September 2012 – Chill Skills

Just for Kids – Activity for The Three Owls relaxation story.

September 12, 2012/in Free activies for kids, Just for Kids, Relaxation/by CSMaster

The following is an activity that can be done after listening to the relaxation story, The Three Owls, which is a track from our CD for kids. The CD is available from our online store.

How to do this simple activity.

After listening to the story, read the theme of the story or what the story is about, (see below) to the child and encourage them to do the activity which is to draw a picture of themselves surrounded by the moon and the stars.

Why do this activity.

This activity assists the child in connecting with the theme of the story, “about feeling happy in nature and accepting themselves just the way they are”.

Doing this activity helps to validate their exprience and what they may have imagined from the story, helps to embed the relaxing feeling and will also help them to remember other parts of the story that they may like to share.

What to do

Step 1. Listen to the relaxing story.

Step 2. Listen to the theme.

Theme for The Three Owls

This story talks about the owls showing you the magic of the night time, the twinkling stars, the moon and the beautiful dark blue of the night sky.

About looking at the refection in the lake of the smiling moon and the twinkling stars and when the stars twinkled, it was a message of happiness to you from the stars.

It’s a great feeling to know that all of the things in nature that are around us can make us feel happy, and being happy can make us feel good about ourselves. That’s what makes the night-time of nature magical.

It also talks about you seeing your refection in the lake, amongst the twinkling stars and the moon, and about you feeling happy because you see that you are a part of the magic of night-time.

Knowing that we can be happy just the way we are helps us to understand that it doesn’t matter what we think others see and think about us.

What is important is that we accept ourselves just the way we are.

Step 3. Do activity.

Activity.

Draw a picture of you surrounded by the moon and the stars.

A drawing by one of our students from our Chill Skills Classes

September 10, 2012/in Our Classes, Pictures of students artwork and creations/by CSMaster

A drawing by one of our students Ellie age 11 after listening to the relaxation story, The Three Owls from our CD for kids. The children close their eyes and listen to the story while they form images in their mind to the words, (visualisation or guided imagery, see our blog page for information on visualisation and the benefits). This drawing is based on a part of the story, the sunset over the mountains. This is a group activity where the students are shown how to draw their story in one picture. This assists with the ability to express themselves, to validate their relaxation experience and it’s fun!

The owl is one of the characters in the story and is made from plastecine, another activity the kids love and is very beneficial as it connects to the story and assists with expression and creativity.

Our meditation for Kids CD can be purchased from our online store.

INSOMNIA

September 9, 2012/in Insomnia/by CSMaster

One of the most noticeable early signs of stress and anxiety can be disturbed sleeping patterns and insomnia. The dictionary definition of insomnia is ‘abnormal sleeplessness’. Most people, at some stage have complained of a lousy night’s sleep, which they can normally pin point the cause of. E.g, overstimulation of the nervous system , too much caffeine before bed, watching violent TV, computer games, worry and excitement.

Knowing what disrupts our sleep can assist us in making the appropriate changes towards a good nights sleep. However, sometimes this is not enough as there may be a deeper underlying cause of sleeplessness.

It may be that we know what that cause is, eg, stress, anxiety, such as a particular event which has disrupted our life in some way, such as separation, divorce, change of school, moving home or changing jobs. It can be an on going issue such as being a carer for a sick or elderly relative, studying or illness. Or, we may not be able to pin point the cause, and we may have silent stressors in our life which are things that we don’t realise are causing us concern. Any of the previous events mentioned can be defined as silent stressors if we don’t realise that they may be the cause of our stress.

Quite often, just acknowledging what’s going on in our life and identifying any issues that may be affecting us can be a positive step. By discovering what affects us and respecting ourself enough to fulfil our needs and making positive change, we can function and feel better which can help in getting a good solid nights sleep. Sounds complicated for something so simple such as sleep, but our minds are incredibly sophisticated and capable of storing vasts amounts of information.

Some of the information we gather on a day to day basis but don’t use is conveniently stored away in our brain on other levels (our subcounscious, being one of those levels) for when we might need that information again. We may or may not be aware of this process. This can help explain the silent stressor theory, e.g., because we aren’t thinking about or aware of an issue (our counscious mind) doesn’t mean that it is not affecting us in a positive or negative way (subconscious mind).

It’s important to remember that the issues that impact on us as adults also impact on our children. They learn to handle stress and most of the other things in life, in a similar way that we their parents and role models do.

When kids say “I can’t sleep and I don’t know why”, chances are they may be reacting to a silent stressor in their life. It can help to sit down with them and explain that sometimes things can bother us, but we might not know what those things are. And that’s ok, sometimes it can a while to work it out. Talk with them about any obvious issues that may be affecting them, such as school, home, etc. What can seem like a small thing to us can be a huge thing to a child. Always validate what’s going on for them, this means acknowledging or showing empathy for how they feel, and not how we think they should feel about issues. This helps them to feel safe about opening up more about their feelings and what is really bothering them. Just knowing that they can talk to a parent with no pressure or over reaction can be an enormous emotional support for a child.

Sometimes it can help for the kids to keep a journal. They could write or draw pictures to assist them with expression of their feelings, or remind them of positive things they would like to remember.

Once we know the issues that affect us we need to find ways to assist in dealing with them. It may be that we can’t change the issues in our lives, but we can change the way we think about them or our response to those issues.

Some methods which can assist with stress are using positive affirmations, visualisations (see our post for info on affirmations and visualisations) and listening to a relaxation story before bedtime. Relaxing stories such as those on our CD have proven to be effective for this application. We have had great feedback on our CD, ( see our testimonials page), and we use it as part of our chill skills for kids classes with great results.