MESH Skills

MESH stands for Mental, Emotional, and Social Health. Toys and games that help kids build resilience through play strengthen these critical skills through 4 key play patterns:

• Overcoming Obstacles: Encourages the skills needed to identify and solve problems
• Storytelling: Encourages the skills needed to express experiences
• Increasing Challenge: Encourages the skills needed to adapt and comprehend
• Bridging Play: Encourages children and adults to play together and connect

These play patterns help build children's resilience in 8 crucial MESH skills:

• Problem Solving: The ability to consider possible solutions to a difficulty the child is experiencing
• Self-Regulation: The ability to recognize and manage emotions and behaviors in healthy ways
• Perseverance: The act of returning to an obstacle to try again to overcome it
• Self-Advocacy: The act of representing one's own self, experience, and interests to others
• Adaptation: To adjust oneself to different circumstances or requirements
• Cognition: The abilities involved in perception, learning, memory, understanding, reasoning and judgement
• Conflict Resolution: Identifying ways to find a peaceful resolution to a dispute
• Communication: Tools for expressing and receiving information and interacting with others

You can learn more about MESH skills at MESHhelps.org.