Promote positive sportsmanship and find out how to transform common childhood games into social-emotional learning experiences with our free tips and resources!
Enough to break the ice! One of the first steps of counseling is building a positive rapport with the student. It is important for students to feel safe and trust the counselor as they begin to work together. There are a number of ways to establish positive rapport, but here are a few of my favorite tools. The Question Cup I have a plastic cup full of Popsicle sticks with various questions. The student and counselor each pick a certain number of sticks and both participants answer the questions. To debrief, students share how they are similar to or different from the counselor and identify something new that they learned about the counselor. Students may also ask questions that were not on the Popsicle sticks to learn more about their counselor. Thumballs Thumballs are stuffed balls with questions written on them. You toss the Thumball to another player and answer the question under your left thumb. You can purchase Thumballs with a variety of questions and topics. Some of my favorites are the Personal Strengths Thumball and the Who are You Thumball. You can purchase them here from YouthLight,Inc.. You can also make your own with an inflatable beach ball and a sharpie. This is a great way to tailor the activity to a specific topic or group! Play a Game Playing a familiar game is a great way to help a student feel comfortable and open up. When I have a student who is more resistant to counseling, I give them options for rapport building activities. Nine times out of ten, they will pick the fun game and slowly but surely begin to open up. Uno and Jenga are both great options! Building positive rapport sets the stage for the work of counseling and is one of the most important steps.
How do you deal with tattling? In this post, I outline steps I take to help students understand when to get help and when to keep it to themselves.
Documenting Play Therapy: Ken Schwartzenberger created this guide that provides examples of how to document use of play therapy to meet LA Department of Mental Health/Medi-Cal standards. Click...
Create a culture of empathy at your school by showing empathy to students. Modeling empathy in this way is a great way to build relationships with students and show them the importance of this social skill. Read more about why showing empathy to your students matters and how you can do it.
I've taught lessons on anger management to several grade levels over the past few weeks. I know it is vital that children learn that feeling angry is okay but you must not hurt yourself or others when you feel this way. Here are some of the ideas I've used in my teaching of these topics. In Kindergarten we read the book Mouse Was Mad by Linda Urban. We practiced the standing still and deep breathing skills that Mouse uses as well as brainstormed some other things we could do when we're mad to control our anger. Students drew an angry face and colored a picture of a mouse. This is available for download here. In third grade, I shook a bottle of soda and we talked about what would happen if we opened the bottle. We saw that if I slowly release a little fizz at a time, it would be safe to open. We connected this with our reading of Julia Cook's Soda Pop Head. We made a list of all the strategies Lester learns in the story to control his fizz. We practiced several of these strategies together.
This week I have been visiting third grade classrooms to do lessons on strategies for success on the SOLs. Third grade students will be taki...
Help your students manage stress better by teaching kids about the stress response & their brains. Includes fun stress response lessons ideas.
Most of us adults would agree that people close to us have had and continue to have a major influence on the way we view and interact with others and our environment. It can be a powerful experienc…
Looking for our new shop? CLICK HERE! *Our products are digital downloads! *To purchase products on our site, you will be redirected to PayPal, where you can pay with your PayPal account or using a credit or debit card. this … Core Strengthening for Kids Mini Course Baffled about why kids are making such slow ... Read More about Therapy Tools & Child Development Resources
Affordable (and even free!) school counseling tools, tips and tricks that will make your role as a school counselor easier!
I am a big advocate for the use of poetry therapy, and have found it to be a very useful tool for counseling. This particular poetic technique is called an "I Am" poem. The poem is a fill-in-the-blank...
Cognitive behavioral theory proposes that our thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the here-and-now are influenced by our schemas / core beliefs / assumptions. This case conceptualization (formulation) diagram helps therapists and clients to explore these influences.
Infographics We invite you to download these infographics. If you would like to buy the bookmarks or poster-sized versions of these infographics please fill out a request form. "I love the posters I ordered. I put two in my office and 2 out in the waiting room of the Behavioral Health and Psychiatry Clinic at
As part of my ongoing re-organizing and inventorying of my work & creative space, I spent some time going through my collection of children’s books that I commonly use in group work (as w…
I am honored beyond belief to have been named 'Favorite Counseling Website' by Liana Lowenstein in her November Newsletter! I'm totally blown away...I have been using Liana's material ever since I started working with children and families (many moons ago). I first discovered Liana Lowenstein's work when I started working as a counselor at Whaley Children Center. 85% of our residential and foster care children were victims of sexual abuse and to be frank, I had no idea how to help young children who experienced such horrible acts. That's when a colleague lent me her copy of Paper Dolls and
Daycare is for parents who need help from others in caring for their children. This will not make you an irresponsible parent, its just that at a certain time, there will be a condition that you cannot predict arises and your child must still be under supervision.
