What To Do With Those Worries?

This whole situations has brought up a lot of worries for everyone.  As adults we are all worried, but so are our kids.  So much has changed overnight.  One day they were at school and with their friends and the next they are stuck in their home with only our immediate family.  It is a lot and there are so many rules on what we can and cannot do as well as where we can and cannot go.  I can tell this is having an effect on all of us.  But, even when we ask children they sometimes have trouble sharing their concerns and fears with us.

Last week, during one of my daughter's virtual Kindergarten classroom meetings they had a special visit from our school's amazing Counselor.  My daughter had been having a particularly rough morning and had her head on the table.  I watched and listened from the other room and her demeanor changed immediately when the Counselor let the kids know that their friend Puppy(a puppet) was with her and wanted to say hello.  Puppy missed his friends and wanted to hear if the kids missed anything.  Suddenly, all the children were sharing and my daughters head was off the table and the grumpy expression that had been on her faces was softening.  It reminded me of the way Mr. Rogers used puppets to help children connect with their feelings.  Puppets don't judge they just listen.  Right then and there some of my one worries dissipated as I watch her connecting with her class and Puppy.

I reflected on this over the weekend and kept wondering how I could get my children to open up at home.  Then I remembered Guatemalan Worry dolls.  The tradition is that children can tell their worries, sorrows or any feeling to the dolls that might be troubling them.  Then at night they place the dolls under their pillows and after sleeping on their problems the worry dolls help to take away the troubling thoughts.

I looked through my craft supplies and found what we needed.  I grabbed:

- clothes pins (though I think Popsicle sticks would work just as well)
- yarn
- scraps of felt
- pop-poms
- googly eyes
- craft glue
- hot glue gun. 

Instead of announcing a new project I plopped myself in the middle of the living room and started working on a doll.  (I decided to make a monster instead of something that looked like a person since it allowed me to be crazy and also, there is no wrong way to make a monster!).  Soon, I had 2 curious little children asking what I was doing and why.  I explained the tradition of the worry doll and that I was making my own to tell my worries to.  There was a lot of excitement asking if they could make some monsters too?  Could they use any color they wanted?  Could they make more than one? Yes, Yes, and Yes!

I used the hot glue gun to start the yarn(mostly because I don't have patience to wait for regular glue to dry).  The kids then started winding.  We explored different ways to wrap, sometimes using pipe cleaners for arms, adding hair, pompoms and googly eyes.  I also offered markers if they wanted to color any of the wooden parts.

 

Everyone was happily chatting and excited to create their own special monsters.  Best of all this morning I found the dolls under their pillows.  I hope they helped take a little bit of what worries them away.

“Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.”― Roy T. Bennet