The Hopes and Fears Tree is colorful craft to help kids understand that no matter what they’re worried about, they can still achieve their hopes and dreams.
Active coping skills are an important part of Please Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff Coping Tool Box. The Over and Under Obstacle Course is a fun way to help kids deal with difficult emotions and can be a powerful visual reminder that life events can be like an obstacle course. There will be ups and downs, but the most important thing is to keep going.
Whether you like writing or drawing or none of the above, a Feelings Journal is an extremely useful tool in learning how to cope with emotions. It is one of the most important thinking coping skills in the Please Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff Coping Tool Box and can also serve as a diversion tool or even a spiritual tool. Your journal is a space to record what’s going on in your life, and even more importantly the emotions that you are feeling. It can be as simple as a binder full of lined paper, a journal purchased from the store, or one you make on your own. The rest of this post describes how we made the journal shown in the pictures here.
How many of us have ever used post-it notes? Post-it notes are cool plus they serve a purpose. They stick and they stick to almost any substance. Most of us use them to temporarily call attention to something such as a page in a book or stuck on the fridge so the entire family can be constantly reminded of something in particular.
I use mine to mark songs in hymn books that I need to practice. When my kids were little I used them in their lunches to remind them they were loved. Sometimes nothing more than a happy face was drawn on it. I also used them to stick scriptures on the bathroom mirror or to remind them it was their dad’s weekend.
My preschool grandson loves post-it notes. I mean he really loves them. He will go through almost a complete package in one evening. He will draw on them, cut them up and stick them all over the house. Sometimes, he tries to write words on them and hand delivers the “mail” to his mother. His post-it drawings will stay in place for many days.
Recently I was thinking about some of the emotional ramifications divorce has on a child. Continue reading
Shark Bite was one of the hottest games around this past Christmas. It was flying off the shelves and hard to get your hands on. It also seemed like the perfect game to help kids learn more about emotions. Before you can play though, you’ll have to drop a few buck on your own copy of the game. You can get it through Amazon here.
Shark Bite is a simple game to set up and to play. You put the fish in the mouth of the shark, then roll the dice and fish out the number of fish shown on the dice. The person who pulls the fish that causes the shark to bite loses, but really everyone wins in the fun game.
From the 2010 Word & World Lecture Series at Luther Seminary, in this presentation Elizabeth Marquardt addresses The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce. This whole lecture is worth the time to listen to, but make sure you don’t miss the last half which is a Q&A session with the audience. Ms. Marquardt is an important voice, I would argue the most important voice, today on the topic of the impact of divorce on children’s faith.
http://download.luthersem.edu/media/wordandworld/201009291055WordAndWorld.mp4
For more resources and information on divorce, family disruption and modern families please visit our Hope 4 Hurting Kids Divorce and Modern Family Help Center. Continue reading
If your kids are like mine, they like to look at themselves in the mirror. They like to make funny faces, and when they were younger it was uncommon to find them in the bathroom making themselves laugh by what they saw in the mirror. Mirror Mirror is a fun game that builds on that to help kids learn and practice what emotions look like. These are the important “See It” and “Mimic It” phases of the The Super Simple Feelings Management Technique.
You don’t need much to play this game. All you need is
Stress Balloons are a unique homemade alternative to the traditional stress ball that you can make with a child while talking to them about what is causing the stress in their lives. The instructions below use flour to fill the balloons. Use can also use rice, small beans or sand. These stress balloons can be a valuable soothing tool in a child’s Coping Tool Box.
In the story in Luke 5:1-7 the fishermen had been fishing all night and they were not successful in catching fish. Jesus told the fishermen to go back out in their boat and cast their nets again. Thankfully the fishermen listened to Jesus and did what he proposed. When they listened and acted on what Jesus said they filled their nets so full the nets began to break.
There are children in every community that are feeling the effect of divorce. Children and church leaders might not realize these children are there because they are only looking in one place – inside their church walls. For the majority of children of divorce you are not going to find them in the church. We’ve got to look outside the walls of our church. We must:
“Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” (verse 4)
The Mood Meter is a fun craft to build and gives kids a chance to gauge how they’re feeling at any given moment, and over time. Your mood meter can be as simple or as involved as you want and is a nice alternative to a traditional emotion chart. We borrowed this wonderful idea from Education.com and encourage you to check out their website for more great ideas.
Use your creativity to make your own personal mood meter. The following represents what we did:
