Online Reporter
Ridwan Oyenuga [email protected]
“The Child Behind the Smile” campaign encourages families, schools and communities to listen more closely to the experiences behind children’s behaviour.
A child’s smile can communicate happiness, but it does not always reveal everything the child may be experiencing.
Some children speak openly when they feel worried, lonely or overwhelmed. Others communicate through silence, withdrawal, reduced participation at school or a noticeable change in behaviour.
This understanding is at the centre of an Africa-wide campaign titled “The Child Behind the Smile: Every Behaviour Has a Story.”
Led by youth mental-health platform SereniMind, the campaign is inviting parents, educators, health professionals and community leaders across Zimbabwe to strengthen conversations around children’s emotional wellbeing.
The message is not that every behavioural change represents a mental-health condition. Neither does the campaign suggest that discipline, guidance and accountability should be abandoned.
Instead, it encourages adults to combine guidance with curiosity by asking what may have changed in a child’s life before drawing conclusions.
Building on Zimbabwe’s progress
Zimbabwe already has strong foundations on which greater support for children’s emotional wellbeing can be built.
Families, schools, health workers, churches, traditional leaders, youth organisations and community-based institutions continue to play important roles in protecting and guiding children.
Unicef’s 2025 annual report recognised Zimbabwe’s continued commitment to children through increased allocations to key social sectors and reforms supporting children’s rights and wellbeing.
In 2024, more than 117 000 children and adolescents affected by humanitarian situations also benefitted from community-based mental-health and psychosocial support.
These efforts demonstrate that emotional wellbeing is already part of Zimbabwe’s wider child-development conversation.
The opportunity now is to ensure that listening, emotional awareness and early support become part of everyday family, school and community life — not only something discussed during major emergencies.
Behaviour can be a form of communication
Children do not always possess the vocabulary or confidence to explain difficult emotions.
A learner who was previously active in class may suddenly become quiet. Another child may lose interest in schoolwork, withdraw from friends or become unusually irritable.
Such changes can have many explanations, including ordinary development, tiredness, family circumstances, academic pressure, friendship difficulties or other experiences.
Adults should not immediately diagnose a child or assume that every difficult period requires professional treatment.
However, sustained changes can provide an opportunity to check in.
A parent or teacher may begin with a simple question: “Has something changed?”
That question does not excuse inappropriate behaviour. It helps the adult understand the circumstances before deciding how best to guide the child.
Schools as places of support
Zimbabwean schools are important spaces for children’s academic, social and emotional development.
Teachers spend considerable time with learners and may notice changes in attendance, concentration, participation or relationships before other adults do.
They should not be expected to become therapists or diagnose mental-health conditions.
Their role can remain practical: noticing sustained changes, listening respectfully and understanding where a learner can be referred when additional help is required.
Schools can strengthen existing guidance and counselling structures, life-skills programmes, child-protection systems and relationships with parents and local health services.
Learners should also know which trusted adult they can approach when they feel worried or unsafe.
A supportive school is not one without rules. It is one where rules exist alongside dignity, communication and appropriate assistance.
Children are more likely to participate fully in education when they feel respected, safe and supported.
Families remain central
For many children, the family is the first and most important support system.
Parents and caregivers do not need to have perfect answers before speaking with their children.
Sometimes, what a child needs first is reassurance that an adult is prepared to listen without immediately dismissing or humiliating them.
Families can create regular opportunities to discuss school, friendships, online experiences and the issues affecting children’s daily lives.
These conversations should not happen only after a serious problem emerges.
A parent can ask about a child’s wellbeing alongside asking about homework, examinations and household responsibilities.
Listening also does not mean agreeing with everything a child says. Parents retain the responsibility to correct, protect and guide.
However, correction becomes more effective when adults understand the story surrounding the behaviour.
Communities also have a role
Children’s emotional wellbeing cannot be left entirely to families and schools.
Zimbabwe’s faith communities, sports clubs, traditional structures, youth groups and local organisations can help create environments where children and caregivers receive reliable information and know where to seek further support.
Trusted community figures do not need to perform the work of trained professionals.
They can contribute by listening responsibly, encouraging supportive parenting, promoting kindness and directing families to qualified assistance when needed.
The most effective approaches will be locally led by Zimbabweans who understand the realities, values and support systems within their communities.
A continental campaign should strengthen local efforts — not attempt to replace them.
Technology as a supporting tool
Digital technology can also expand access to reliable wellbeing information, particularly for young people who increasingly use online platforms to understand their experiences.
However, technology should complement rather than replace parents, teachers, counsellors, healthcare professionals and community support.
Digital tools must be developed and used responsibly, with attention to privacy, safety, accessibility and the specific needs of African young people.
A child may use technology to find information, but meaningful support often still depends on a trustworthy human relationship.
A continental conversation
“The Child Behind the Smile” is bringing together a wider African conversation around parenting, education, technology and children’s emotional development.
Zimbabwe’s inclusion reflects the importance of ensuring that families and communities across Southern Africa are represented in discussions about the continent’s future.
Children’s wellbeing is not the responsibility of one organisation or country.
It requires co-operation among families, schools, communities, health professionals, policymakers and young people themselves.
The campaign is not suggesting that Zimbabwean parents or teachers are failing. It recognises the work already taking place and encourages society to build further on that progress.
Behind a child’s smile, silence, achievement or change in behaviour may be a story worth understanding.
Sometimes meaningful support begins with a calm and sincere question: “How are you really feeling?”
*Ridwan Oyenuga is a Nigerian youth mental-health advocate and Founder of SereniMind, whose work focuses on children’s emotional wellbeing, digital mental-health advocacy and youth-focused technology across Africa.
