Feelings Ball Toss is a fun activity to play with kids to help them understand different emotions. The great part about the game is that it can be played a number of different ways.

Here’s How To Set It Up

• Get a series of bowls or tubs. We used the different colored bowls shown about that we got at Dollar Tree for a buck a piece.
• Label each bowl with a different emotions. You can write the emotion or draw a picture using marker, but we opted to print various emojis and tape them inside the bowls.
• Get some sort of soft ball or object that can be tossed into the bowls. We bought a set of 12 puffer balls on amazon that we use for the game. In addition to not bouncing and rolling as much as regular balls, they’re also a nice stress reliever for the kids.
• Set the bowls on one side of the room (up against a wall works well as a makeshift backboard).
• Have the kids stand at the other side of the room with a ball.

Here’s How to Play

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Emotion Color Swatches are a cheap and easy way to teach kids different words for emotions and different degrees of emotions.

Here’s how to make them:

• Go to your local hardware store or pain store and get a variety of paint samples that show three or four different intensities of a color on one sheet (we used samples that showed four colors).
• On each sample, write words that represent varying degrees of emotions going from least intense (lightest color) to most intense (darkest color).
• You can make up your own groupings or use the ones we’ve developed which are shown below (you can access a printable copy of by clicking on the worksheet below). We grouped our emotions as well (e.g., red samples related to emotions in the “anger” category, yellow was “joyous” emotions, blue for emotions related to “sad” as so on).
• Once all of our samples were done, we bound them using a metal ring.

Here’s how to use them:

There are a number of ways you can use the Emotions Color Swatches to help teach kids about emotions: Continue reading

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.

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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.

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Grief and worry can often leave young people feeling all alone and isolated. The Shield of Strength is a fun craft and activity to get kids thinking about their own assets and other people in their lives that can be there to help them when they need it the most. You can click on the picture above to get a downloadable template for the Shield of Strength as well as the instructions.

Here’s how it works:

1. Draw a shield pattern like the one above on a large piece of cardboard or poster board.
2. Divide the shield into four sections by drawing a horizontal and vertical line.
3. Label the four quadrants as “Family,” “Friends,” “Skills” and “Others.”
4. Cut the shield out.
5. Write people or skills/abilities in each section that can help to protect you or help you feel better when you’re feeling down.
6. Keep the shield as a reminder that you are never alone in the struggles and difficulties that you face.
7. Instead of making a large shield, you can use the template on the following page to create a smaller version.

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Whether you are a parent going through a divorce, a grandparent of children going through a divorce, a friend of such a child or someone who works with kids on a regular basis, knowing how to talk to children of divorce can be instrumental in helping them process what is going on in their world. These are some things you need to know about communicating with children of divorce. This list has been adapted from the list “The Art of Communicating With Children” from the book Helping Your Kids Cope With Divorce the Sandcastles Way by M. Gary Newman (1998, Times Books Random House, p.13). I have added my own notes on how each item might look to parents and to children’s ministry workers.

1. Children want – and need – to talk.

Talking is essential to allow children to process the emotions they are feeling. Even if a child does not want to talk now, you can rest assured that they will want to talk at some point. Don’t be discouraged if this talking requires a little bit of prompting. For parents, understand that talking about what they are feeling is critical to your children. For children’s ministry workers, you should recognize that your environment may be the most “sane” 60 or 90 minutes a child of divorce experiences every week. Take advantage of that time to give them an opportunity to talk.

2. Any time can be a good time to talk.

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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.

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As this post is published, Hurricane Harvey is still battering parts of Texas and Louisiana in the United States with rain and flooding. As the storm eventually passes and the flooding recedes, families will be able to get back to their homes. They will, no doubt face devastation, loss and week or months of rebuilding. For many of the kids involved, this may well be the most traumatic thing they have ever experienced. For many it will become a permanent marker in their lives from which they will date things, as in “Remember before the flood…” or “that was after the hurricane.” If the effects of this trauma are not dealt with proactively in these kids, they will left to fester and likely show themselves in far more serious ways.

Fortunately, the fine people at the Mentor Research Institute have developed a resource called “The Great Storm and Flood Recovery: Children’s Story and Activity Book.”

This workbook encourages the child to fill in the blanks to explore their own experiences as well as color the pictures provide. It talks about the storm that caused the flooding, having to evacuate, cleaning up, rebuilding as well as the emotional impacts of the flooding. At all points, it gives the child a chance to reflect on their own experience.

A parent guide is included at the back of the workbook that covers: Continue reading

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.

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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)

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