PRACTING SKILLS FOR COMPREHENSION; Helpful and unhelpful thoughts

As the anxiety group proceeds, we continue to practice identifying which are helpful and which are unhelpful thoughts.  I have a series of lessons I use for different age groups, available on my Teachers

Pay Teachers site.

We did lots of practicing on choosing which was helpful vs unhelpful.

As they got more proficient in choosing between the two, we decided to provide students with prompts of actual student worries (based on our surveys we took at the beginning of the group) and have them attempt to give us HELPFUL THOUGHTS.

Example of complete prompt - situation and thought

Even our earliest learners could remember, "It's ok", the most basic helpful thought.

Example of a partial prompt with just the situation.  If students had a difficult time remember, I would use errorless learning and give a partial answer such as, "IT'S....", sometimes doing the "ok sign" with my fingers. Repetition, repetition!

Every session, as I mentioned earlier, we would practice our COOL BREATHING and relaxation techniques.  Often I let a different kid choose from a choice board which technique they'd like to practice, usually trying to add a new one every week (maybe same technique but different way of doing it).  One that was a hit was using the app by Sesame Street called, "Breathe, Think, Do".  Remember, I used this for kindergarteners and 1st graders.  I did have one kid who said Sesame Street was for babies, so we just let him sit out (pick and choose your battles, otherwise he was very disruptive).

Super cute and  educational breathing, relaxing and thinking app for kids

Practice breathing with the monster.  Another fun twist on belly breathing for your kids!

Teaches kids to stop and think.  They get to touch the bubbles on the screen to "pop" them, and then come up with 3 plans for the problem situation given.

There are more and more good tools available to teach relaxation.  For me, the key was mixing it up, making it fun, using technology sometimes and allowing students to choose.  I even had one student, a first grader, who wanted to make up his own prompts for progressive relaxation (he was the one who said Sesame Street was for babies).  We allowed him to do this, he lead the group, and we had such good attention and buy-in from the other kiddos!  In our next blog, we'll talk a little more about some of the more advanced techniques we used in our anxiety prevention groups with our 3rd- 7th graders.  Write to me if you have comments, questions or suggestions.  What great things have you found out there???

CONTINUING THE CHILD ANXIETY GROUP

After we introduced our characters, Austin and Calvin, learned about feelings and anxiety, did our pre-group assessment on individual student worries, and introduced the kids to the worry thermometer, we saw how the worry thermometer worked for Austin and Calvin.  We also started learning the mechanics of "cool breathing" and Calvin's Relaxation Game (Progressive Muscle Relaxation).  Click on the picture below for a free download of my lesson.  You'll see how we started off with all of this good stuff!

This was the lesson we used to reinforce the worry thermometer and introduce
the Cool Breathing and Calvin's Relaxation Game (progressive muscle relaxation).

There is an app called Breathe 2 Relax (Breathe2Relax) that I really liked a lot for teaching deep breathing.  This is not an easy task for our young kiddos.  This app has a visual monitor that you can set for how fast and for how many seconds you want an inhale and an exhale to be.  On top of that it has a visual countdown of how many practice breaths you are going to take.  You can set a soothing song and background as well.

Excellent app for teaching deep breathing to kids

We also did "Breathing Buddies".  I gave each kiddo something (a stuffed animal) to put on on their tummies to watch as their stomach (not their chest) moved up and down with the correct inhalation and exhalation.  The kids really, really liked this.  But if your kids are like mine, we had to set rules for the stuffed animals because they all wanted to play with them.  Click on the video below to see a demonstration of this.

Using a stuffed animal to insure correct technique and to have a little fun!

We also used bubbles, pinwheels and straws to practice deep breathing.  You name it, we tried it.  I had some kids who just couldn't get the technique right (about 2 of them) but most of my others were able to perfect it. These were kindergartners and 1st graders!  I always sent an email to the parents home of what we tried and for them to practice it at home.  This article, by www.encorageplay.com,  linked to below has great directions for fun ways for little ones to practice breathing!  Click on the image to read and find out some great ideas for your group.

Bubbles, pinwheels, crafts and more to reinforce your teaching of deep breathing

We will follow up on another blog with more on our child anxiety group, introducing the concepts of thoughts, both helpful and unhelpful. I hope you get some good ideas from ours and would love for you to tell us about your group!  Please, ask questions, I would be more than happy to share whatever I can.