I was first introduced to a calm down box when I started working in intensive day treatment. The children that we provided service to were children 6-12 and were not able to successfully be in school due to behavioural/emotional concerns. I learned so many amazing techniques there, but one of my favorites were the calm down box. This is SUCH a great tool for a variety of reasons; my favorite being that anyone can use it. You don't have to be in day treatment to benefit from this. Heck, even adults could make one for themselves!
The entire concept behind the calm down box is to 1) recognize body cues that you are feeling an elevation of emotions, 2) use the calm down box BEFORE emotions get too strong that we are out of control of our emotions and 3) to become so habitual to use self regulation techniques that later on we can recognize our emotions faster, and respond in more appropriate ways.
Seeing the effectiveness of this in young children, I decided to introduce it to my daughter when she was two. She was beginning to have emotions outside of always being happy and wasn't sure exactly how to express them or what to do with them. Showing her healthy ways to express her emotions in ways which were fun to her allowed her to come back down to her baseline and was vital to her future in self regulation. The greatest part is the earlier you start talking about emotions and self regulation, the better they become. I don't believe there is any age too young to discuss emotions.
So often children are punished or consequenced for having strong emotions. This actually will not help, but rather, make them feel embarrassed and ashamed of having emotions. EVERYONE has emotions and they are GOOD. What we need to focus on teaching is HOW to deal with them in ways that do not involve yelling, hands on, or poor decision making. For example, as parents we feel a variety of emotions in the day. We get frustrated when our kids don't listen, we might get annoyed with the pets, overwhelmed when thinking about the chores, overstimulated and anxious when hearing all the background noice, worried when we can't see our little ones for a few seconds at the park. But we know how to self regulate and not have a tantrum on the floor when we are feeling these things. For myself, I openly tell my children "Mommy is feeling a bit overwhelmed right now, I need to take a minute or two for myself in a quiet space upstairs." Let's ENCOURAGE taking breaks! Let's discuss that even parents have emotions and let's model how we self regulate our own emotions.
The other day I was with my son on the floor playing trucks with him. My daughter walked up to us with her head down. She said she was feeling upset and I asked her if she wanted to talk about it. She said no, not right now. Then she walked up to her calm down box and grabbed it on her own, brought it upstairs, and came downstairs after a few minutes with a smile on her face. We discussed why she was sad in the first place and I praised her on being able to recognize her feelings and what to do about them!
This is an amazing link that has calm down tools BUNDLED in one !
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