The Very Hungry Worry Monsters

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To start, I ask students to imagine what their worry would look like if it were a real-life monster. We talk about how imagining what the worry looks like is a starting point for talking to the worry. This might sound silly to some students, but I explain that when we can talk to our worries, we can tell them they’re wrong or that we want them to leave! I teach students to say, “I don’t have to listen to you, Worry Wilbert (or whatever name they’ve chosen),” or “You’re not welcome here, Worry Wilma.” A great book to review this process is Worry Says What? by Allison Edwards. Constructing the Worry Monster 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.

The Worry Monsters initiative is a joint scheme with the council’s public health team and mental health charity the Charlie Waller Memorial Trust. A growing number of primary schools in Brighton & Hove are using furry toys called ‘Worry Monsters’ to help children deal with things that are upsetting them or making them anxious. You may well have heard of worry monsters – but have you heard about the many ways you can use them? Oxfordshire County Council’s children’s social care workers and Virtual School have teamed up with Headington resident Shirley Nelder and her group of volunteer knitters. For the last few months, Shirley’s team have been creating the cuddly characters, which will be used by therapists and social workers to help children who have experienced developmental problems, abuse, neglect, bereavement, or trauma.When worry thoughts, frustration or overwhelming feelings strike, your child (or you, if your child needs help) can write them down on a piece of paper and store them away in their worry box (or whatever container you chose). While the box is drying, cut the white foam paper to look like teeth. You can make them square or triangular. We chose the triangular ones. Imagine there is something that you are worried about. It might be something that makes you sad, or that you are scared of. This is not easy to do when you feel worried about something. Asking them to stop thinking about it may even make them more focused on the worries. They may feel it is an “unfinished business” or they may worry they will forget about it.

Let the children explore the concept in both adult-led, and child-led contexts. 11. Worry Monster Basket She has a B.A.H. in Psychology, an ATCL diploma in Recital for Solo Piano, an RCM Grade 10 Piano certificate, and an RCM History & Theory: Intermediate certificate.Anxiety is a bully. It bosses your child around, tells them they are not good enough, and causes high amounts of fear. Suddenly, your anxious child begins to see anxiety as a part of them, bringing down their self-confidence and opinion of themselves. The best way to help your child battle anxiety is to name the worry monster, thus, making sure that the anxiety is seen externally. This process allows children to keep their own identify strong while externalizing the anxiety as the bully. Quite simply, anything that they are worried about, talk about it, and place something into the mouth of the monster. This talking therapy gets issues out of your mind, at least temporarily, and hopefully results in a better night’s sleep. 14. Worry Monster Book For all of us, dealing with worry required lots of repeated thinking about key issues. 8. Homemade Stress Ball Monsters

But they should not worry. In fact, that is the very purpose of the creatures, because these worry monsters are designed to help children overcome stress and anxiety. This is a slight deviation from the original worry monster concept, but they really enjoyed using these when we made them. I saw someone convert a simple basket into a worry monster. All they did was to paint some teeth around the upper rim of the wooden basket. This made it look as if a monster had its mouth open wide to the ceiling.

Now that you and your child have a name and an image of this awful worry monster, it is time to start putting the anxiety in its place! When your child begins to feel anxious, you and your child must refer to the worry monster by name rather than talking directly to your child. When you talk to the worry rather than the child, it takes away the negativity the child feels about themselves. This externalization relieves some of the identity of anxiety as part of the child. It is important that children realize that they hold the power over the anxiety rather than the anxiety controlling their thoughts and feelings. Each of them has its own pros and cons, they may require certain skill sets and work in different contexts. If you have recorded your worries, either as pictures or in writing, then it is definitely beneficial to return to that either the next day or a few days later. It could be quite simple differently colored pebbles. Or they could have simple writing patterns on them, maybe things like swirls or zig-zags.