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Therapeutic storybooks are a powerful way for kids to learn to recognize, express, and cope with tough emotions and difficult life situations. A story can engage children, can give them language to talk about their problems, can help normalize their feelings, and can give them tools to help them face their own life circumstances. Because stories are such effective therapeutic …
Anxiety is one of the most common mental health issues that children experience, and so it’s likely you’ve taught, counselled, or parented a child who has struggled with worry, panic, shyness, or some other manifestation of anxiety. If so, this week’s video is for you. We’re continuing with our series on therapeutic storybooks for children on our YouTube channel. Over …
We all have bad days and we all experience bad moods. Children are no exception. Sometimes kids struggle because they do not yet have the tools to be able to regulate their emotions. This activity will help a child start to learn that he has the ability to regulate his own emotions and help himself when he is feeling upset. …
We all know that every child will experience tough days, disappointments, and, of course, loss in some form or another over the course of their childhood years. Part of our task as parents, teachers, and therapists is to make sure that kids have good coping skills for managing the difficult situations that life will inevitably throw at them. In this …
Last week we started a series on therapeutic stories that teachers, therapists, and parents can use to help children to identify and express their emotions appropriately. We began with the emotion of anger and shared a video with the first five of ten of our favourite storybooks to help young children talk about their angry feelings. If you missed last …
Happy New Year! To kick off 2019, we will be starting a new series on therapeutic stories. We want to take some time and review some of our favourite children’s books that deal with subjects like sadness, grief, anger, social skills, and more, in order to help you find resources to assist you in your work with children. Therapeutic stories …
As I’ve written in previous posts, I like to take time early in my work with a child or young person to talk about emotions, to assess what the child’s emotional awareness is, her ability to express a wide range of emotions, and how she copes with various emotions. Having a sense of a child’s emotional intelligence at the start …
I love using feeling charts with my therapy clients. For almost every kind of presenting issue, some kind of emotion chart will usually make an appearance within the first session or two when I am working with a child. Using this tool helps me assess and improve a child’s emotional awareness and vocabulary, which are important aspects of a child’s …
As I shared in a previous post on an activity called “A Feeling for All Seasons”, I use emotion charts with most of my child and some of my teen clients. I find they help kids to identify and verbally express their emotions, learn to recognize and empathize with others’ emotions, and as a result help children learn how to …
If you are working with small children in counselling or in a classroom setting, you are going to need more than worksheets and conversation skills – you’re going to need some toys. No 6 year-old wants to just sit around and talk about their problems – and often times younger kids don’t have the ability to do so, even if …
