He comes in with a haughty look on his face. His face says,

“Heh, heh, this is the day you will pay for my unhappiness!”

You smile and maintain your integrity. You say a quick prayer (always seek the Lord) as you approach this child. (“God give me wisdom and knowledge that I may lead this people…” 2 Chronicles 1:10a). You tell yourself you are safe. Your self-talk says you are in control and you will not lose it no matter what. You are prepared and feel confident in your ability to assist and teach this child and draw him closer to the Lord.

He doesn’t wait for you but skirts over to the side of the room. However, he keeps his eyes on you. What do you do at this point? You let him go. I would nod my head in his direction to let him know I saw him. I might mouth, “I see you” and wink as I say it. Then I go on about my business and leave him alone.

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Who doesn’t love a ball pit? With the Feelings Ball Pit you can bring all the fun of a ball pit to older kids and teach them about their feelings at the same time. Depending on how you play, you can help kids to explore all five components of the The Super Simple Feelings Management Technique.

Supplies for Making a Feelings Ball Pit

• You will need standard ball pit balls. You can get them on Amazon, but they can be pricey. We got ours on the Wish app for significantly less (they took longer to get here, but it’s worth it for the savings if you plan ahead).
• Markers
• A container large enough to be the pit for the ball pit. It doesn’t have to be large enough that you can actually climb in (that would be fun), but it should be large enough to allow kids to dig through the balls.
• A set of our Hope 4 Hurting Kids Emotion Cards (for Versions #1 & #2 of the game below).
• A set of our Super Simple Feelings Management Technique Activity Cards (for Versions #2 & #3 of the game below).
• A set of our I Feel Scenario Cards (for Version #3 of the game below)

Preparing the Game and Setting Up to Play

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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.

Supplies Needed

• Poster board or large sheet of paper
• Markers, pens or pencils
• Construction Paper (Green, brown and a variety of other colors)
• Scissors
• Glue

Making a Hopes and Fears Tree

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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.

Setting Up Your Obstacle Course

• Use you imagination. Your obstacle course can be inside or outside.
• If you’re building inside, use furniture, cushions, blankets, doors and anything else you can think of to use.
• These obstacle course also work in an education setting. Use desks, books, doors and other items in the room.
• If you’re working outside, use playground equipment, toys, sporting equipment, leaves, creeks, etc. to build your course.
• Try to make your course doable but make sure it requires some effort on the child’s part.

Using Your Obstacle Course to Reinforce Emotional Resilience

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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.

Supplies

• A notebook filled with pages. We used a sketch book for our journal, but you may prefer lined paper.
• Markers
• Tissue paper
• Glue

Instructions

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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.

Playing Shark Bite

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.

Modifying the Game to Play Shark Bite Feelings

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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

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.

Items Need to Play

You don’t need much to play this game. All you need is

• A mirror (one on the wall is fine for one child, but if you’re playing with a group you might want hand mirrors).
• A list of emotion words (our Hope 4 Hurting Kids Emotion Cards or the My Feelings Workbook are great if you need help.)

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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.

What You Need to Make Stress Balloons

• A package of balloons.
• Flour (2/3 of a cup to a cup for each balloon)
• Funnel (or a water bottle)
• Pen or pencil
• Sharpie Marker
• Scissors

How to Make Stress Balloons

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