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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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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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

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You might think that the anger and target practice probably shouldn’t go together. However, when it comes to kids taking some target practice can be an effective way of both venting anger and discussing a child’s anger with them so they can explain it better. Here is how this great idea, which we found originally on Little Birdie Secrets, works:

1. Draw a series of concentric circles on a large sheet of paper or white board to create a target. You can have the child make their own target if you have some time and let them decorate it however they want.
2. Have them write or draw things on the target that make them angry. As they do, talk to them about each item and how they’ve dealt with that anger in the past.
3. Have the child throw something at the target. Anything soft will do – you don’t want to break anything, but the physical activity of throwing something also helps to alleviate anger. Foam balls are a great option. I use the puffer balls shown below. I got a dozen of them on Amazon for around $10 and use them for a variety of activities.

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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

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