How Do Young Children Understand and Action their Own Well-Being? Positive Psychology, Student Voice, and Well-Being Literacy in Early Childhood

Abstract

To help build early childhood mental health, an understanding of how young children comprehend and communicate about wellbeing (i.e., wellbeing literacy) is required; yet early childhood remains an understudied age group in positive psychology research. Grounded in the two fields of early childhood and positive psychology, this inductive qualitative study examined wellbeing literacy in five- and six-year-old children. Narrative analysis of children’s drawings and explanations of wellbeing were analyzed using a sample of children in their first year of school across two schools in Australia (n = 124 drawings, 53% girls and 47% boys). Results showed young children understand wellbeing to be an accessible and learnable state fostered through intra- and inter-individual factors. Children identified the importance of their emotions, actions, relationships, and environments in shaping wellbeing. Using research methods that access the voice of young children yields important insights about wellbeing literacy that can be used to inform the design of early childhood positive psychology interventions.