Pinterest Finds: Make Your Own Worry Dolls

Hello readers :)

I'm sure you're like me and really enjoy spending copious amounts of hours on Pinterest. I know it's a favorite of my fellow interns and colleagues alike, so I thought I would make a blog post (and hopefully more in the future!) of my favorite Pinterest finds.

The first one that I want to share is one that I have personally seen some amazing results from: Make Your Own Worry Dolls.

These dolls are so easy to create and I can personally attest to them making huge amounts of progress with your clients and children alike. It is amazing what a child will do with these dolls to create them into their own dolls for their own special purposes.

If you aren't interested in clicking on the link, I will give you the directions here. But I will say this: Play Dr. Mom's blog is phenomenal. She's a therapist, like me, and has collected together some really fantastic activities that you can do at home with your children.

1. Take a pipe cleaner, fold it in half and then cut at the fold.

2. Twist one pipe cleaner to make a circle head and two arms.

3. Take the other pipe cleaner and twist that one around your first twist to make two legs.

4. Check the ends of your pipe cleaners for any points that might cause injury :) 

That's it! You can use them for a variety of situations with clients and rename them to fit their specific presenting concerns. 

Thanks for reading, and keep sowing the seeds of change with your little sprouts :)

My Thoughts on Behavior Charts

Hello readers :)

So recently I implemented a behavior chart with one of my clients, and I believe that it was the most appropriate choice for his behavior. 

I'm writing this blog post to challenge you in your practice:

When is the right time for behavior charts?

Here are the questions that I asked myself before I had implemented this chart with my client:

• Has my client learned good coping skills to be able to change his behaviors at home?
• Do my client and I have a good rapport so when I implement this behavior chart, he will understand that I am not punishing him but rewarding him?
• Will his parent do what they need to so that the behavior chart will work?
• Am I able to create the behavior chart so that my client will be excited to take part in it?

I was able to say yes to all of these questions, so it was the right time. My personal opinion on behavior charts is that they can be effective, yes, but only when they are used for the right reasons. I chose it with this client because he responds well to external stimuli pushing him in the right direction to positive behavior. Some clients do not respond well to that type of behavior. Some clients need to you to walk them through the changes that they need to make, and that's okay! However, some clients, like this one, need some sort of end reward to ensure that they will change their behavior. My hope, with this behavior chart, is that my client learns how to internalize their stimuli throughout their lifetime so that they will continue to work hard in school and in life to gain the rewards that may not just be physical.

But he's seven years old, so I cannot expect him to be able to accept these ideals to heart at this time.

I also do not believe in just blank charts. If you have learned anything about me in these past blog posts, it will be this: I have a bright personality. I'm very much in the mindset that if you make something fun and exciting, it won't seem like much of a chore. 

This is where I appeal to you as a clinician or a parent: do your homework. What does your child like? Are they into Minecraft, My Little Pony, The Avengers?

Make a behavior chart that is focused on their interests! The internet is a beautiful resource for you to find these things pre-created for you. It's really easy to find, just use the magic of the Google machine :)

The way I created mine was that every week, I ask my client's mother to pick three behaviors that she is looking for that week. I created a chart for her to check if those behaviors were being seen, and if my client is able to complete the three behaviors, he will be able to check off the day on his behavior chart. I have a copy of the behavior chart in his file, and what he and I do together is we look through the week and I praise him for the positive days that he has, but I DO NOT PUNISH HIM FOR BAD DAYS. I reward him for TRYING. My thoughts with this is that he needs to understand that it is not a bad thing to have bad days. He is trying really hard to be a good child, and with that comes some bumps in the road. I also chose some stickers for him and I give him the chance to put the stickers on the days that he was successful in being the child his mother wants him to be. :) 

This is my plea to you: Praise. Praise. Praise. When you implement a behavior chart, you are working towards positive behavior changes. If the child does not do the behaviors that you want all week, have a conversation with them. Explain that we chose together that it was a good time to implement this behavior chart, but you have chosen not to behave. Why? 

Put the ownership on them to explain their behaviors. If they need to be punished as a result of their negative behaviors, give them a chance to explain why they chose not to behave well and then give them a reasonable punishment that is connected to their negative behaviors. Screaming does not work. I know it feels great in the moment, but children will not learn from you screaming. (This is more a plea to parents and not to therapists, because let's face it- we know this already) Children are like gigantic sponges- they soak up everything in their environment and store that where it belongs in their mind. If you choose to scream at your child, you will start to see them screaming at others to try to work through their problems. If you choose to have a conversation with your child, you will see him having conversations with others to sort through their problems. A+B does equal C :)

Here's me having a conversation with you that I have had many times with clients- I do not have children. However, I have over ten years of experience working with children ages 1-18. Please understand that these suggestions come from personal experience working with children, not from a place of "I have a degree, therefore I know better." 

Thank you for reading, and please don't forget: I am on Patreon. If you love my blog posts and want to support me in my work, please follow this link to become a patron of my blog and donate: Patreon.

Keep planting the seeds of change in your little sprouts :)

An Introduction to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: Why It's GREAT for Kids :)

Hello readers :)

So today I am going to talk to you about my personal favorite theoretical orientation: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT. 

The best way to introduce this style of therapy is to say that it takes the best of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Existential-Humanistic Therapy and throws it in a blender. What we get is the beautiful result of ACT.

ACT believes that you do not have to get rid of the negative behaviors or feelings that you are experiencing. Instead, you focus your attention on how you can live with these feelings and adjust your lifestyle to make space for them. This is phenomenal for working with children because a lot of times, a child will be fused (ACT terminology) to the idea that they are a "bad child" or they are "never going to be good enough" for their parents, teachers, etc. ACT comes in and says, "Look. I know you feel this way, but let's change your perspective a bit and perhaps you will realize that your life situation is causing you to believe this and it's their version of the truth. What's yours?"

ACT also emphasizes living with the intention of meeting your values. The work that we do in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy drives a person to help understand what they value most in life, and a lot of the time, when they are dealing with things like depression or anxiety, they are not working in favor of their values. Kids a lot of times don't know what you mean when you say "Values-based lifestyle." So what we do when we work with kids is we sit them down with a deck of cards and we ask them to rank these things in order of what is most important to least important in their life. 

And then we take it a step further. We ask the child to work through each pile and take away things in increments of five (approximately, it can change based on the activity) until they are left with one thing. This is their most important value. This is what they are working towards in their life. As a therapist, it will really open the doors for you to understanding what their most important thing is in their life. It will guide your work with the client to help them work towards living in a way to meet their values.

The ACT therapist will conceptualize the client through the lens of the hexaflex. I provided a picture for you so that you can understand what I mean when I say hexaflex:

So the 6 parts of the hexaflex- The Present Moment, Values, Committed Action, Self-as-Context, Defusion, and Acceptance- work together to allow the client to gain Psychological Flexibility. I figure, we're all adults here, we can read a picture and see what each part of the hexaflex means. 

Is this treatment Evidenced Based? So far, yes! It's actually quite a new theory of work for therapists, and there have not been a huge amount of studies that show it's effectiveness. I can say from personal experience that this works quite well. This theory works well in conjunction with Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Person-Centered Therapy...the list goes on and on.

How do you use this with children? Goodness, I could give you days of blog posts about the uses for this style of therapy with children. 

Some great goodies that I have used are in the bulleted list as follows:

• Values Card Sort- I described this for you earlier.
• Boat, Lake, Lighthouse- This activity starts out by you having your client draw a picture of a boat on a lake with a lighthouse in the distance. You then ask the client to draw a picture of storm clouds in the distance. As the client draws the storm clouds, you describe to them that they need to imagine that their family is stuck on this boat and a storm is coming. They want to get to the lighthouse. How does the family work together to get to that goal? This activity is great to use when working through a divorce or separation of a family- it helps the child understand that just because a family is separate does not mean that they still cannot work together to get to their goals. 
• The Magic Key- I love this exercise. I ask my client to imagine that they are in a huge castle and there are tons of doors around them, but they only have the key to one door. It's a magic key. I ask my client to describe to me what they would find behind the door and how that would change their life right now. I love using this activity when working with kids who are struggling to explain to me what they are hoping to achieve from therapy, or have experienced intense trauma and cannot start the conversation themselves.
• Walking Through a Swamp Metaphor- Again, I love this exercise. I ask my client to imagine that right now, they are on a flooded street and it magically became a huge swamp. There is something at the end of the swamp that my client wants to get to, but it's really difficult. I ask my client to imagine how they would gear themselves up to get through the swamp, how they would walk through it, and what they would do if they got stuck in the swamp. This is a great story to help your client understand the importance of their coping skills that you have taught them. :)
• Leaves on a Stream Mindfulness Meditation- I am just going to provide you with a link to the actual script. It's great for defusion with clients. Leaves on a Stream. 

This style of therapy uses a lot of mindfulness techniques to help the client get to a present awareness of their life. 

I hope this helped you understand this style of therapy, and will have a better understanding of why my activities are strongly focused on using mindfulness and present moment work with your clients (or children!) 

Thank you for reading, and keep planting the seeds of change in your little sprouts :)

5 Simple Ways to Make Positive Conversation

Hello readers :)

I wanted to share some tips that I have gathered throughout my internship on easy ways to make conversation with children (and adolescents) who tend to be a bit more guarded when it comes to sharing feelings.

There are great conversation starters when you are working with a new client as well, because sometimes new clients come into session and are feeling a bit overwhelmed with the idea of having to speak about feelings that they might not have shared otherwise. 

Coloring

I know, you might be thinking, "REALLY?! I DIDN'T EVEN THINK ABOUT THAT!" in the most sarcastic tone imaginable but hear me out. It is truly amazing what you can get out of a child who is not willing to talk to you about anything with a coloring page. I have even used this with my teenage clients as a break from our normal routine to allow them a distraction from the immediate concern of not wanting to be in session. You would be amazed at what your client will talk about with you when you just allow them to sit with their feelings and share when they feel like it is the right time. 

Playing a Board Game

Again, may seem like a simple one, but I have seen it show dramatically positive results. Jenga (c) is a great example of a game that younger clients love to play and will allow you to create a conversation. 

A great tip for therapists: write questions on your Jenga (c) blocks. You can write easy questions like "What do you love about your bedroom?" and even more difficult questions, such as, "Who do you feel you can turn to when you are sad?"

Here's a link to some amazing sample questions from Creative Social Worker's tumblr:

Therapeutic Jenga

Take a Mindful Walk

If you are able, get your clients outside for a mindful walk. This is when you ask your client to focus on just the things that are around them instead of what is worrying them at the time. Ask them to focus on the feel of the wind on their face, the smell of the breeze, the feel of their feet hitting the ground beneath them. It's an awesome break from the usual routine of having therapy sessions in an office.

Ask Your Client to Bring Music

Teens love this, since this allows you the chance to get into their world for a short amount of time. It allows you to get to know what helps them through life, especially if music is a really important part of their world.

Tell Stories 

This one is one I love to do with my teen clients. Now, this is one that is truly based on your comfort level. It requires you to self-disclose a bit to your clients, but I make sure that I pick stories that are ones I am comfortable telling anyone. The best rule of thumb that I use is if I am comfortable telling the barista at Starbucks this story, it's appropriate to tell my client. It's a story that does not reveal an intense amount of information about you, but it creates you into more than just the person who listens to their stories. It can really coax a difficult client to talk to you. 

These are just a sample of things that I have used with clients that work really well to create new experiences for positive conversations. As always, continue to plant those seeds of change with your little sprouts :) 

Honest Book Review: Sitting Still Like a Frog

Hello readers :)

I thought I would keep things interesting by adding book reviews as well to my blog so that you can get a taste of all of the things that I like using in my therapy sessions.

This week I am reviewing a book that I thoroughly love and want to share with you.

Sitting Still Like a Frog: Mindfulness Exercises for Kids (And their Parents) by: Eline Snel is PHENOMENAL! It is set up in an easy to read format that corresponds with the CD of mindfulness exercises that you can use with your clients or children. The chapters each match up with a specific set of exercises (one or more) that the author included which are read by someone with the most calming and positive voice, Myla Kabat-Zinn. 

I have personally used one exercise extensively with one of my child clients, titled "The Little Frog." It is a four minute guided meditation that is geared towards children and it teaches them that much like a frog, you are able to sit still and focus on just your breathing. It has worked wonders with him, since he presents with moderate to severe Separation Anxiety Disorder and other behavioral concerns. I have seen him transform from the child who could not sit still in my office to a child who is able to pay attention for an entire 50 minute session after just a few sessions of practice with sitting still like a frog. 

There are other exercises on the CD that target specific things, such as fear, anger, and restlessness, and each one is between 4 and 10 minutes, no longer. The author/reader clearly knew their target audience well when they created these exercises. 

There is a longer guided meditation for older children that is still focused on the frog metaphor, which I have personally used in my own life when I needed a moment to sit still and recollect my thoughts. 

The book includes exercises and even text-based guided meditations that are not included on the CD, which I think is really unique because it gives you the chance to choose between the guided CD version and the text-based version that you say to the client. The exercises that are included in the book can also be used as homework assignments for your client to work on out of session. 

I tend to work from an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy focus with my clients, and as a a result of this I use a lot of mindfulness work. This book has been extremely helpful in allowing me the chance to translate the difficult work of meditation to the framework that a child can understand.

I hope that you found this book review helpful. If you have any suggestions for me of books that you think I should check out, please do not hesitate to leave a comment and I will look into it. I have a ton of other books to write Honest Book Reviews about, and as I continue with this blog I will intersperse regular blog posts about my interventions with Honest Book Reviews just to keep things interesting. I don't want you to get bored of me just talking about interventions! 

If you are interested in purchasing this book, I inserted a link below to Amazon. It is reasonably priced for what you get- a book and a CD- so I would definitely recommend purchasing it. Once I have the spare funds, this will be my first purchase. 

Sitting Still Like a Frog on Amazon

Please don't forget- I'm on Patreon! If you want to support me and my blog, please follow the link below to my page. I would be very grateful!

Patreon

Thank you so much for reading and keep planting the seeds of change in your little sprouts :)

I'm on Patreon!

Hello readers :)

I wanted to take this opportunity to talk to you about, well, helping me with my creative process.

I am a creator on a website called Patreon, and how it works is that I will continue to post free content for you to look at on my blog Little Sprouts. However, if you love what I do and are generous enough to support my content with a donation of as little as 1 dollar, please follow the link below to start submitting your payments.

https://www.patreon.com/creation?hid=2427833&u=752053&alert=3

It's that simple.

I make awesome content for you guys, you support my work, and I can continue to make awesome content for you guys. Even if you don't donate, I will still post awesome content.

I hope that, with these donations, I will be able to supplement my income enough to improve this blog and make it more than what it is right now.

If you are a contributor to my Patreon page, I will post your name on my blog on the page that is titled Contributors. That way, you will forever be memorialized as someone who helped me start off this process before I can get into creating ad revenue for myself.

I appreciate any and all support that you guys can give me, and as always, keep planting the seeds of change in your little sprouts.

Create Your Own Baymax (c)!!

I created this intervention for one of my early clients who was dealing with complex PTSD. He exhibited intense fear responses to certain stimuli and it was causing him to act out in an aggressive nature.

He had seen Big Hero 6 the week before we had done this activity in session, and he had reported to me that he LOVED the movie. The inspiration struck after that session and I sat down and worked on this activity for him:

We created our own Baymax (c)!! 

I provided my client with a blank sheet of paper that would be his space to be able to draw his picture. I prompted him for this activity by explaining that sometimes when we are afraid, we would love to be able to have someone to hug and snuggle with, just like Hero did with Baymax. 

I allowed him to be creative and draw what his Baymax looked like (humorously enough, he redrew the same character) and then we explored what he would do with his Baymax, what he would name his robot, and how his robot would help him feel a little less afraid.

This activity was extremely effective with this client, and I think that it is a positive activity for all children dealing with fear-like responses to external stimuli. I would use this activity again since it appeared to be very effective for this client. 

Parents/guardians, if you would like to complete this activity with your child, I would set it up much like I set it up for a therapy session with a client. You can change the wording in the ways that you would like to make it more appropriate for your child. The same goes for therapists: change the wording! Make your own handout! 

I hope this activity proves useful for you in your practice or with your child. If you use this activity in your practice and someone is curious where you got it from, please direct them to my blog. I hope to update this as frequently as possible, so keep checking back for more material.

Enjoy planting the seeds of change with your little sprouts. :)