The Very Hungry Worry Monsters

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Place them on the inside of the box on the top and repeat for the bottom. You’ll want enough space to have an “open” mouth, showing teeth. Place a dab of glue above the open mouth in the center of the box for each eyeball. Place the eyeballs on the box. These pebbles can become a permanent feature whenever you feed the worry monster. 4. Scavenger Hunt – What Can We Feed It

Each of them has its own pros and cons, they may require certain skill sets and work in different contexts. Sometimes when we feel worried, frustrated, or overwhelmed it may help us to store our problems away. If you are looking for mindfulness crafts to do some work with your kids or students this can be a great project.This Worry Monster Worksheet is an excellent resource to have in your primary school classes to help children control their worries by writing them down.

In October of last year, I introduced the worry monster to the children. I explained that if the children were worried about something or they wanted to tell me something and were afraid/didn’t want to tell me in front of others, they could write a worry and put it in the worry box. I explained that I would read the worries after school each day and we could then decide what to do next. Now you’re going to lift the box onto a ship. We’re sailing over the sea now, with the box still on the ship. Showing You Care and Understand - Simply taking an interest and talking to your child will allow them to feel comfortable opening up to you. Let the children explore the concept in both adult-led, and child-led contexts. 11. Worry Monster BasketAnother great idea for ownership is for the children to make the worry monsters themselves. This is very achievable. Explain to your class that our worries sometimes feel like a big monster but by talking and writing them down, they aren't so scary anymore. This is a slight deviation from the original worry monster concept, but they really enjoyed using these when we made them. You may have read about this very same concept described as a Feelings Box, Acceptance Box, or Anxiety Box. First, get the children to lie on the floor and close their eyes. You could potentially put someone relaxing music on.

Worry monsters are a kind of ‘talking therapy.’ They work a bit like psychoanalysis, where an individual talks about their worries to help to manage and process them. For a child, it is normal to experience worry, particularly as they begin to explore the world and develop their own sense of identity. Children may worry about many different things, and whilst these worries might seem harmless to us as adults, they can cause a child a great deal of distress. Sometimes these worries can be so upsetting that it can affect their day-to-day activities, making them harder to carry out or enjoy. For example, they might be worried about an upcoming test at school which may lead them to want to avoid attending, or they may be concerned about a friend’s upcoming birthday party. Suddenly you see a big monster in the sea. Throw the box into the sea, and the monster gobbles it up. It can be difficult to talk about how anxious we feel, particularly for young children who might not recognise this feeling yet or have the words to describe it. Creating a character or a creature, like the ‘Worry Monster’, can be used to resemble your child’s anxiety and is a great way of developing a shared and age-appropriate language for discussing anxiety. You might want to support your child to visualise the character by drawing it out – it might be a certain colour, with particular features and for some, they might want to add speech bubbles which represent the specific worries they are experiencing. First, get the children all to think of something that might be worrying them. This can be a difficult concept, so don’t worry if it takes a few tries at this activity for them to ‘get’ it.It can be helpful to team up with your child against the worry monster and come up with ways of responding to it. The phrases below might help make the worry monster appear smaller and less powerful: Worry monsters are so simple to make, and have such a wide range of benefits. Of course there is no way to completely eliminate worry, but there has been research into the impact of strategies used in early life. ( Source) This is perhaps best done as a group activity, first thinking about what each of them is worried about, talking it through a bit, and then drawing what that looks like to them. It doesn’t have to look like a masterpiece of art – the emphasis is on the psychological benefits of this experience. Knowing your child has worries can be disheartening but you can help them deal with their worries by: