing that energy of the storm. It’s about learning how to accept adrenaline has its place in motivating us, in driving things forward. And if we let frustration get the better of us and put the pencil down, then that’s as destructive a behaviour as if we lashed out.”
Hawkins believes We are Sky is more necessary now than it has ever been due to ‘emotional competition’ and she has concerns for her children’s mental welfare in the society they are growing up in.
“We have to find tools that work for each child, because every child is unique, so that the emotion doesn’t affect your behaviour, which can then add to this horrible cycle. I think now it’s needed more than ever, because children and young people, particularly young adults, are exposed to so much emotional stress.”
Now 40 years old, Hawkins says there is more competition within the community compared with when she was younger. “Now, emotional competition is just so vast, and children haven’t got the tools to deal with it and that isn’t their fault,” she says.
“I’m very passionate about this project, because I’m very passionate about what’s going to happen in the future. I’ve got two young children, and I want them to grow up in a community, and I do mean local, but also globally, to become global citizens that know how to communicate, which will lead to more understanding about different people and therefore more empathy with themselves and others, treading gentler on the earth and being a lot more open. I think this type of work is needed now more than ever.”
In order to spread her message, Hawkins will be embarking on a 24-mile walk across six peaks, beginning in Mow Cop on May 31 and concluding at the Roaches on June 1. She says there has already been a ‘good response in the local community’ and people have made contact to inform her they will be joining her for some of the walk.
“I’ve always walked and been very active,” she says. “I do a lot of yoga, I do some running, I do a lot of strength training. And I’ve always, particularly when my children were up to two, I would carry them because I’ve learned for me that when I’m when I’m feeling stressed, which, of course, you do when you’ve got young children, the best thing to be is out in nature, connecting with green around you and pushing one step in front of the other.
“There’s quite a lot of research I’ve done around chemical changes that happen in your brain when you are around greenery, when you have got your hands in the soil. You know, I’m always out in the garden.”
For avid walker Hawkins, a 24-mile walk is less of a challenge than it would be to the average person, but there are reasons she is doing it over two days rather than one.
“It is over two days, but that’s because I want to take it slow, because I want to use the time to, number one, appreciate the beautiful landscape that we have around here. Number two, I’m going to be taking some pictures because I’m doing six peaks, so I’m going to be elevated quite a lot, but I’m going to be taking pictures that I’m going to use directly in the project.
“When I employ a graphic designer, I want us to put together some lovely weather patterns, visual weather patterns, but using photographs of our local area to keep it all about the community.”
Hawkins has set up a fundraiser for her walk which has currently raised £525 from 22 donations. It has a target of £800 which will be used to help boost her resources and get We are Sky workshops piloted in local schools this year. You can support her work by donating and by following her Instagram page.
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