Object Lesson on Forgiveness

I have mentioned that we are in the process of adopting a daughter (or daughters) through the foster care system. I know I keep saying that I will write about it, but honestly right now I am in such emotional upheaval about it that I can't write it about it quite yet. As things become more certain I promise I will share our experiences. As we are going through the process I have been volunteering my time at a local christian, residential center for teenage girls in need. Most of these girls are from at-risk homes where they have been placed by the state in treatment as a sentence, are in the foster care system and no longer welcome in a foster home, some are teenage mothers with their own child in foster care and treatment is part of their program to get their child back, placed by parents that no longer how to work with their behaviors, and/or substance abuse, prostitution, and other trauma. I have to say that the work has been one of the most rewarding things I have done. Some ladies from my church go, make these teen girls dinner, do a short devotional as we eat dessert, and then do a fun activity: paint nails, play board games, decorate cards, knit,etc. If you are interested in helping at-risk children all most all cities have a residential home and I am sure would except volunteers just to spend time building relationships with them. 

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of doing the devotional. Earlier that week two of the girls got baptized. Despite that it was the day of their baptism they were holding on to past grievances, feeling angry at one another, and just in a real negative place interpersonally. I felt so sad that here was a day where they were symbolically putting to death their old self and being reborn and they were holding on to past hurts. Most of these girls had a lot of reasons to be angry at people in their life. However, that anger and resentment were only holding them back. I knew then I wanted to teach on forgiveness.

I started by reading them 2 Cor. 5:17-19:

 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God,who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation." 

So what does reconciliation even mean. According to the dictionary it means to reestablish a close relationship and to settle and resolve. How do we show the ministry of reconciliation? By forgiveness and grace. Forgiveness is to excuse for a fault or offense. It is to pardon them by renouncing anger and resentment. Grace, on the other hand, is to give kindness or favor even when a person doesn't deserve or earn it. I then read Ephesians 4:31-32:

"Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."

Now on to the object lesson: 

Materials you need is a class of water and effervescent vitamin tablets (like airborne). Cut tablets into fourths.  I then asked the girls to think of someone they needed to forgive. Now these girls come from trauma, so I told them to think hard and only think of someone they are able to forgive at this moment in their life. If the hurt is too big and they think they can't forgive that person that is okay. Now we talked about how eventually they need to forgive so it doesn't hurt or have power of them, but do what they are emotionally capable of. Think of a hurt they can forgive. We talked about grace and forgiving even if they don't deserve it. Keep highlighting that forgiveness heals them and doesn't absolve the other persons behavior.

Once they have the person they are going to forgive they put the tablet in the water. At this time they can silently ask God to help them forgive the person they were thinking of. As the bubbles come off the tables imagine the hurt feelings going to God. 

The tablets take awhile to dissolve.  Use this illustration to talk about sometimes forgiveness takes awhile. It can be a long process to forgive. Lastly, once the water changes color we discussed how even though we forgave it doesn't mean the hurt didn't happen or affect our lives. It doesn't excuse the behavior but it allows God to change the pain and hurt into something else. 

Calm Down Basket

Making calm down baskets have been on my bucket list for years. Nothing like having a homestudy being done at your home, where your parenting techniques will be under a microscope, to light a fire under me. Part of the reason I held off for so long is because I thought it would cost a lot to get everything together or too difficult to make a calm down jar (something that I felt just HAD to go with it). Yeah, I was so wrong on both counts.

If you don't know what a calm down basket is let me enlighten you. It is a basket of items your child can use tools to help self soothe and/or self-regulate their feelings. Calm down baskets are NOT to be used as punishments. I actually have them in a different area of my house than our time-out (or in) chairs. I personally made a basket for each of my boys because some times I need them to calm down at the same time, say when sibling emotions are running high. Also with the four year age difference I needed to think about gearing certain items to appropriate age/maturity (mainly books). I ask the boys to go calm down when they are starting to get irritable and either a meltdown or fight will break out, overly-hyper and I can tell an accident will occur or any times they are being over-emotional. The trick to the success is finding times to implement it BEFORE a choice has been made that would result in a punishment. They go shake the glitter calm down jar (acts as a timer and object lesson) and then they work in the baskets until THEY feel calm. It is meant to be self-regulated where they can learn when they need to calm down and also when they can come out. Self regulation is a life skill for all kids, but for SPD (sensory processing disorder) children it is especially important. Of course, as a mom we need to teach them how to do this. You may need to give a few reminders. Don't forget to model!!! When they are in calm down I try to do something calming too: read a Psalms, drink some tea, take deep breaths, journal, and sometimes I even color.

Here is what I included in our calm down basket. Keep in mind almost ALL items I had around the house or got for a couple dollars at Target. I so wish we had a Dollar Tree up here in Anchorage. I would check there first. The goal is to find items that are calming, deal with kiddo emotions, and think about letting the children use all of their senses (great for all kiddos and especially ones with SPD).

Sensory Items: teething/oral tools, massager, pinwheel, bubbles (that don't spill), Walbarger Brushing Tool (only for kiddo with SPD), velcro, I Can Calm Myself ABC Cards from Training Happy Hearts, and some natural components (smooth rocks to rub or shells to listen to).

Lacing Cards, squishy toys that have different textures, weight, and lights, stress balls, and small stuffed animals for comfort. The elephant is a baby toy but we like it because it makes a crinkly sound and B can chew on the feet.

Picture books on emotions, manners, and behaviors, a picture book of the boys doing positive things, a prayer book, children's bible, and a compilation book of poetry for children.

Each basket has an accordion file. In it is some laminated mazes, search and finds, and code breakers for A, For A I also add special paper airplane folding paper and mandalas to color (which is used in Tibetan culture for gaining wisdom, compassion, and healing through positive energy).  I also added a white erase marker and some crayons in the file.

A stretching printout (image from Bambinis) and Angry Bird Cool Down Strategies from The Home Teacher( (this unit she created is  EXCELLENT)

Of course it would not be complete without the much loved glitter calm down jars.These are so easy to make. Get glitter glue (think Elmer's glue size) and put about half of it in a mason jar. Then add HOT water (almost boiling). Stir until all the glue dissolves (takes a couple minutes). Next hot glue the lid on. Wait to cool and then you are done! Some use these as a timer to get out of the calm down area, but my jars take about 20 minutes to settle. The object lesson  is just like we feel all jumbled when we are out of control (have kiddo shake the jar-which reliefs stress and show the glitter whirl about) we can calm down and feel relaxed when we take time to quiet our body (set jar down and watch glitter settle on bottom). 

What do you or would you add to your calm down basket? I am planning on a small crank music box and making a lavender rice pillow to add in more smell and audio. Love to hear other ideas.

Dream Jar

My five year old has pretty awful dreams. All night he will be calling out, thrashing, kicking, and hitting. Luckily, sleep walking hasn't came into the equation yet! I always feel so bad for him. As a parent it is one of those helpless situations.

All though I have read many books to help "A" with bedtime fears none of worked as well as The Dream Jar by Lindan Lee Johnson. An older sister helps her fearful little sister by making her a "magic" dream jar. That way if the little sister has a nightmare she can wake up, pick a dream from the jar, and change the nightmare to fit her new and better dream.

Next "A" and I got busy brainstorming so happy memories or thoughts that he may want to use to change is bad dreams into good ones. We wrote slips that include riding roller-coaster rides, Mom's kisses (my favorite), playing with Daddy, magic wands, etc. and then rolled them up like in the book. I got a baby snack jar and "A" decorated it with some happy stickers. I added some fun confetti to the jar for a sprinkle of magic. "A" loves his jar and every night he picks a slip to help him have good dreams. It has been working-so far! At least the feeling of helplessnes has ceased.

One of his worst dreams is of dinosaurs out to get him. This way he changes the scary dino into a sweet pet.

2nd major dream is normally vampires (not sure how he even knows about them). This way the teeth are gone and they can be friends. This was his ideas

And of course every boy should dream they have their own car to drive away in.

Grouchy Ladybugs

For my 5 A Day Books this week we are reading Eric Carle books. I thought it would be fun to do a little activity to go along with The Grouchy Ladybug, that would also go nicely with our feelings unit. I took a picture of both boys being grouchy and then made them into grouchy ladybug characters. Then I made a speech bubble and had "A" told me when he is grouchy. We both knew when "B" is unhappy because it is a rare occurrence. They turned out super funny. I should note I got this idea from some amazing 1st grade teacher friends at the school I work at. It is super easy and also get's children talking about feelings.

Then we reread the story with our toy clock. Each time the time changed I had "A" turn the clock to the appropriate time. Then we could hear, "Now the time is 6 o'clock". I want to get some actual clock manipulative practice in since it is a skill we are just starting to learn.

All this grouchyness tied in nicely to our emotion vocabulary card for the day: anger. This is a tough one in our house and we talked a lot about healthy ways to deal with anger and not healthy ways. So hopefully the next time we are grouchy we can use some good strategies to handle this explosive emotion!

Feelings Unit

I have come to realization that "A" has not been dealing with emotions very well. He tends to only want to do what makes him happy or act out in anger. I have desperately tried to protect him from feeling sadness or fear, and in turn led him to miss out on being able to come out from the other side of it. Feeling the negative feelings helps us grow and become stronger. In a way to rectify my parenting mistake we are taking a hard look at feelings.

You can pick up this poster at Learning Palace for $1.50 or so

It is common for people to make word-a-day vocabulary cards. I decided to make emotion vocabulary cards. I started with 12 different feeling cards with the definition, a picture that corresponds to the emotion, the word used in a sentence, and then ways to deal or cope with that feeling.You can download my first round of vocabulary cards here. Just like traditional word-a-day cards we are picking one feeling a day to look at and get a better understanding of.

The vocab card we chose today

I try to include three or four coping mechanisms for each feeling. There are strategies for even happy emotions. Coping ideas range from hugging a stuffed animal, positive self-talk, talking with parents, exercise, etc. One thing we learned that help children with calming down in taking a volcano breath. I have made a video of "A" demonstrating what that looks like and we use it frequently.

 Over 1+1+1=1 there is a feelings lapbook for tots. It is very cute for younger children. There was one thing in the unit that I felt would be a great exercise to do with "A". There is two headless children (a girl and boy) and a bunch of happy faces (although they aren't all happy but a range of emotions). Included is a list of guiding questions like, "Her Mommy just told her she needed to go to time-out, how is she feeling?" Then the child looks through the facial expressions and picks the appropriate head. This is great for reading emotions of others and how to respond. "A" appropriately commented that you can have more than one feeling and so some of his people had multiple heads. I really love this and am working on new questions to ask.

 While you are discussing how facial features show emotion why don't you have your child act out different emotions. This allows them to face negative emotions in a safe environment and also let's them feel how the body changes depending on the mood.

Sadness

Anger

Scared

Excited

Sometimes what we feel is more abstract. Have your child color what the feelings would look like just using colors and symbols. Ask them what color would sadness be? See what they come up with.