Nightmare Ninja

Many of the children I work with struggle with nightmares.  I’ve had great success in using Cognitive Behavioral Counseling in treatment.  To accomplish this, I help the child articulate their nightmare and then rescript it with a hero who can come in and defeat the bad guy in the dream. I usually will have the child draw a picture of the nightmare while they tell the details that they remember.  Many of my clients do fine.  I also have many who will change the subject, draw a random picture not related to the nightmare, or will simply state that they do not want to.

My greatest challenge has been resistance.  I find that many children with a history of trauma are reluctant to talk about it.  It is scary for them.  They don’t enjoy feeling the deep emotion related to their trauma and are fearful of verbalizing their experience. Games help to reduce the anxiety related to talking about the issue at hand.  If I ask the question directly, they tend to clam up.  However, if the same question is on a game card, it does not seem as threatening.  I will occasionally have a client who will not answer a game card, which is fine.  However, most of the time they are happy to give answers.  I think it is also helpful that the game breaks up the discussing into easy, small answers rather than having to tackle the whole thing at once.  For instance, they may answer one question about the bad guy in the dream and then they get a break while I take a turn.  The child’s next question may be a coping skill.  It allows them time to regroup between each question.

When I play games with a client, I try to pay attention to their behavior and expressions to see if they want to engage in a discussion about the issue or if they are in a hurry to move past a question that was anxiety provoking.  If they want to talk at length, we put the game on hold and let them process it.  If they give a short answer and appear uncomfortable, I move on quickly.  My goal is to allow them a chance to process their nightmare in the least threatening way possible. The first time we discuss it I may get very short answers, but they will usually feel more comfortable and at ease the next time.

This game has four sets of cards: Antagonist cards, Protagonist cards, Defeating the Monster, and Coping Skills.  The Antagonist cards focus on describing details of the bad guy in the dream.  This includes motivation for the harm, physical details, strengths, and weaknesses.  The Protagonist cards focus on the child’s experience in the dream.  It is to help them articulate the details of what happened to them, what they were thinking and feeling, and what they were doing in the dream.  The Defeating the Monster cards are designed to rescript the dream.  This is where they create a superhero who will rescue them from the bad guy.  Finally, the coping skill cards are there to help the children identify how to avoid triggers that can lead to nightmares, thought stopping and replacement techniques, and healthy bedtime habits.

My incredibly talented daughter illustrated the ninja used in the game.  Way to go Jaden!

To download the game, visit my website at www.pathwaystopeacecounseling.com
Or visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Nightmare-Ninja-Board-Game-3722560
You can also find our games on Amazon, Ebay, and Teachers Pay Teachers

Liar, Liar Pants on Fire

I am excited to introduce a new game designed to help children who tell lies.  Over the years I have worked with many children who have been in trouble for telling lies, but there are many different motivating factors for their behavior.  I have found that talking about it directly often leads to more lies, as they are either ashamed to talk about it or they fear being in trouble.  Naturally, the children who are in the habit of lying tend to lie about their lying habit. 

I scoured the internet looking for resources but didn’t find much related to lying.  I figured it was a good time to make a new game.  This game plays like Old Maid.  There are 10 different characters in addition to the Liar, Liar Pants on Fire card.  You pass out all of the cards to the players.  It’s likely that one person will receive more cards than the others due to the odd number of cards.  Each player will hold up their cards and one player will select a card from another players hand. If they get a match, they will lay it down on the table.  This will continue with players taking turns until the Liar, Liar Pants on Fire card is the only one that remains.  The player left with this card loses.

Each character has a different motivation for lying.  The game comes with a description for each character and questions that can be used to generate discussion about motivation for behavior as well as encouraging the child to think of possible consequences for the behavior. The goal is to open discussion, normalize feelings, and to help identify the client’s motivation for lying.  The therapist can segue in to talking about alternative behaviors that would work better than telling lies.

One reason that I am so excited about this game is because my daughter illustrated the game.  All characters are original pieces of art.  I may be biased, but not to shabby for a 12-year-old!  I’m extremely proud of her hard work. Once I figure out the logistics, I plan to open a Teachers Pay Teachers account for her to sell her artwork. 

This game is now available on my website, www.pathwaystopeacecounseling.com.

It is also on my Teachers Pay Teachers store at https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Liar-Liar-Pants-on-Fire-3716967.
You can also find our games on Amazon, Ebay, and Teachers Pay Teachers
Stay tuned!  I have a couple more games that I am working on.  I'm hoping to have them available soon.

Product Review: No Temper Treasure Island

I have been busy playing this game with my kiddos this week. I bought this game from a Marco Products catalog over 5 years ago.  It continues to be one of my go to games to play with kids in counseling. It is a favorite for many of my kids.  It is designed to be an anger management game, but it also addresses coping skills for other issues as well. 

The goal of the game is to collect the most treasure by the end of the game.  This is a nice change from the traditional model of whomever reaches the end first wins.  It creates a new level of competitiveness and strategy.  The kids also enjoy pretending they are getting rich as they play.

Each color of card has a different topic. The red cards are related to empathy, the green cards for impulsivity/locus of control, gold is anger control, white is role play, and blue cards are coping skills.  It incorporates many cognitive behavioral (CBT) concepts within the game, which makes this a top pick for me!  I always look for ways to slip CBT in without getting boring or too difficult.

This game helps children with body awareness, motivation, identifying anxieties, as well as identifying thoughts.  There are cards with systematic relaxation techniques, exercise ideas, and basic coping mechanisms.  It has so many cards that you can play it over and over and learn new skills with the same child.  Not only that, but it was quite affordable at just over $15. 

I am not getting paid one red cent for my review.  I'm just reviewing this product because I like it!

You can get this product here: http://marcoproducts.com/no-temper-treasure-island-game/

I Spy Bottles to go in Coping Skill Boxes

Making I spy bottles is fun, fun, fun! The kids have loved dying the rice, choosing their trinkets to go inside, and to stare at their bottles to find each object.  I started by having each child hold a baggy with rice in it.  I poured about 1T of white vinegar and a small squirt of food coloring to the rice.  They would then squish the rice around until it was fully colored.  Then we poured it out onto paper towels to dry. After it was completely dry, we mixed the colors together. *Note, I discovered the hard way: don’t mix the rice until it is fully dry otherwise it turns and ugly brown color.

At a later session, I had the kids choose trinkets to go inside their bottles.  I used small water bottles with the wrapper removed.  You can certainly go with a large bottle, but it will take more supplies and not fit so nicely in the coping skill box. I had sequins, beads, brads, rubber bands, paper clips, and googly eyes.  You can really use anything that is small enough to fit in the bottle.  I enjoy giving them choices.  If you better at planning, you can make a list of items that they put in the bottle so that they will know what they are searching for. 

After they filled their bottles I used superglue to attach the lid to the bottle.  I have in the past had kids dump the contents at home, which the parents didn’t enjoy too much! Many of the kids have come back and talked about how they used their bottles to calm down when upset. 

Play Dough as a Coping Skill and to Process Emotions

Children process emotions in many ways, but usually best through play.  It takes time to develop an emotional vocabulary and to mature to the point to use it.  In the meantime, play can help facilitate processing emotions and communicating with caregivers.  Before children can adequately communicate feelings, they need to calm down strong emotions.  Play dough is a great tool for this! Let’s explore some options:

 Squeezing.  I encourage children to squeeze the play dough so that it oozes out of their fingers.  They typically enjoy this activity because it if fun, but it also is a sudden release of energy.  Anger builds up as energy that needs to be released to help calm down.  There are many options for letting out emotional energy, such as exercise, squeezing a pillow, stress ball, etc.; however, play dough is fun!  I also like the tactile aspect of using play dough.  Multi sensory play incorporates using grounding techniques in calming down.

Smashing.  Similar to squeezing, it is another way to let out strong emotions.  They can either create things and then smash them or just smash balls of play dough. 

Feelings Faces.  Kids who lack an emotional vocabulary can use play dough to communicate feelings.  They can use pieces of play dough to form feelings faces, they can squish a ball of play dough and carve out facial expressions, or they can use cookie cutters to stamp out feelings faces.  A friend of mine was selling some super cute emoji cookie cutters from Pampered Chef that I couldn’t pass up.  They are a hit with the kids!  They also stack up and click together to make storage easy.

Cutting with Scissors. Have you every cut play dough with scissors?  If not, you are missing out!  There is something strangely gratifying about it. I have found the children who have a history of trauma are especially intrigued by it. I’m not sure why, but they seem to love it.

Characters. Sometimes I will form little people out of play dough and encourage kids to act out situations with them.  It can be helpful to process frustrations about a situation, fears, or anything that is causing strong emotions.  Consider this example: A child comes in and says, “Tommy made me so mad that I want to punch him!”  I could give him a couple of play dough figures (or he could create them) and ask him to act out what happened.  He could then role play with the figures to demonstrate the situation. It would also give me the opportunity to help them process not only what happened, but to ask what he thinks would solve the situation, discuss what he did say or do, what he could have said or done, etc.  It opens the door for dialogue.

Creative Play.  Most children enjoy being creative, building and designing things.  As they play I look for themes in what they are doing.  I usually will watch for a while and then ask questions and I pick up on themes.  Sometimes you will see a child venting anger through play.  Or sometimes you may hear a cry for help.  They will often act out issues that are heavy on their hearts, such as feeling rejected and desiring friends, or fear of being hurt.  Many times they will act as a superhero overcoming difficult situations.  There is usually something to be learned by quietly watching a child play.

I hope these tips are helpful.  I am a strong believer in helping children learn many ways to cope.  Play dough has been good to me.  It is one tool that can be used in many ways.  This is not a comprehensive list, but a few ideas that I have used in my counseling room.  

Coping Skill Toolbox

Last fall I helped the kids I work with make coping skill boxes.  They were able to decorate them and either take them home or to their classroom to help them if they started to feel out of control.  I talked to their teachers and parents about how to implement the skills and which skills would be useful in various settings.  Some of the kids took home some of their items and left some at school, especially those that may have caused issues in the classroom. 

The kids really seemed to enjoy decorating their boxes and discussing how they would use their boxes and where they would keep them.  The main point that I stressed during the session was discussing how to implement skills and ways to remember skills.  While their hands were busy decorating, they were happy to chat about their week and process emotions. 

It is always enjoyable to see how different personalities come out with the activities.  Some wrote their name on the box and then were ready to move on to another activity.  Others meticulously painted for the entire session.  The important thing to remember is to roll with it.  When I insist that they do things a certain way or spend a certain amount of time on a project, they usually shut down on me.  Several of them opted for Legos after their box was complete.  

Using Feelings Candy Land

 I created this video to show how I use Feelings Candy Land in sessions. I view games in counseling as simple tools to help children open up about their feelings. Many times they do not know what they are feeling or how to communicate the feelings they have. The game helps this process along by having them identify times they felt the various feelings. Sometimes it may take a while for them to think of a time that they experienced that feeling. It normalizes verbalizing their feelings and helps them to be familiar with using I Statements to discuss their feelings.

I find that children are generally comfortable talking when in a play format, but will clam up if it is eye to eye conversation. Keeping the focus on the game allows them to explore their feelings without feeling put on the spot. I encourage children to continue using I statements when discussing feelings with others. And the more we play Feelings Candy Land the more they do use I statements!

When playing this game, I generally go with the flow of the child. If they are guarded, I give guarded response. If they are more open, I give open responses. I want them to feel comfortable with the game, not pressured to say anything in particular. If I have a child who continues to be guarded over time, I will give responses related to what I feel they need to talk about. Such as “I felt sad when my grandma died.” The key is to not be obvious and throw those responses out sparingly.

I also try to read body language to tell if a child is ready to open up and talk or if they are uncomfortable and want to continue in the game. Waiting a few seconds before taking your turn can give them an opportunity to elaborate. If they don’t, it’s good to continue on. I try to make a mental note of important things said during the game so that we can revisit them later. I also keep them in mind for choosing the game for the next session. It is not uncommon for a child to complain of being picked on. I will usually choose a game related to bullying for the next session.

Some of the older kids then I see love Feelings Candy Land, but most of them prefer UNO. I use the same concept with UNO, but just use the colors represented in UNO, red, yellow, blue, and green. I think it works just as well. I hope you enjoy the video!

To view my original post about Feelings Candy Land, click here: http://pathwaystopeacecounseling.blogspot.com/2014/10/feelings-candy-land.html

To download my Feelings Candy Land cheat sheet for free, please visit my website at https://www.pathwaystopeacecounseling.com/product-page/feelings-candy-land-game-instructions
Type "CANDY" in the discount code box to get it for free.