Oulu University of Applied Sciences Degree programme in Nursing, option of Nursing
Authors: Tanja Karkkola, Marjo Lassheikki & Riikka Sorri Title of thesis: Support of 0-3 year old child’s mental health- group events in Koskela wellbeing mother-child clinic Supervisor: Terttu Koskela Term and year when the thesis was submitted: Spring 2014 Number of pages: 48+ 15 appendix pages

First three years of life form basis for child´s mental health. Early interaction between parents and child has effects on child´s self-esteem and the way how child manages with his/her own feelings for example during the negative age. Our idea for thesis was to prevent mental problems by tell-ing parents how their upbringing influences on child’s mental development.

The aim of the study was to plan and organise functional events for parents who have had their first child. These three events we planned and organised in Koskela wellbeing mother-child clinic. Themes for events, self-esteem, temperament and negative age, was chosen by the parents in Esikko-group.

Each event started with informative part of the theme. Then we discussed together about the things which appeared in informative part of the event. Every time we had a small activity part. For the first time it was to dance and play to the music, second time it was playing with tempera-ment cards and third time we kept a little drama.

We got great feedback from parents and family worker. All parents were pleased with the execu-tion and length of events and they also got some new information of how to support their child’s mental development as parents. The family worker found that she can utilize themes of events on her job.

For further study we suggest to create a model for a parent group so that these kinds of groups would be organise more regularly for several groups of parents.