The Huge Bag of Worries

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When it comes to the time for taking the worries out of the box and talking them through or reflecting on them, make sure this is not too close to bedtime. The perfect time is late afternoon/early evening e.g. around 6pm, when your child has had a chance to rest and eat after school. Creating a Worry Box Materials Needed For Your Worry Box

Worry Box: In this post, you will learn what a worry box is, why it works, and what the best fit could be for your child. You will also learn how to make a cute Worry Monster Box, a fun activity for home or the classroom. What is a Worry Box? By using the worry jar, at some point your child will likely tell you that he or she is no longer worrying about something he or she had previously put in the jar. This is the exciting part for your child as this discovery represents success at overcoming a worry! Celebrate these moments together and make a big deal out of it. Have your child remove the worry and rip it up. We’ll share a tutorial for a fun monster worry box in the next section, but let’s be clear, this technique is equally effective with any box you may have lying around in the house.You may have read about this very same concept described as a Feelings Box, Acceptance Box, or Anxiety Box. Using the box and writing down your problems on paper also helps to turn something intangible into something they can actually touch, work with, and control. To help your child open up and discuss their emotions, you can start by asking your children how they are feeling; are they angry, sad, happy, scared or worried? You can then identify what might be making them feel this way. Reinforce the idea that it’s okay for your child to feel like this and that we all experience different emotions. By validating their feelings, it helps to build trust between you and your child. In my clinical work, I have found that being creative and making the strategies concrete and come to life improves their effectiveness and usefulness, especially with young children. I encourage you to do the same in helping your child. The Worry Jar One of the activities I like to do after reading the book is to give a child a bag and using potatoes add them to the bag one at a time so they get a real feel of how worries can weigh you down. After putting a few potatoes in then take one out at a time as you offload those worries to to someone. The bag feels lighter and you can feel lighter and happier.

Place a dab of glue above the open mouth in the center of the box for each eyeball. Place the eyeballs on the box. Thesymbolic nature of a worry box teaches children that their thoughts are just thoughts, enabling them to understand their emotions and gain control over them. This worry bag activity is a great one to use with your class to help them think about and discuss their emotions. It can be used as a morning starter activity to set them up for their day, or even as a standalone lesson alongside this Emotions PowerPoint.Now, your child has a personalised worry box that can help them manage their worries and big feelings more effectively. Give it time for this tool to “bed in” as part of their healthy lifestyle and really start making an impact. One alternative to a traditional, physical worry box is an imaginary worry box. This method may be more suitable for older kids who have developed the necessary imagination skills to visualise a mental box to store their worries. The ease of accessibility and portability of an imaginary worry box can make it an attractive option. However, it might not offer the same level of satisfaction or comfort that handling a physical box can provide.