Welcome to the second installment in a line of new resources from Hope 4 Hurting Kids called Scenario Cards (I Feel). Last week, we introduced Emotion Scenario Cards (Anger).

These Scenario Cards present scenarios to teens and kids that can be used in a variety of ways in our comprehensive emotions management plan known as Jump In! Stand Strong! Rise Up! This particular set of cards presents kids with a range of scenarios that might elicit a variety of different emotions. These cards can be used in a variety of ways:

1. Talk to the child or teen about what emotion each particular scenario might elicit and why. [This accomplishes the Talk About It component of The Super Simple Feelings Management Technique.]
2. Using the index from the My Feelings Workbook, have the child sort of the cards into stacks based on what emotion they would feel for each scenario. [This accomplishes the Feel It and Talk About It components of The Super Simple Feelings Management Technique.]
3. Talk to the child about what emotion they would feel in these circumstances and what coping techniques they could use to deal with the situation. [This accomplishes the Talk About It component of The Super Simple Feelings Management Technique and also helps children to review the various coping mechanisms in the Please Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff collection of coping skills.]

You can access a downloadable pdf file with the complete set of scenario cards by clicking on the picture above.

[su_emotions_hc]

Welcome to the first installment in a line of new resources from Hope 4 Hurting Kids called Emotion Scenario Cards (Anger). These Emotion Scenario Cards present scenarios to teens and kids that can be used in a variety of ways in our comprehensive emotions management plan known as Jump In! Stand Strong! Rise Up! This particular set of cards presents kids with a range of scenarios that are likely to cause some degree of frustration or anger. These cards can be used in a variety of ways:

1. Play a game called “Anger in Action.” Have a child select one card and act out two different ways of responding to that situation (or use two kids to act out different scenarios). Encourage them to be dramatic. Then discuss what were the best, worst and funniest reactions. [This accomplishes the Feel It, Mimic It and Talk About It components of The Super Simple Feelings Management Technique.]
2. Use the cards in conjunction with the The Anger-ometer to talk to kids about varying degrees of anger. [This accomplishes the Feel It and Talk About It components of The Super Simple Feelings Management Technique.]
3. Use the cards in conjunction with the Putting Anger in the Cross Hairs technique of dealing with anger to discuss things that might make kids angry. [This accomplishes the Feel It and Talk About It components of The Super Simple Feelings Management Technique and also serves as a Physical coping mechanism in the Please Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff listing of coping skills.]

You can access a downloadable pdf file with the complete set of scenario cards by clicking on the picture above.

[su_emotions_hc]

Leave the Room is a fun game to play with kids and teens to help them better understand their emotions, and it’s simple to set up and play. You can play it in a one-on-one situation, but it’s most fun in a small group.

Here’s how it works:

1. Send one person out of the room (the guesser).
2. Pick an emotion and let the remaining kids (and adults) in the room know what the emotion is. You may need to help younger kids who aren’t familiar with the emotion you’ve selected.
3. Explain that everyone should act out the emotion (either with or without making sound depending on how you’re playing).
4. Have the guesser come back in the room and try to guess the emotion.

For a fun variation, tell the people acting out the emotion that they can only use their face.

To pick feelings, you can make your own cards similar to the ones we use for Emotions Jenga, or we sometimes use a wonderful set of Emotion Cards from Jim Borgman when we play (pictured above). For an impromptu game, or if you don’t have cards made, you can use a listing of feelings (like the index in My Feelings Workbook) or simply assign feelings.

This game fits nicely into our Jump In! Stand Strong! Rise Up! plan for emotional regulation and healing and can be used as a See It, Say It, Mimic It and Talk About It activity for the Jump In stage of emotional regulation.

[su_emotions_hc]

The Grief Maze is a useful for tool for helping kids, and adults, to understand the grief process with all of its twists and turns. Here is what the text says on the Grief Maze handout:

Grief is a lot like a maze. Sometimes you move forward. Other times, like your grief journey, you will run into obstacles and road blocks. Sometime you have to go backwards to go around a wall, and sometimes you have to retrace your steps. The important thing though, both in a maze and in grief, is that you continue to move forward and eventually you will reach your goal! As you complete this maze, think about your own grief journey and the obstacles you have faced along the way. What inspired you to continue moving forward?

You can give a grieving child a copy of the Grief Maze to work through on their own or work through it with them and use the opportunity to talk about the child’s grief. You can download a pdf copy of the Grief Maze by clicking on the image above or by clicking here.

[su_emotions_hc]

Empathy is a critical skill for kids to develop and one of the hallmarks of emotional healing as detailed in the Grand Feelings Exit Plan (Signs of Emotional Health). The Empathy Map is a great way to get kids thinking about and understanding empathy for others. It is adapted from a business setting where it is used to understand clients but works great with kids.

Here’s What You Need

• A large sheet of paper or a board.
• Markers.
• Sticky notes.
• Pen/Pencil

Here’s How To Set Up the Empathy Map (as shown above)

1. Title the page “Empathy Map.”
2. Underneath the title write the word “Issue”
3. Draw a large box taking up the page underneath.
4. In the middle of the box, draw a face or a picture of a person.
5. Draw a large circle around the person leaving pace between the circle and the box as well as the circle and the drawing of the face/person.
6. Draw six straight(ish) lines out from the picture in the middle of the circle to the box leaving six spaces inside and outside the circle.
7. Label the six spaces (either inside or outside the circle) as follows: Hearing, Thinking, Seeing, Saying, Doing and Feeling.
8. Label the area inside the circle “Our Expectations” and outside the circle “Reality.”

How to Use the Empathy Map

1. Start by determining the situation or issue. Write it on a post-it note and stick it next to the word issue. The issue can be something the young person is currently going through or a hypothetical situation. In this instance, our issue for the map show was “My best friend yelled at me and called me a jerk!”
2. Starting on the inside of the circle, use post-it notes to identify what we might hear, think, see, say and do when faced for the issue. In this example, we heard “Mean words,” “Rumors” and a bad tone. We felt “Anger,” “Resentment” and “Jealousy.” We could react saying things like “Go Away” or a “I hate you.” In this part of the exercise, the point it to identify actual thoughts, actions and feelings (expressed or unexpressed). There are no right answers and we are not searching for how we should respond.
3. Once the inside of the circle is done, work through the outside going through each of the six sections again and focusing on what the person identified in the issue might be hearing, thinking, seeing, saying, doing and feeling. In this example, we wondered if maybe our friend was hearing her “Dad yell at her” and taking that out on us. Perhaps she was feeling “Emptiness” or “Hurt.” perhaps what she is trying to say is “Can someone listen to me,” “Please talk to me,” or “Please love me.”
4. As you talk through the items on the outside of the circle, ask the child(ren) how thinking about what the person is going through or experiencing changes their outlook on the situation and how it might change how they react.

[su_emotions_hc]

Fidget Spinners are all the rage, and now Fidget Spinner Emotions will let you use a fidget spinner to help kids better understand and deal with their emotions. With kids ranging from 10 into their upper teens, I have seen first hand how they are all drawn to fidget spinners, and truth-be-told, I have a collection of them myself (though I tell people it’s only because of my work with kids).

How it works

1. Cut out the arrow pointer(s) you want to use.
2. Cut out the dotted circle and place the arrow pointer over the center of your fidget spinner. Use a piece of tape to attach it to the fidget spinner.
3. Place the fidget spinner over the gray fidget spinner outline in the middle of the emotions circle.
4. Spin the fidget spinner. When it stops, do one of the following based on the emotion the spinner lands on:
   • See It:  What emotion is represented? The pdf file (click the picture above) includes a template with and without the emotion words included. Once kids are comfortable with the emotions shows, you can switch from using the one with the emotions listed to the template without the emotion names shown.
   • Say It:   What are other words describing the same emotion?
   • Feel It:   Describe what your body feels like when you experience this emotion.
   • Mimic It:  Act out the emotion in a mirror or for others.
   • Talk About It:   Share a time you felt this emotion and what you did about it.

A copy of the instructions is included in the pdf file that can be found by clicking the picture above or here.

Why It Works

Fidget Spinner Emotions utilizes the Super Simple Feelings Management Technique which is the first part of our comprehensive emotions management plan called Jump In! Stand Strong! Rise Up! By encouraging kids and teens to See It, Say It, Feel It, Mimic It and Talk About It, you give them the tools they need to recognize, name and deal with the difficult emotions they face. On top of that, the fidget spinner itself is a good coping mechanism.

[su_emotions_hc]

If you’ve ever been a parent, worked with kids, or even been around kids, you understand the importance of stuffed animals in a child’s life. I remember when my daughter was 5, she had to have her tonsils out. Her mother and I got her a purple baby doll to “keep her company” as she went into surgery. From that point on, that six-inch tall purple doll became a source of comfort to her as she faced difficult things in life. There is no doubt that stuffed animals can bring comfort to a child, but did you know that they can also provide valuable insights into what is going on in a child’s life?

Fred Roger’s once said:

Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.

Children talk through their play, and if you’re working with hurting young people, you need to be tuned into their play in order to understand what they are going through. Stuffed animals offer you an opportunity to get kids talking who might otherwise keep things bottled up inside.

When I started teaching Divorce Care 4 Kids [DC4K] (a support group for children of divorced parents), I remember the first time I read about the DC4K mascot named Herby – Herby Heart A Beatin’. Herby is the group mascot, and we use him extensively in DC4K. I can’t start to tell you the number of things that children have told me and other adult leaders through Herby that they would not share on their own.

I had worked with kids before, so it didn’t surprise me that young kids were willing to “talk” through Herby, but what did surprise me, and continues to surprise me, is how often even the older kids will speak through Herby. Using the stuffed animal, in this case our mascot, gives them the freedom to say things that they don’t feel comfortable sharing.

You don’t need a special mascot or stuffed animals to employ this tactic either. Any stuffed animals will do – though it does help to have a variety of choices for the kids to choose from so they can pick the stuffed animals they are most comfortable with.

You can try a variety of different tactics to use stuffed animals to share what they are going through:

• Encourage the child to select stuffed animals to represent each member of their family. Watch as they play and give voice to each stuffed animal.
• Encourage the child to pick one stuffed animal to represent them. You take that stuffed animal and pretend to be them (allow the child to “correct” you as need be). Ask the child to pick another stuffed animal and tell you who that animal represents. Allow the child to lead the interaction between the stuffed animals.
• Encourage the young person to show how the stuffed animals might act if they were experiencing specific emotions. (You might recall that acting out and understanding different emotions is an important part of the Super Simple Feelings Management Technique).
• Talk to the child about a specific stuffed animal and encourage them to tell you a story about the stuffed animal. Listen for clues to what might be going on in their life.
• Start to play with the stuffed animals yourself modeling what it looks like to express yourself through the stuffed animals.
• Whatever you do it, don’t force it. If the child isn’t ready to talk, use the opportunity to just play with the child and have a little fun. That relationship building may go a long way towards helping the child feel more comfortable talking to you in the future.

[su_emotions_hc]

Children and teens live in an ever-changing world that throws more and more at them and prepares them less and less to deal with the direct impacts, the collateral damage and the emotions that follow. At Hope 4 Hurting Kids, our goal is to help these hurting children and teens move from hurt to hope and healing.

Today we announce a three stage plan to help young people understand, deal with and overcome the difficult emotional circumstances of their lives. We’re calling it:

JUMP In! STAND Strong! RISE Up!

We contemplated other names for this strategy like “Recognize, Survive and Thrive” and “Know It, Own It and Grow From It”; but in the end we settled on “Jump In! Stand Strong! Rise Up!” as a visual picture of the three stages of dealing with difficult and unpleasant emotions. Let’s have a closer look at each stage.

Jump In! (Understanding Emotions)

Jump In! is all about making the effort to learn about, name and recognize what we feel. Emotions are not bad things – even when they’re unpleasant. Rather than avoiding them, it’s important that we teach young people to Jump In – get in there in the midst of those emotions, put a name to them and understand what they look like and how they feel.

Here at Hope 4 Hurting Kids, we encourage the use of the:

Super Simple Feelings Management Technique

It stands for:

• See It
• Say It
• Feel It
• Mimic It
• Talk About It

You can learn more about the Super Simple Feelings Management Technique by clicking here.

Stand Strong! (Coping with Emotions)

Once young people are able to identify emotions in themselves and others, it is important that they have a tool box of coping skills to help them deal with those feelings.

Here our Hope 4 Hurting Kids, our mnemonic for remembering the different types of Coping Skills is:

Please Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff

It reminds us of six different kinds of coping skills:

• Physical
• Diversion
• Soothing
• Thinking
• Social
• Spiritual

You can find out more about Please Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff by clicking here.

Rise Up! (Moving On)

When young people have an understanding of their emotions and the coping skills to deal with them, it is possible for them to Rise Up and get past those feelings they have been dealing with to move on with their lives.

At Hope 4 Hurting Kids, we encourage young people to have a

Grand Feelings Exit Plan

This mnemonic explores the indications that a young person has finally moved through their difficult emotions and is ready to move on with life. The Great Feelings Exit Plan stands for:

• Gratitude
• Forgiveness
• Empathy
• Pushing On

Click here to learn more about the Grand Feelings Exit Plan.

So, let’s all work together to help young people to understand that they don’t have to wallow in their emotions; instead they can find hope healing when they choose to:

Jump In! Stand Strong! Rise Up!

[su_emotions_hc]

In the past, we have discussed the importance of helping young people to name and understand their emotions using the Super Simple Feelings Management Technique. We have also discussed the importance of helping them to build a tool box of coping skills by discussing Please Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff.

So, how do we know when these tools are working? That is why at Hope 4 Hurting Kids we’ve developed the

Grand Feelings Exit Plan

The Grand Feelings Exit Plan helps a young person to know the signs that they have truly dealt with and moved past a difficult emotion or circumstance. Like the Super Simple Feelings Management Technique and Please Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff, the Grand Feelings Exit Plan is a mnemonic to help young people, and the adults who care for them, to remember the four signs of emotional healing. Let’s have a look at each sign.

G(rand) – Gratitude

We should all be grateful for the things, people and circumstances of our lives. However, focusing on the things we are grateful for even in the midst of difficult circumstances is a sign of emotional healing.

F(eelings) – Forgiveness

Forgiveness isn’t always easy, and many times it is the last things we want to do when someone has wronged us. Young people need to understand, though, that refusing to forgive only hurts them and not the person they are refusing to forgive. There is a famous quote which has been attributed in various forms to a number of different people:

“Refusing to forgive is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

When a young person gets to a place where they can forgive the wrong(s) done against them, they have reached a point of emotional healing.

E(xit) – Empathy

Empathy is putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. It is looking at the world through the eyes of the person you are empathizing with. It is different from sympathy and a much higher goal than merely feeling bad for someone. When a young person can work through their own emotional baggage, and instead take what they’ve learned and empathize with another that is another sign of emotional healing as well as emotional maturity.

P(lan) – Pushing On

When the event or the circumstance or the emotion becomes a part of that collective that forms the well of experiences that we learn from and drawn from rather than the pressing and urgent crisis that we are dealing with in the present, that is when a young person has pushed on, and through, to emotional healing.

The Grand Feelings Exit Plan is the goal. It is where we want young people who are dealing with difficult emotions to end up. There is not right amount time or perfect path to get there, but it important to keep the goal in mind.

The Grand Feelings Exit Plan is the final step in our three stage comprehensive plan for helping young dealing with emotions called Jump In! Stand Strong! Rise Up!

Find out more about each stage:

• Jump In! (The Super Simple Feelings Management Technique)
• Stand Strong! (Please Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff); and
• Rise Up! (Grand Feelings Exit Plan)

[su_emotions_hc]

The first step in helping kids (or anyone for that matter) to deal with and process the difficult emotions in their lives is to help them understand and name emotions. At Hope 4 Hurting Kids, we use the Super Simple Feelings Management Technique for that. Once we have helped kids to understand their emotions, we need to provide them with means for dealing with those emotions.

The second step towards emotional maturity and healing is to develop a robust set of coping skills. Coping Skills are designed to help “take the edge” of emotions and assist us in dealing with them. Unfortunately, that moment when a young person is drowning in emotions is not the right time to start thinking about coping mechanisms. Instead, it is important that kids and teens have at their disposal a tool box full of coping mechanisms that work for them that they can draw from in a time of crisis.

At Hope 4 Hurting Kids, we’ve developed another mnemonic to help keep track of the many different types of coping mechanism. This time we borrowed from the title of a popular book series by Richard Carlson. The different types of coping skills can be readily recalled by remembering the phrase:

Please Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff

Let’s have a look at each component:

P(lease) – Physical

Physical Coping Skills include both physical activities that help exert some of the energy that comes from difficult emotions and also taking care of ourselves physically so our bodies are in a better state to withstand the effects of those emotions. Things like running, engaging in sports, playing on the playground, cleaning the house or anything else that gets a young person moving and exerts physical energy are effective Physical Coping Skills. Additionally, we want to encourage kids to develop good habits to take care of themselves like eating healthy, limiting caffeine and getting a good nights’ sleep. All of these will enable a person to more effectively deal with difficult emotions.

D(on’t) – Diversion

Diversion Coping Skills serve to temporarily take our minds off of whatever is causing distress and are sometimes called Distraction Coping Skills. They are not meant to be a final solution but serve as a brief reprieve from dealing with the issue and, hopefully, allow a young person the space and distance to come back to the emotion and tackle it more effectively. Diversion Coping Skills include things like playing a game, doing a puzzle, reading, making crafts, writing, playing with fidget spinners and fidget boxes, drawing a picture, singing, dancing, watching cute YouTube videos and even playing video games.

S(weat) – Soothing

Soothing Coping Skills help kids to relax and relieve tension. Certain of the Diversion Coping Skills listed above also have a soothing component like coloring, fidget spinners, singing and watching cute YouTube videos. Other Soothing Coping Skills (which often involved engaging the five senses) include laughing, crying, breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, mindfulness and taking a warm shower or bath.

T(he) – Thinking

Thinking Coping Skills (sometimes called Cognitive Coping Skills) involve exercising the mind to engage difficult emotions and deal with irrational thoughts. They include things like brainstorming solutions, evaluating assumptions, creating a gratitude list, making a list of things you’re good at, lowering expectations, making a crisis plan and making a list of goals. The activities are designed to help young people take a more critical look at the issues and circumstances behind their difficult emotions.

S(mall) – Social

Social Coping Skills (also called Interpersonal Coping Skills) involve interacting with others in a way that helps you to process and handle your emotions and situations. These can include spending time with friends, serving other people, talking to a trusted adult, making a gift for someone, giving a hug, playing with a pet or calling a hotline or joining a support group.

S(tuff) – Spiritual

Spiritual Coping Skills call on something bigger than ourselves to help process the situation. They include obvious things like praying and attending a faith service but also include other activities that help people to understand their place in the world like journaling, meditating, finding a worthy cause to commit time to and getting back to nature.

Taken together, all these different types of coping skills will help young people to better handle the emotions that life throws at them. So, Please Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff! It’s an easy way to help young people (and those us who love them) remember all those different types of coping skills that they have hopefully filled their coping tool boxes with.

Please Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff is the second step in our three stage comprehensive plan for helping young dealing with emotions called Jump In! Stand Strong! Rise Up!

Find out more about each stage:

• Jump In! (The Super Simple Feelings Management Technique)
• Stand Strong! (Please Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff); and
• Rise Up! (Grand Feelings Exit Plan)

[su_emotions_hc]