5 Things to Know

You are not in any trouble.
You are not in any trouble, the police just want to know what happened.
The police are there to help you and your family.
Talking to the police can feel a little scary at times, but they are there to help you and your family.
It’s normal to feel worried, embarrassed, or not want to talk.
Police officers are very good at asking questions and they know you may be a bit worried or embarrassed. Don’t worry – the police know this may be difficult.
You can ask questions.
You can ask this police officer any questions you may have. They may not know the answer but if you have any worries or questions, they will want you to contact them.
Your brain and body can get muddled when you feel scared.
Our bodies are wise, and they learn what things have happened to us in the past that we need to be wary of, and the brain can tell you ‘its happening again’ when really it might just be a memory or a new noise. This is your smart brain and smart body getting a bit muddled with each other sometimes.

Mental Time Travel

Why Your Mind Might Feel Busy Right Now

Now the thing about being 9, 10, 11 or 12 is your brains are much more clever than they used to be. And that means that you can do something called mental time travel.

This means you can remember stuff from a long time ago, and you can imagine what you might do later or next week.

You can think about time, but younger children cannot, and you know that if you are going to go on holiday that you might have to wait for it. You know what tomorrow and next week means and next year.

When we can think about the past and the future, this means that our brains or minds can also think about what did happen or might happen.

If we think about the future, we can have imaginary conversations with people and think about things that might go wrong and what we would do. And when we think about the past, we can remember things, people and what we did, and we can try to imagine what it would have been like if we did something different.

This can mean that we think about ourselves in those situations we might even say something to ourselves about our behaviours and what we do, can do, can’t do and didn’t do!

Now when our brains time travel our bodies are not very good at recognising it is our mind that has time travelled. It can sometimes get confused or even feel the feelings that we have felt before and it can sometimes do things that we did to protect ourselves.

Have you noticed we might jump when we hear thunder, or we might look to the window if we hear a strange noise outside? That’s your brain trying to work out if you know the noise, have heard it before and if you need to do something like run away or get the adults to answer the door to a delivery driver.