It’s important to teach kids ways that they can calm down when they are angry or anxious or stressed out. In the heat of overwhelming emotions though, it’s easy for kids to forget the methods you have taught them. That’s why if you work with kids, it useful to have a jar full of cool down cubes, and it’s simple too!

1. Just buy some plastic ice cubes. I got mine from Five Below after the Fourth of July.
2. Write various calm down techniques on the cubes (one per cube). Permanent marker works best. We’ve included a list of the techniques we put on the cubes below.
3. Put the cubes in a jar. We used an old peanut jar, but anything large enough that a child can reach their hand in will work. Decorate the jar however you want.
4. Whenever the child you are working with upset, encourage them to go to the Calm Down Jar, pick one cube out and use the technique on the cube to calm down. If that doesn’t work encourage them to pick another cube.
5. Feel free to engage in the activity with the child, and when they have calmed down use the opportunity to talk about what’s bothering them.

Here are some of the calm down techniques we put on our cubes (feel free to make up your own):

• Go for walk
• Eat
• Move
• Do a puzzle
• Draw
• Throw ball
• Shower
• Blow off steam
• Ride a bike
• Close eyes
• Laugh
• Write it down
• Paint
• Karate
• Talk it out
• Count to ten
• Use computer
• Call a friend
• Play with sand
• Ask for help
• Jump rope
• Tell someone
• Walk away
• Play a sport
• iPod
• Journal
• Go outside
• 3 deep breaths
• Stop and think
• Sing
• Tell a joke
• Color
• Hug a pet
• Blow bubbles
• One happy memory
• Positive self talk
• Stress ball
• Read a book
• Seek out help
• Mold clay
• Jump
• Play memory
• Count clouds
• Play with legos
• Drink water
• Take a timeout
• Dance
• Talk to a friend

We originally found this idea in a number of places including: Continue reading

Welcome to our new series of one page guides for helping children to deal with difficult emotions. In this first installment, we look at dealing with Anger. Click here or on the picture above for a pdf version of this graphic.

For more awesome resources for learning about and dealing with emotions, please visit our Hope 4 Hurting Kids Emotions Help Center.

Stress is a huge issue for all kids in our society today. The levels of stress amongst children from disrupted homes though is through the roof. Dealing with things like fighting parents, complex schedules, new homes, new family members, stressed out parents, packed schedules and so much more can leave kids and teens from disrupted homes with lots a stress and little time. One simple solution which works amazing well with younger kids (though you may be surprised how well it can work with older kids too) is a simple container of bubbles. Here are a couple of ideas of how to use bubbles to help kids deal with stress.

Visualization With Bubbles

Bubbles are a great way to help kids visualize their emotions. Whether they are experiencing anger, stress, fear or other emotions, encourage the children to visualize each bubble as a negative emotion and watch it float away. Talk about the things that are stressing them out and encourage them to release those things in the bubbles as they float away. For younger children, allow them to stomp on the bubbles as they land on the ground. In addition to being a good visual reminder of letting things go rather than keeping them buried inside, the process of blowing the bubbles also encourages deep breathing.

Bubble Karate Master

Continue reading

The word “peanuts” has become something of a “dirty word” for people who work with kids. In this article, we’re going to talk about how a simple peanut based exercise can help kids to calm down. Whether they’re anxious, stressed out or angry, the Peanut Brittle to Peanut Butter relaxation technique is a fun way for kids to remember how to calm down.

Here’s how it works:

1. Have the child inhale and stiffen their body like PEANUT BRITTLE. Encourage them to squeeze their muscles, clench their fists, curl their toes, push their chest out and contract the muscles in their face.
2. Have them hold their breath and that position for five seconds.
3. Now, tell them to exhale their breath and let everything go soft like PEANUT BUTTER.
4. Repeat as neccessary.

Like deep breathing, the process of going from tense to relaxed helps kids to let go of the intense emotions they are feeling.

Continue reading

In ministering to children from disrupted homes, we stress the need to empathize with what the kids are going through – not sympathize! This great video is one of the most succinct explanations of the difference between empathy and sympathy that I have found.

The video makes some great points, and I encourage you to watch the whole thing (it’s only 2:53 long after all).

One of the interesting things in the video was a study of professions where empathy is relevant and identifying four components of empathy:

1. Perspective taking (taking someone else’s
2. Staying out of judgment
3. Recognizing emotion in other people
4. Communicating that

There are some great takeaway quotes from the video too: Continue reading

Anxiety is a very real problem for many kids and teens, and there is no “quick fix.” However, there are techniques you can use to help a child struggling with anxiety and some of them are quite simple.

This paper airplane technique requires only one piece of paper (almost any type will do), some sort of writing utensil and time to talk to the child dealing with anxiety.

Here’s how it works.

1. Sit down with the anxious child and talk about the things that are causing them anxiety. You can guide the conversation, but make sure to allow the child to lead the conversation and discuss their own anxieties.
2. As you discuss each item which causes anxiety, have the child write it (or draw it) on the piece of paper.
3. Take the opportunity to talk about different breathing techniques and other things the child can do to help when they feel themselves getting anxious.
4. When you are done listing things on the paper, make a paper airplane. If you’re not a paper airplane aficionado, you can find instructions here.
5. Have the child throw the paper airplane across the room or, ideally, into a trash can.

Although a very simple exercise, the Anxiety Paper Airplane has numerous benefits. They include: Continue reading

Kids these days are stressed. There are a multitude of different ways to help kids deal with stress, but there is one very simple stress reliever that you’ve probably all tried at one point or another – packaging bubbles. Despite Amazon and many other online stores abandoning this joy inducing packaging in their boxes, it’s still pretty easy to get you hands on the old-fashioned bubble wrap (check out your local office supply store, do it yourself moving store or big box retailer).

I like to have a little fun with it and make a label for the bubble wrap. I keep a handful on hand to pass out to stressed out kids (and adults). Here’s a picture of the stress reliever we put together (I printed the labels; my son and daughter cut the bubble wrap and stapled the labels to the bubbles).

Here’s what our label says:

STRESS RELIEF

Continue reading

Getting kids to talk about their emotions plays a huge part in helping them to process those emotions, get past them and move on with their lives. When you can combine that process with candy, well that just creates an all-around great situation. That why we were so excited to come across the M&M emotion game at Living a Rad Life.

In this game, you use snack sized bags of chocolate covered candy (M&M’s) in order to get kids talking about their emotions. You and the child (or every child if you are working with a group) starts with one fun-sized bag of candy. On your turn, you pull one candy out of the bag and share an emotion/experience based on that color. Only after sharing do you actually get to eat the candy.

In this version of the game, you have to do one of the following depending on which candy you pull out of the bag:

• Red: Share something the makes you Happy
• Brown: Share something that makes you Sad
• Green: Share something that makes you Angry
• Yellow: Share something that makes you Excited
• Blue: Share one poor choice you’ve made today and what you could have done different
• Orange: Share one good choice you made today

Continue reading

Christmas is such a special time for those of us who love the Lord. It is a time to celebrate the birth of our Savior. Unfortunately it has also become one of the most stressful times of the year.

The hustle and bustle of shopping, church programs, getting together with families and friends tends to create self-imposed stress. As adults most of know when to back off, say no and we’ve learned to take time to enjoy the season.

Unfortunately for many kids, their families, surroundings and circumstances don’t give them the option of a calm Christmas. Most are stressed to the max. For many kids, it’s the unknown in terms of what this Christmas is going to be like that is causing stress.

There are many things you can do to accommodate these children. One of the things is to be aware of is the kinds of foods stressed out children need. Foods that are comforting in the mouth (such as apple sauce) feel good and comforting to many children.

When my son was in third grade he ate jar after jar of applesauce. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with him eating so much applesauce. Now I understand that the softness and the comforting feeling in the mouth helped him as he was adjusting to his dad’s moving out. The applesauce met a need he had.

Continue reading

Anger is an almost universal emotion. If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve been angry at some point, and kids are no exception. Kids get angry for any variety of reasons.

• It could be family related turmoil – like when their parents divorce. In fact, it is one of the most universal reactions we see in kids when they experience any sort of family transitions. When visitation arrangements change, kids get mad. When dad doesn’t pick them up for his time with them, they get angry. When mom starts dating some new guy, they begin to boil. When they have to move, change schools, deal with new siblings, listen to one parent bash another, and on and on and on, they get angry.
• It could be a reaction to stress – from school or family or sports or just not having time to be kids. Kids today are more stressed than ever, and anger is a typical reaction to stress.
• It could be in response to fear – about what is going to happen in the future, how a family situation is going to turn out, how the kids at school will react, feeling embarrassed or any number of other things.

The list is endless, and teaching kids how to deal with anger and coping mechanisms they can safely use as they move from irritated to annoyed to angry to enraged is critical to helping them move past the anger and deal with other underlying emotions.

This craft from the website Home Stories A to Z is an awesome tool for helping kids both to deal with anger they are currently feeling and to deal with future bouts with anger. The instructions are simple (and included on the template):

• Download the template from this site.
• Color the various triangles on the sheet. If you want the colors to match as you use the anger catcher, color the number and coping mechanism the same color as is printed in the triangle between them. We didn’t do this as we were making our anger catchers, and it doesn’t make a difference in its use.
• Fold each corner towards the center of the page so that the numbers and color names are facing you.
• Turn over the anger catcher
• Fold each corner into the center so that only the color names are visible.
• Fold the anger catcher in half so that the color names touch and the numbers are on the outside.

Continue reading