Inside Out Board Game Tweeked for Counseling Use

I absolutely LOVE this Inside Out board game.  It is so well designed that the kids get excited when they see it.  I had to do some tweaking to make it work for counseling.  I simply colored in the circles to match the colors of the "islands".

Here is what I came up with:
Red - Friendship
Orange - Goofball
Purple - Imagination Land
Yellow - Family
Blue - Sports
Green - Honesty

I simply used the game as designed, but each space required the children to talk about how that island either fits the or doesn't fit them.  If it wasn't a fit for their personality, they had they told about what would fit them better.  This game gave a great platform for discussing core values.

This game also makes a great segue for another great therapy session - having them draw their own islands!  I'm looking forward to going there with some of my more artistic kids that I see.

Feelings Graph

Don't you love simple, yet very insightful interventions when working with kids?  The feelings graph is a go-to tool for me.  I frequently use feelings charts during session, and they are certainly useful.  However, the Feelings Graph goes much deeper.  Instead of asking kids "What are you feeling today?"  I'd rather ask "How much are you feeling of these emotions today?"

This simple intervention is helpful in a lot of ways:

1. It allows children to show how much of each feeling they are experiencing.
2. It helps children take time to really pay attention to what is really going on inside.
3. It is a great assessment tool.  It can help you as a clinician to identify what feelings are taking precedence and identify what to focus on first.
4. It can show progress.  If I have a client fill out a feelings chart during one of our first sessions, I can pull it out again a couple of months later to help the client identify how their feelings have changed over time.  It can be a motivator.
5. It allows even very young children to express their emotions without relying on verbal language skills.
6. It helps children make sense of why they feel the way they do.
7. It can help initiate important dialogue about what has been going on.  The client may be willing to color in the boxes, but is hesitant to initiate conversation about something that is troubling them.

Feel free to make your own feelings graph, or if you would like to save time you can head over to my website at www.pathwaystopeacecounseling.com for the download.