Therapy 101- EFT: Emotional Freedom Techniques

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) also called "tapping" is a quick easy intervention or coping skill you can teach your kiddos to deal with big feelings anywhere at anytime.  Similar to acupuncture, the child will tap on certain points of their body while running through a script helping them process their feelings.  There is a wide variety of variations on how you can do this with your child, and an internet search will give you tons of ideas, videos, scripts, etc.

First you need to teach the tapping points.  Below is a video teaching a child to use the points.  For younger kids I would recommend using a stuffed animal and putting stickers or sewing buttons on the tapping points so they can practice with it.  You can choose to only teach a few tapping points if that is all your child can handle right now, I would do at least a minimum of four.  For my youngest we use four tapping points King's Crown (top of head), Mustache (Under Nose), Tarzan (Collar Bone), and Monkey (Under armpit).  For my oldest we do all of the tapping points and I made a "cheat sheet" that has pictures of him doing each tapping point so he can reference it as he works through the script.






Once they know the tapping points you can find scripts online or make your own, check out youtube too! You will find that most of the "adult" scripts are too long or complicated for kids to follow, here is a great page showing a way to develop simple scripts for kids:  Dumping, Dreaming, Deciding Technique for developing EFT Scripts.  Here is an example of a script I made for my son dealing with angry feelings: Printable Anger Script.  I used the Dumping, Dreaming and Deciding technique but also added in a section for Physical Symptoms because I think it is helps my son connect the physical symptoms to the feelings.

Here's the thing about the scripts, if your kid doesn't want to say it out loud, that's okay.  If they want to copy and repeat after you, that's okay.  If they want to read it silently, that's okay.  If they refuse to do the script at all and just sit there listening to you, that's okay too :)  The thing I've found most helpful with the scripts for my son is having him hear/say that his feelings are valid, that there is a way to have those feelings and work through him, and that he is an awesome/smart/brave kid.  He struggles with self esteem so having those positive affirmations reinforced while tapping is great for him.

We are working on making him a binder filled with different scripts and I have video taped myself doing the scripts on his Nintendo DS so he can watch them whenever he needs.  Its super simple to do and it can never hurt to give your kids more tools for their arsenal!



Resources
Do's and Don'ts of tapping with Kids
EFT SUPER STAR:  Brad Yates
Community Forums for Parents and Professionals using EFT with kids

2/20/2014

I listened to a great interview with Bryan Post that was taking place during an Online Training Summit put on by Full Potential Parenting, there are speakers all week so if you haven't yet go register!  It really hit home when Bryan was talking about letting out children feel what they feel, that when we suppress their feelings and suppress their attitudes what we get is the behaviors.  When Matthew got home from school he almost immediately through a tantrum about not being able to get on the Ipad.  He is not allowed to play electronics during the week, so this isn't anything new.  After being refreshed by the interview this morning I was able to stay calm, validate what Matthew was feeling and redirect him to getting something to eat so his brain could think.  We sat at the table together and really connected once he calmed down.  Win-Win, thank you Bryan Post!  I would love to get his DVD/Audio series for Parents but at almost $300 it seems a little out of my price range right now.

Matthew and I just finished a great game of Battleship, playing games is something I don't usually enjoy doing with Matthew.  I'm hyper-vigilant waiting for him to have a meltdown anytime he thinks he is losing, stuck in my own PTSD from all of the major rages and violent meltdowns we have been through that have been triggered from playing games with him.  Today was our first time playing Battleship, he had never played before, meaning I had to teach him the game, another trigger. Mathew doesn't like to listen to people explain or teach him things, see....he already knows it ALL :)  Then when it turns out he doesn't know it all and he is not as good at things as people who have been doing them and practicing them another meltdown begins.  You know what he said when he lost the game as we were cleaning up, "Hey Mom, I didn't even get upset I lost!".  You are so right my boy, you are awesome, I know how hard that is for you and you totally rocked it!!

25 days of purposeful LOVE

As Thanksgiving comes to a close and we enter the Christmas season,  I am finding my "therapeuticness" is being tested more and I'm failing miserabley!  When my boys are excited their behavior goes downhill fast, when you throw in the excitement if the hilidays with all the trauma history holidays bring up it is a disaster.  When my stress level is up u loose my temper quickly, my patience is minimal and I ten to blow small behavioral incidents into massive ones.  Something has to change this holiday season and its gonna have to start with me!

Here's my goals for this holiday season, will you join me in one or all of them?

25 books to read this month:  For the last few Christmases I have tried to wrap up 25 Christmas books and read one each night.  Any time I find a Christmas Book at Goodwill I grab it and put it in my stash.  I have yet to actually make it through all 25 days!  Inevitably an evening starts going downhill, I get frustrated and send everyone to bed without the story.  This year I am going to do it!!  There is nothing they can do to loose the story, I am going to remain calm and patient and read that story as if my life depended on it :)

25 games played this month:  Matthew loves card games of any kind, he usually waits till the end of the night when I am drop dead tired and then starts begging me to play.  I end up denying him way to much cause I'm tired and worn out from the days activities.  This month I am going to play a game every day.  Ill try and play earlier in the day so I'm not too tired to do it and I will try to ask him to play instead of the other way around :)

25 crafts this month: As you probably already know from my Art Therapy Thursday posts, my kids LOVE crafts. My goal is to get at least 25 crafts done this month with them!  I'm sure Ill be sharing them on Art Therapy Thursdays!

25 meals eaten together this month: I love the idea of eating together, but in all honesty what happens is I get everybody everything and by the time I sit down to eat they are all done.  Nobody is getting up from the dinner table till we are ALL done. 
 

25 hugs per week: James is anxiously attached he has a constant desire for hugs.  I usually require him to ask first because of boundary issues and personal space issues he has.  I am not a touchy feely person, I generally don't like hugs all that much!  BUT this month I am making myself initiate hugs at least 25 times per week!  This morning I came down and asked everyone for a morning hug.  Afterwards, James says, "We should do this every morning Mommy, have a morning hug right when you come down!"  He was so excited.  How can you say No to a cute face like that!
 

25 minutes of family time a night: This could be reading the book, making the craft or playing the game, but it has to be ALL of us spending time without electronic distractions!


Any takers?  Ill keep you updated on how it goes for me!  Follow me on Facebook and let me know what you will be doing this holiday season to connect with your difficult kiddos! (Click the facebook badge on the right to follow me on FB).

 

I Spy Jars and a GIVEAWAY

Today's Art Therapy Thursday (or Friday since I'm a day late due to Thanksgiving) are these adorable I Spy jars!

 

About a week ago while at the grocery store I was conned into buying these cute little Apple juices by one persuasive three year old.  We were about to head up to New York for a lunch get together with some other "trauma moms" from Orlando.  This would be a four hour trip up and a four hour trip back for lunch, crazy right?!  BUT oh so worth it ;). Anyway, we had to pick up some snacks and these made their way into my cart.

 

(This picture is of the plastic bottles, our grocery store only had glass....I'm keeping my eye out for these!)

I decided these little bottles couldn't go to waste and found the perfect craft to put them to use.

I had picked up several different beads at a craft store awhile back on clearance.  You will need letter beads and an assortment of others.  I had soccer balls, footballs, baseballs, and animals.  I also had some sequins that I thought would look great.  

We filled the jars up with rice.  You can dye the rice using food coloring but we didn't do that this time.  You will need to leave some space in the jars so they can be "shaken" around.

I had the kids each pick a color of sequins and dump them in the jar and then let them pick an assortment of beads to put in.

In Matthews jar we put the letters "RELAX" and in the younger two kiddos we put their names.

Once everything was in, we superglued the caps on, hopefully avoiding any curious hands from dumping rice everywhere.  The glass jars themselves may be a little iffy for a child prone to throwing things when upset, but were gonna hope for the best!  You could always use a little plastic water bottle instead if you're worried about it breaking or maybe you will be lucky enough to find the plastic version of these jars in your local store.
 

For now we put our jars over in the calm down corner.  The boys have gone over several times to play I Spy and find their letters or other beads.

GIVEAWAY:

In addition to using Art to help the boys and I connect, one other great way to communicate with children is BOOKS!  I love using books that are relevant to whatever a particular child is going through.  I've got a great give away for all my readers of a new book written by Ricky Martin.  The book is called "Santiago the Dreamer in Land Among the Stars":

 

"Santiago’s biggest dream is to perform on stage.  But when he doesn’t get the lead role in the school play, he can’t help but doubt himself. Encouraged by his father’s inspiring words, Santiago rebuilds his confidence and finds that with passion and dedication, you can achieve amazing things beyond your wildest imagination." - Amazon

What a great message for our kiddos, despite everything they have been through they can still reach their biggest dreams.  I hope you win and can enjoy it with your kids!
 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

BE SURE TO JOIN US FOR NEXT WEEK'S ART THERAPY THURSDAY!!!

Skittles Game

 

 

The M&M games were a big hit with James and Joel yesterday, as well as with the Mobile Therapist!  I decided to create a few more games to have on hand, these ones use skittles.  Free printables for these games can be found here, which links you to google docs.

 

 

 This game board connects with our "Calm Down Corner" and relaxation exercises we have been practicing.  There is another game board for emotions located in the packet as well!

 

The basic directions of the game: Each person will receive a fun size bag of skittles. They will pull out a skittle and move their piece to the next space of that color.  They will then do the activity listed for that color and eat the skittle.  Whoever gets to the finish first wins!

 

 

Be sure to check out the M&M game!

 

If you want to follow me on Pinterest for more great ideas and activities click the Pinterest button on the right side of the blog :)

M&Ms Feelings Activity

My kids LOVE m&m's, they may or may not be used frequently as a bribe in our household.
I found this idea on Pinterest and it's been sitting around on one of my "Boards" forever!!  I've modified he original game a bit to fit my families particular needs and I think it turned out great!  We will be doing the activity on Monday when James' Mobile Therapist is out, so Ill let you know how it goes.

I've made two versions of the M&M game, the first one focuses on feelings and the second focuses on feeling Angry and calming down.  You will need to print out a game board, you could either print one for the whole family to share or print mini boards so each person has their own.  I laminated mine so we can use them again without getting them ruined.  Each person will need a fun size bag of M&M's or an assortment of 10 or so M&M's.  You can go around in a circle each taking a turn, pulling out a M&M and doing what the game board says.
 

 Here is a link to my post about our Calm Down Corner and strategies:  Calm Down Corner

Here are both games to download from google docs.  They are full page size, I just set my printer to print multiple pages to make them half or quarter page sized.

If you want to follow me on Pinterest for more great ideas, click the link on the right hand side of my blog!

Be sure to join us on Art Therapy Thursdays, for great arts and crafts ideas to use with special kiddos:

 

Art Therapy Thursdays: Animal Sculpture

I found this weeks Art Therapy Thursday idea on Deborah Hage's website.  There is some really great articles on her site, its worth taking a few minutes to explore!   http://www.deborahhage.com/articles/sculpy.html

The activity involves the children making their own animals out of clay.  You can pick up the Sculpey brand clay at any craft store. I got mine at Walmart for about $8.  This type of clay can be baked after the kids are done to make the sculptures hard.  You could use regular modeling clay as long as you didn't want the sculptures to be able to stick around for awhile!

I explained to the kids that they needed to make an animal out of the clay that they would want to become.  It could be a real animal or a made up animal, but it had to be 3D (able to stand up) not flat.  I also told them when they were done they would get to tell us all about their animal and why they would want to be that animal.

When they were finished I gave them each the opportunity to tell me all about their animals.  I asked some guiding questions like "What does your animal eat" and "Where does it live" if they needed help telling us about it.  It really was amazing the insight I was able to get by observing and interpreting their choices when creating the animals.

Matthew created an Elephant.  He told us he wanted to be an elephant so he would be big and strong and have sharp tusks that could defeat anybody.  This has been an ongoing theme for Matthew since he came to me three years ago, the desire to be bigger and stronger than everyone, "defeating" the bad guys.  Makes perfect sense given his history, clearly there is still a lot of vulnerability and feeling helpless here. 

James made an octopus.  When asked why he wanted to be an octopus he told us that he could swim after people in the ocean and catch them with all of his arms. This describes James to a "T".  He is an attention seeker and a hugger with some serious boundary/personal space issues :)  I can definitely picture him swimming around the ocean chasing people and hugging them with all those arms.

Joel made some rock thing that he called his "baby", cause....well, he's 3 and he liked to smoosh the colors together, LOL!

We had a great time together doing this activity.  The boys were all engaged in their own sculpture.  They had to ask me for pieces of clay so it gave us an opportunity to practice manners and sharing. 

I'd love to see pictures if you try this activity at your house!!  Feel free to link to your blog post in the comments!

Art Therapy Thursdays: New Blog Segment

 

 

 

Introducing a new weekly blog segment:

 

 

ART THERAPY THURSDAYS

If you are new to my blog, let me give you the quick summary of my family!  I am a single mom who has adopted three boys through the foster care system.  I am still a foster parent so we may or may not have some extra children in our home at any time.  My three boys suffered a great deal of early childhood trauma before coming to my house due to abuse and neglect.  As a result of their trauma my oldest two have experienced varying degrees of difficulty forming healthy attachments.  If you want to know more about the effects of early childhood trauma and attachment resistance I encourage you to check out Beyond Trauma and Attachment, Inc. (BETA) at www.momsfindhealing.com .  Parenting kiddos who have experienced trauma is unique and challenging but every step of progress they make is a huge blessing.  Knowing you played a hand in their healing is beyond satisfying, it is a comfort to your soul.  There are thousands of kids right here in the United States waiting for homes, it is not easy road and this whole parenting gig is not easy, but to that one child it matters.  I encourage you to look into foster care and/or adoption in your area.  If you have any questions I'm happy to discuss it with you!

With that background out of the way, my kids love arts and crafts of any kind! They beg to break out the glue, glitter, and scissors and I cringe at the suggestion.  Do any of you know how MESSY boys are???  My sons teacher calls him Houdini due the amount of mess he can make in mere seconds.  So how do I solve this dilemma, I turn this arts and craft time into a learning opportunity.  We have Art Thursdays at our house. It is almost as popular as Pizza Friday!  This means that Thursday afternoon/evening we have a craft.......well they think it is just a craft.  In reality the "crafts" that I pick for us to do serve many purposes.  First, we do the "craft" together to encourage some family bonding time.  Fun, no pressure bonding time is GREAT for our work on attachment issues.  Second, we focus on the kids using positive social skills, if you want to participate in the "craft" you have to use manners and be kind to one another, passing the materials, encouraging one another, and focusing on the task. Third, the "crafts" focus on therapy type things (so official sounding right 'therapy things'), feelings, self-image, social skills, trauma, etc.  There is always a hidden goal to the activities.  Despite my randomn unsuccessful attempt to get into Johns Hopkins University and study Art History, I know little about art or therapy!  There are some GREAT activities out there that you can do with your kids, especially if you spend an insane amount of time on Pinterest like I do :). Sometimes are activities are more "therapeutic" than others, the point is just to get the discussions and thoughts started.  Many times when I have thought the activity was a disaster, weeks later one of the boys will mention it in relation to something they learned.  Melts your heart!  

Each Thursday I will be featuring a craft or art activity that you can use in your home.  I'm hoping you find them as fun and helpful as we do.  Feel free to link up an activity or ask questions in the comments!

Relaxation Books

We have been working with James on Deep Breathing and Relaxation. I avoided this as long as possible, as I was pretty much in denial that we were walking down this attachment road again.  I kept telling myself it was JUST ADHD, not attachment issues.  I feel like I just climbed over a huge mountain dealing with these same things with Matthew and we were finally down the mountain walking on flat land.  Just as you think the journey is getting easy another mountain comes into view.  There is a lot of mental preparation you have to go through to make another journey over the mountain.  You cant turn around cause you've got a mountain behind you, so your only option is to go over.   Ive been living the last few months on the flat land of the mountain trying to avoid the climb.  At some point you know you have to climb that mountain to ever get on with your journey.  I guess you could say Ive accepted it at this point and am gearing up for the next few years of teaching basic social skills and family values.  Given that I've already done (am doing) this with Matthew I have a lot of tools and no what to expect.  However I'm always looking for new strategies!  I found this great blog with tons of ideas.  My favorite was the relaxation books.  I made one and have been working with the boys on practicing these skills. 

Jaw: Chew That Carrot
Now, pretend that you are trying to eat a giant, hard carrot. It is very hard to chew. Bite down on it. As hard as you can. We want to turn that carrot into mush! Keep biting. (Hold for 10 seconds). Good. Now relax. You’ve eaten the carrot. Let yourself go as loose as you can.

CHECK THEM ALL OUT AT:
http://www.kimscounselingcorner.com/2012/06/18/fun-and-easy-to-make-relaxation-flip-books/

This totally inspired me to finally put together our "Calm Down Corner"!  Im almost finished and will share pics with you soon :)

Empathy: Part 2

Teaching Empathy:  Identifying Feelings

 

What struck me in the above definition of "empathy" was the last part 'without having the feelings fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner."  OH how are kids struggle with this, picking up social cues might as well be rocket science. 

 

When Matthew first came to us we quickly entered the wonderful world of traditional talk therapy, and well I didn't feel we really accomplished much in regards to his attachment and trauma issues, the one thing that each therapist we worked with focused on was identifying feelings.  This was SO essential for Matthew.  The ONLY feeling he knew and understood was MAD!!  Anytime feelings were discussed he would say he was MAD.  In reality all that MAD was really covering up the actual feelings; sadness, frustration, disappointment, guilt and so many more.  In order for our kids to understand the feelings of others they have to first understand and recognize their own feelings!  I realize that this is much easier said then done.  As a former Special Education teacher I had worked with a lot of children who needed direct instruction in recognizing feelings.  I treated recognizing feelings as a skill just like learning your addition facts. AND just like trying to teach addition facts to kids, you HAVE to make it fun!

 

One of the things Matthew's therapist had was a poster like this:

 

 

 

 He LOVED this poster, so we used it often in many ways :)  I think the silly faces helped him at first, it made it less "real" and more of a game.  We had the poster up in our living room area and in his room.  We would often look at it and point out what we were feeling.  This gradually got us away from "MAD" being the only feeling and it greatly expanded his "feeling" vocabulary.  Many times he was just picking random faces he thought were funny, that was perfectly okay!  Remember the goal right now is to just understand different feelings.  Whatever, he picked we would talk about!  Eventually I began to make him explain why he was feeling that way and he began reflecting more accurate feelings. 

Once he was getting good at identifying his feelings with the faces we began taking pictures of him or collecting pictures from the internet of different feelings to make it more 'real' when identifying feelings.  We played matching games with the funny cartoon pictures and real pictures, we identified situations and what feelings he might feel, we practiced making faces on demand (I would call out a feeling and he would make the face and vice-versa).  It became a fun time for us and made feelings less scary. We talked about feelings ALL. THE. TIME.  I would identify my feelings ALL. THE. TIME.  I would point out feelings on TV shows, movies, friends, etc.  ALL. THE. TIME.

At this point it was just about identifying feelings, what the feelings are, feelings vocabulary, identifying feeling faces in others and himself.  It was not about empathy or how to react to others feelings yet, he had to have the knowledge first!

 

Next Blog Post we will begin to address making the transition between identifying feelings and applying that knowledge!

 

 

Gingerbread Man Feelings

THE GINGERBREAD MAN:  FEELINGS ACTIVITY 

I saw a Youtube video that had something similar to this, but we adapted it to discuss how Matthew's big "mad" feeling covers up the true feelings he may be having and how its had to determine what the true feelings are when we let the big feelings take over.

1. I started by taking a piece of brown construction paper and drawing two gingerbread man shapes on it for Matthew to cut out.

2.  Once we had the gingerbread man cut out, I asked Matthew to tell me some feelings.  He told me happy, sad, and mad.  Later on in the activity he also brought up worried.  He seems to be able to identify feelings when asked but still has a difficult time identifying anything other than mad in real life situations.

3.  I told him I wanted to start with sad and asked him what color he thought sad was, he picked blue.  I asked him where in his body he felt it when he was sad.  He immediately said his legs.  I asked him what happened to his legs when he felt sad and he told me they felt tired.  WOW!!  I never even thought about that but so true!  I told him I felt sad in my heart, so we drew sad on our gingerbread man.

 4.  We did the same thing with happy and scared.  You could add other emotions in but we are still working on the basics!

 5.  When we got to mad I told him that when I feel mad it makes my whole body mad.  I had him show me what it looks lie to be mad (he is a pro at this :) ).  We talked about how often times that mad feeling covers up the real feeling we are having underneath and it is so hard to figure out the real feeling if we let the mad cover it up.  Then we drew mad covering everything up.

 6.  We talked about things we can do when we feel mad, such as breathing, taking time in our room, reading a book, doing a puzzle, etc.

 7.  Then we turned the gingerbread over and decorated the other sides however we wanted to and hung them on the tree!

I also love Christine Moers video on Feelings for our kiddos!