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Archive for helping students cope with stress – Page 3

Important Tools to Help Children Build Resilience Through Stressful Times

By Dianne Maroney
Wednesday, March 25th, 2020

Stress is everywhere. You can almost feel it in the air. Our community, our state, our country, and the world are facing a difficult time—a global Coronavirus pandemic. Who would have thought a year ago we would be here, living in the new normal—unable to leave our homes, no school, no sports, and no playtime with friends (for kids and adults). With this new (temporary) normal we can find ourselves feeling a gamut of emotions—fear, stress, overwhelm, anger, terror, confusion, relief, even joy—we can feel all of these in a matter of minutes! If we are feeling these emotions, our kids are too.

It’s important to give your kids tools to build their resilience. Tools to support their inner resilience so they know they will be okay—an important lesson of life really—tools kids and adults can use forever. When we are stressed, particular overly stressed, we can’t just hope it will go away, or someone will fix it for us. We must dig down deep—pull up the bootstraps as they say—and find the strength to cope, move forward, and thrive. How can we help ourselves, and our kids stay positive, and build a strong sense of self in these challenging times? Here are a few suggestions.

  1. Expressing how we feel: Coping with stress begins with emotional expression. Conversations with our children asking questions that begin with the words, “How…” or “What…” for example, “How are you feeling about hearing that from your friends?” “What are you feeling about that idea?” This begins the conversation so you can explore both your own feelings, and your child’s. Another wonderful tool to help children (and adults) express emotion is The Imagine Project writing tool. The Imagine Project writing tool is a 7-step writing process that asks specific questions so the writer can express their feelings (using the word “Imagine”) and even Imagine new possibilities of how their personal story might end. It’s a simple, yet powerful tool that is FREE to download from theimagineproject.org.
  2. Releasing negative emotion: Many believe (including myself) that we hold onto negative emotion in our bodies as energy. When we hold on to this negative energy it can create immediate or long-term health problems such as aches and pains or worse—major issues like high blood pressure or cancer. One of the ways we can release the pent up negative energy is through exercise and movement. So move! Dance, jump, play, exercise, play hide-n-seek—whatever gets you and your children moving!  It’s best if you move for 20 minutes or more and get your heart rate up, but do what you can. Another amazing tool is called Emotional Freedom Technique or Tapping. Tapping is a form of energy releasing by using your fingers to gently tap on acupuncture points on the body while making simple statements. You can watch videos on this website to learn more about tapping or you can go to another website/app that is very helpful in learning how to tap, especially with kids, thetappingsolution.com. I highly recommend you check it out!
  3. Mindfulness: Mindfulness is powerful in calming our nervous systems. Stress speeds up our nervous systems. Being “sped up” all the time is not good for our health—it releases hormones that can negatively impact our body—creating illness. It’s particularly bad for kids to be stressed and sped up constantly as their neuropathways are developing and will stay in fast mode for life, creating anxiety and other issues. So we need to slow our nervous systems down—actively making our minds and bodies take it easy and relax. Mindfulness is a good way to slow our minds and bodies down—and it’s easier than you think. Sitting and doing a puzzle, cooking, humming (humming is very good for your nervous system), going for walks, or reading together are all mindfulness techniques. Think of the relaxing things you like to do with your kids—and make it a habit to do them everyday, more than once a day. With the stress so intense right now, it’s extremely important to actively practice mindfulness as much as possible. If you want to learn more, you can Google mindfulness or go on YouTube to listen to mindfulness meditations. If you have elementary school age children go to gonoodle.com for great quick mindfulness videos that kids love (it’s free).

These are important times to find extra support for ourselves and our children—the stress around us is intense. Set your intentions around what positive things you want to get from this period of time, ask your kids to set some intentions too. Learning to relax, spending more time together, connecting with old friends, the world coming together again, are a few that come to mind. There is always good that comes from life’s challenges.

We can all make it through this—and be even better on the other side. Try some of these suggestions today. Download The Imagine Project journals and write your imagines together as a family. If you are a teacher have your students to it—it will be amazing! Teach your children they can be resilient and overcome any challenge—it may take a little extra work, but of course it’s important for them to learn that too.

Good luck and stay well,

Dianne Maroney, RN, MSN

The Imagine Project, Inc., is a nonprofit organization that helps kids, teens, and adults overcome challenging life circumstances through expressive writing. Dianne is a thought leader in the area of stress and trauma in children. Her simple, yet profound 7-step writing tool, now used by schools across the US and internationally, gives kids and teens the opportunity to rewrite a challenging personal story and Imagine new possibilities in its place.

 

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Supporting the Emotional Needs of Foster Kids with the Imagine Project

By Dianne Maroney
Thursday, February 20th, 2020

Numerous studies have been conducted that reveal just how much stress today’s kids are under. Sadly, we see it every day revealed in bullying, anxiety, depression, chemical abuse, and even suicide. Youth are suffering with stress and trauma, and those labeled as “at risk”, such as foster kids, have more to overcome than the average student. One of the ways we are able to support them is through the Imagine Project, a seven step journal exercise designed to heal trauma in a way that allows for empathy, understanding, and positivity.

Using a process that includes the simple prompt of “imagine”, students begin to share something they have had to deal with, as well as how it has turned around. Here’s an excerpt as an example from a recent classroom experience:

Imagine… having gone to eleven schools by the time you’ve entered the 9th grade.

Imagine… moving so often that you’re numb to the feeling of packing everything you own in trash bags.

Imagine… knowing the term “at-risk” at such a young age that you didn’t yet know the definition of “success.”

Imagine… falling asleep much too early at a friend’s sleepover because it’s the 1st time in a long time that you slept in a bed—not on the floor.

The story continues, but begins moving to the positive…

Imagine… breaking through the circumstances you were given and getting a college scholarship to go to college.

In a classroom setting, students can choose to share their stories with others, or not. Those who do share are often met with compassion and caring, which builds empathy and understanding for both those who read their stories, and those who are simply participating by listening. The process builds emotional wellness with a tool that helps them tap into their feelings, express them in a safe written format, and reveal to them their own resiliency.

Why Foster Kids?

Statistics show that in 2017, more than 690 thousand youth in the United States spent some time in foster care. Of these, the majority were youth of color, and stayed in care an average of 1-2 years. While many lived with extended family, an equal number are in non-family care or group homes. Just over 50% are reunited with their families, but many, who enter the system on average at the age of 8, will exit at age 18 without ever having a stable home.

Foster kids specifically are more likely to get involved with high risk behaviors such as drug and alcohol abuse, sexual activity (often resulting in teen pregnancy), and are at greater risk for homelessness and incarceration as adults. Further, they:

  • have often been victims of physical, sexual and emotional abuse and neglect
  • may have been inappropriately medicated and/or institutionalized
  • have disrupted family connections due to incarceration of a parent or long periods of separation from key family members
  • have experienced homelessness and/or domestic violence

The Imagine Project creates a positive format for self-expression and a supportive community environment by demonstrating compassion to and from peers and caring adults. It helps students build their own problem-solving and self-regulation skills by learning to take responsibility for their feelings and choices. Using this tool with all students, but particularly those who have gone through tremendous trauma, such as those in the foster system, is especially important and valuable.

To get your FREE copies of The Imagine Project Journal and sample lesson plans, visit: https://theimagineproject.org/the-7-step-journals/

Thank you!

Dianne

The Imagine Project, Inc., a nonprofit organization that helps kids, teens, and adults overcome challenging life circumstances through expressive writing. Dianne is a thought leader in the area of stress and trauma in children. Her simple, yet profound 7-step writing tool, now used by schools across the US and internationally, gives kids and teens the opportunity to rewrite a challenging personal story and Imagine new possibilities in its place.

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7 Tips to boost your child’s resilience and emotional wellness!

By Dianne Maroney
Wednesday, January 22nd, 2020

Every parent wants the best for their children. We work hard at making sure they eat right, do well in school, get enough sleep, etc. Another area that needs a great deal of focus is their emotional wellness. Emotional wellness means a child is able to express emotion, feel empathy and compassion, have health relationships, communicate freely, be responsible, accept help, have fun and feel joy, and be able to bounce back when they face adversity. Emotional wellness is key to being resilient in the face of any adversity. And since adversity is an integral part of life, we can’t really shield our children from it. Instead, we can promote emotional wellness and resilience by giving them tools to cope—lasting tools that can equip them to weather all the storms they encounter throughout their lives. Here are seven tips to help you help you help your child be their best self emotionally.

  • Spend quality time with your children every day without any distractions, showing them they are important and teaching them about how to have healthy relationships.
  • Ask your children about their day. “What was hard about your day and why? What was great and why? What are you grateful for in your day?”
  • Praise your child’s effort when doing things like helping around the house, working on homework, participating in sports, getting along with others—versus praising on the end product. “I like how hard you worked/how you persisted!”
  • If your child is resisting, acting out, or engaging in unwanted behaviors, before you react, take several slow, deep breaths to strengthen your ability to stay calm and then ask them what’s upsetting them. This strategy helps you get to the root of the issue and address the real problem so you can determine a real solution for correcting the behavior. “Can you tell me what just happened?” or “Tell me about your day” can open up a productive conversation and can even boost a child’s ability to self-correct.
  • Ask your child “What do you need?” to accomplish what you are asking them to do. This question helps them to think about themselves and to understand their needs and personality better.
  • Show them that you care about their feelings, their beliefs, their hopes and dreams—their identity. Avoid negative labels and judgments about who they are—for example, it’s okay to be quiet, smart, funny, cautious, timid, sensitive, boisterous, athletic, artistic, or assertive. A child’s personality may be different than you want or had hoped, but that’s ok. It’s good for your children to be true to themselves. See their strengths and their value, and validate them! You’ll boost your success with this if you practice being nonjudgmental and true to your own self, embracing your own quirks, and honoring your own strengths and value to the world. Of course there is always room for improvement, but know that you—and your child—are worthy, just the way you are!
  • Teach them empathy and compassion. They will learn by watching you. Teaching them how to be compassionate, kind, and caring when someone is hurting or needy is important in the world today.

If you find any one of these tips difficult to implement and/or the dynamics between you and your child challenging more often than you’d like it to be, then you or your child (or both) might have some unresolved stress or trauma you haven’t worked through yet. Try using The Imagine Project journaling process to help process and heal those issues (its FREE). You can both write your Imagine stories, share them, and grow together—it will be an amazing experience for everyone! Download the journals now—you will love the way it strengthens your relationship and builds resilience as well as emotional wellness.

Thank you and Happy Imagining!

Dianne

The Imagine Project, Inc., a nonprofit organization that helps kids, teens, and adults overcome challenging life circumstances through expressive writing. Dianne is a thought leader in the area of stress and trauma in children. Her simple, yet profound 7-step writing tool, now used by schools across the US and internationally, gives kids and teens the opportunity to rewrite a challenging personal story and Imagine new possibilities in its place.

 

 

 

 

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Teaching a Child the Spirit of Giving

By Dianne Maroney
Tuesday, December 3rd, 2019

The spirit of giving is all around us this time of year. Giving is the essence of life—taking care of our loved ones, friends, even strangers, gives us a sense of purpose and wellbeing—its just part of living in a community and being a good citizen. Making sure our children know the spirit of giving is so important in their understanding of themselves and others; it even helps lessen stress. While using The Imagine Project in classrooms, I often see some kids who are very compassionate and giving, and some who are not.

The question becomes, do children have a natural instinct for compassion and giving back or is it a learned behavior? The answer is both. Yes, some kids naturally want to give to others—it’s innate to their personality. I see this in a classroom when kids read their imagine stories out loud; there’s always at least one student who naturally goes to someone who is struggling emotionally and hugs that student to make them feel better. But more typically, we need to cultivate and teach compassion, kindness, and giving in children, beginning very young and continuing until you see it becomes a natural personality trait.

There are many ways to teach the spirit of giving in our communities; volunteering at shelters, picking up trash on the sidewalks, or asking someone at school who typically doesn’t have many friends to play or be a part of something your child is doing. There are many ways parents and teachers can teach kindness, compassion, and the spirit of giving. Here are a few suggestions:

  1. If you see someone on a TV show you’re watching together struggling emotionally, talk with your child about the emotions that person might be feeling and suggest what you/they could do to help. When you see someone in need in person, talk with them about possibilities of giving hugs or even smiling at them with a caring look when they need to know someone is there for them.
  2. When old toys are outdated or becoming boring (or they even have too many), suggest they give some of their toys to kids who may have very few toys.
  3. Talk about the kids at school who don’t have friends, how they can be included more. Even just saying something nice to a child who is feeling left out or sad can have a major impact in the day of a child (or adult) who needs it.
  4. Have a child save $1 from their allowance or birthday money to give to an organization that you are all in support of.
  5. Do The Imagine Project writing process in your classroom or home and share your stories, the compassion will flow and their will be many opportunities to cultivate kindness and giving back to someone who might need it that day, week, or year.

The 7th step of The Imagine Project writing process asks the writer to do one act of kindness every day for 30 days. What an ample opportunity for children to learn to give back naturally. Our world will have less bullying, fewer suicides, and possibly even eliminate school shootings. There are many ways to teach and cultivate compassion and the spirit of giving—if we all pitch in and do our part to teach our kids (and participate ourselves), the world will be an even better place to live.

Love,

Dianne

The Imagine Project, Inc., a nonprofit organization that helps kids, teens, and adults overcome challenging life circumstances through expressive writing. Dianne is a thought leader in the area of stress and trauma in children. Her simple, yet profound 7-step writing tool, now used by schools across the US and internationally, gives kids and teens the opportunity to rewrite a challenging personal story and Imagine new possibilities in its place.

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5 Reasons why Teaching Gratitude to Kids is Important

By Dianne Maroney
Wednesday, November 20th, 2019


Step 7 of The Imagine Project writing activity is a 30-day Gratitude challenge. We ask students to write down 3 things they are grateful for every day for 30 days. It’s a practice in seeing the positive in their lives and recognizing there is always something to be grateful for, even on the darkest days. Learning to be grateful can mean the difference of staying in a state of sadness and regret to finding love and positivity.

Gratitude is included in the 7-step writing process because learning gratitude practices early can have a wonderful positive impact on brain function and overall mental state, better equipping a child for their journey into adulthood. Here are 5 reasons why gratitude can transform lives:

Improves Brain Health and Sleep

Research has shown that gratitude actually changes the molecular structure of your brain. It keeps grey matter functioning longer, and feeling gratitude floods the brain with dopamine—an important hormone for brain and emotional health. Those with a practice of gratitude journaling before bed, have been shown to sleep longer and more soundly.

Shows Good Manners

Saying ‘thank you’ in general is good manners, and some people believe the art of good manners has been lost on today’s children. While this could be argued, the truth is saying ‘thanks’, whether verbally or through a note, helps build relationships. A friendly ‘thank you’ creates opportunities and reinforces harmony to create connection.

Builds Empathy and Self Esteem

Building empathy reduces aggression and thoughts of revenge as the person begins to see and feel what it’s like in “someone else’s shoes”. When we are looking for and finding the good in life, we discover different points of view. This also means that we better recognize other’s accomplishments, as well as our own, building self-esteem.

Reduces Entitlement

In general, when anyone focuses on the good, or the “blessings” in life, they become happier. Focusing on what there is to be thankful for, banishes entitlement, or the feeling that one needs or deserves more.

Creates Resiliency

Expressing gratitude in the face of self-pity and trauma equips us for better coping and resiliency, asking us to trust a “bigger picture” or to find the positive in a situation. Rather than stress and worry, having an attitude of gratitude helps us overcome the fearful thinking associated with feeling out of control.

Students don’t need Step 7 of the Imagine Project to learn gratitude, but it helps. Along with giving them a voice to express anything that might be difficult in their lives, the Imagine Project writing activity teaches them the habit of gratitude. We can learn to be grateful at any age, but when kids learn gratitude when their young, they receive a gift shifting their thinking from negativity to positivity—pretty amazing gift!

Feeling grateful for all of you

Love,

Dianne

The Imagine Project, Inc., a nonprofit organization that helps kids, teens, and adults overcome challenging life circumstances through expressive writing. Dianne is a thought leader in the area of stress and trauma in children. Her simple, yet profound 7-step writing tool, now used by schools across the US and internationally, gives kids and teens the opportunity to rewrite a challenging personal story and Imagine new possibilities in its place.

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How does Emotional Freedom Technique/ EFT/Tapping Support The Imagine Project?

By Dianne Maroney
Thursday, October 17th, 2019

As parents and teachers we often see our kids struggling with issues that challenge their ability to cope. It may be keeping up in school, coping with friendship changes, or the trials of social media. We are always looking for tools to support our precious children (and ourselves). The Imagine Project writing activity is a wonderful tool for allowing kids to express their emotions and work through difficult times. Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT, also called Tapping) is another tool that is simple and easy to implement with your kids/students, and even use on yourself. Here is an overview of how EFT/tapping works and how it supports The Imagine Project writing activity. If you’d like more information, see The Imagine Project: Empowering Kids to Rise Above Drama, Trauma and Stress (Yampa Valley Publishing, 2018).

Tapping is based on the principles of Chinese medicine where energy runs through the body via energetic meridians, much like how blood runs through veins and arteries. There are energetic points on the body that are specific to various emotions and physical organ functions. If there is negative energy stuck in or around those points, it can alter our health and wellbeing.

When we experience a difficult emotion, it can often leave a negative energetic imprint in our bodies. If we don’t release it, that negative energy can lead to long-term issues with mental and physical health. In EFT we are taught to tap on specific points on the body and state our emotions out loud as we tap. As we tap we are talking to our subconscious, allowing us to acknowledge our feelings and therefore let go of the negative imprint. Healthy energy then begins to flow freely again and we feel better emotionally and physically.

During Step 3 of The Imagine Project writing process, emotion can often begin bubbling up. It’s very positive to feel emotion, emotions help us process and move forward. Tapping can help us let go of those emotions more quickly as we write and acknowledge how we feel. It’s not necessary to use tapping with the writing, but it can help. I encourage you to give it a try by checking out these resources: The Tapping Solution (website and app), Brad Yates YouTube videos, and Peta Stapleton classes for teachers. You can easily teach yourself or take classes online or in person.

There is a great deal of quality research around the positive effects of tapping for many, many different issues. The research shows improvement in anxiety, depression, chronic pain, as well as many other health issues. If you are interested,  Google research with Emotional Freedom Technique/Tapping and you will find a wealth of information.

Teaching ourselves and our youth to tap so they can have a simple and effective tool to use for support, along with The Imagine Project writing process is powerful for them now and in their futuer. As they move through difficult life circumstances these tools can help them feel more comfortable in school, with friends, even in sports! Use it along with The Imagine Project writing process with your children or students!

Good luck and happy Tapping!

Love,

Dianne

The Imagine Project, Inc., a nonprofit organization that helps kids, teens, and adults overcome challenging life circumstances through expressive writing. Dianne is a thought leader in the area of stress and trauma in children. Her simple, yet profound 7-step writing tool, now used by schools across the US, gives kids and teens the opportunity to rewrite a challenging personal story and Imagine new possibilities in its place.

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Using the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)/Tapping to Help Kids Process Stress and Trauma.

By Dianne Maroney
Thursday, June 6th, 2019

Are you looking for tools to help kids/students with stress and trauma? Unfortunately, stress and trauma are common issues kids and teens must deal with everyday. In the last decade, anxiety and depression has increased dramatically in children. Social media, peer pressure, parental pressure, and sadly in the US, the horrible fear of a school shooting. Although many things contribute to stress in our kids, few tools are given to them that support emotional balance—until now! This photo shows kids before an athletic event using a technique called Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) also called tapping—a great tool to help kids manage stress and trauma, in and outside the classroom.

Trauma is all to present in kids as well. The Advanced Childhood Experiences study (also called ACES) was done on over 17,000 participants in the San Diego, CA area which showed that 50% of all kids have at least 1 traumatic event before the age of 17! This study was done on primarily white, middle class, well-educated kids. Add in poverty, crime, even rural areas and the rate goes up to 70-100%. This is a serious health care issue in our society (and the world) because stress and trauma is hard on the body and mind causing long-term issues such as heart disease, cancer, autoimmune disease, frequent issues, and serious mental health issues including depression and anxiety, etc.

Treating stress and trauma is extremely difficult, particularly when practitioners only focus only on using traditional talk therapy and medication. These tools can be helpful, but not healing. So parents, therapists, even teachers, must find other, more alternative therapies to help kids (and adults) support and heal stress and trauma.

EFT/Tapping is a perfect alternative therapy to teach kids (and use on yourself). It’s is easy to learn/use and research has shown it’s highly effective in treating stress and trauma, even with kids. It’s free if you watch YouTube videos to learn how to use it, or there are plenty of inexpensive books where you can learn to use the process. Here is an overview on how to use tapping with yourself and kids. For more information check out the websites www.thetappingsolution.com, www.tap-easy.com or you will find more information on how to tap with yourself and your kids in The Imagine Project: Empowering Kids to Rise Above Drama, Trauma, and Stress(Yampa Valley Publishing, 2017). Watch the YouTube videos on www.theimagineproject.orgor google tapping to visually see the points you tap on the body. Use a medium touch to tap on each point described below:

How to use EFT/Tapping with kids:

  1. First help your child figure out the strongest negative emotion they are feeling at that moment, i.e. anger, sadness, or fear. Let them say it in their own words and tap with them, using their words.
  2. Ask them how bad their emotion is before you begin, using a scale of 1-10, 10 being very bad and 1 being minimal. When you are done tapping you can ask them again; hopefully it will be only at a 0 or 1 when you are done.
  3. Ask them if they can tell where they are storing that emotion in their body—they might feel an ache in their belly, tightness in their neck or chest, a headache, or other pain (they may not be able to answer this question which is fine).
  4. Tell them to do what you do and say what you say. (Note, every practitioner adapts their own version of the tapping sequence, if you see something you like better on YouTube go ahead and use it.)
  5. Begin by using two fingers from either hand and tap with medium pressure just above your eyebrow to the inside, closer to your nose. Keep tapping as you say, “Even though I feel angry (or whatever emotion they named), I deeply and completely accept myself.”
  6. Now tap on your temple near your eye and say it again, “Even though I feel angry, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
  7. Now tap under your eye and say it again, “Even though I feel angry, I deeply and completely accept myself.” (Continue to have your child follow your tapping and say what you say.)
  8. Now move to under your nose, tapping and saying, “I’m so angry.” Show a little emotion so your child can copy you.
  9. Move to under your bottom lip and repeat. You can mix it up and say what your child might be angry at, perhaps school, friends, or confrontations: “I’m so angry that boy did that to me!”
  • Now tap just under the middle of your collar bone (either side of your chest—you can even switch sides of your body and face—it doesn’t matter). Keep making statements that you think your child might feel. “So and so was so mean”, “I am so mad at him!” Ask your child what they want to say and keep tapping.
  • Move to under your armpit about two inches down, keep making statements and tapping. Think about what your child might be feeling and make those statements or let them talk. Keep having them repeat after you.
  • Now move to the crevice or indentation on the top, pinky side of your hand and tap there while saying a profound statement about the emotion your child is feeling. “I am really mad!” Stay tapping on that spot on the hand and look up with your eyes, then down. Look to the left and then right (do not move your head, just your eyes), make a circle with your eyes, go back the other way, count to five out loud, hum a few notes and then count to five again. This is a critical part of the process, because it triggers different parts of the brain where emotion is often released. If your child is feeling more emotional at this point, have them repeat all of the eye movements, humming and counting again a few times, all while tapping on the hand. Do it with them!
  • Now start all over again on the face and continue on all the spots you did the first round (eyebrow, temple, under your eye, under your nose, dimple in your chin, collar bone, below your arm pit, and the pinky side of the hand). Continue with this pattern until you can tell they are feeling better. This might take 5 minutes, or it might take 20 minutes (occasionally longer). They might sigh, take a deep breath, get distracted, smile. You can stop and ask them to give you a number between 1 and 10 naming how emotional they feel now. Hopefully, it will be much lower, even 0! If not, keep going or switch to another emotion—there is often more than one emotion to deal with at a time.
  • If they become really emotional during this process, don’t stop, keep going. Tell them it will only last for a minute. If they need it, you can always tap on their bodies for them. Talking and tapping for them works, but it is better to let them participate. With little ones, under about 6 years old, you can tap back and forth on their legs or shoulders and just talk to them about something that is bothering them, it typically helps. You can even try it with babies!
  • One last note. Throughout the process, remind your child to think about the area on their bodies where they are holding the negative emotion (you asked them about this earlier)—it will help them to release the energy/emotion and keep them from feeling too emotional by focusing on their body not their emotions. Keeping them thinking about their bodies helps keep them grounded as well. It might sound complicated, but it’s not. Practice it a few times and you will be able to use it any- time, anywhere. It’s a great tool for many different issues!

A shortened version of EFT is simple yet it’s still ef- fective. It’s what I use in the classroom, or on myself when I don’t want anyone to know I’m tapping. Have kids cross their arms over their hearts and tap back and forth gently on the front of their shoulders, not too hard and not too soft. They can also cross their arms and tap under their arms, or just back and forth on their legs. If a child is upset, you can also tap on them, for them. It’s most beneficial to tap this way for six to seven minutes, until you see them relax and they can refocus on what they are doing.

Finding an EFT therapist should not be too difficult. Google EFT therapists in your area or go to www.thetappingsolution.com to find a therapist. Be sure to ask the therapist how long they have been practicing EFT and their experience with kids. If you want to use EFT for more serious issues such as trauma or depression, make sure they have experience working in those areas as well.

For those of you who have seem me present in person and tap with a group, here are some suggestions as to the statements you can make with kids individually or with small or large groups. Say each statement as you move from point to point on the face and body. Ab lib if you’d like, add more emotions or other statements that come to you. The goal is to think about what others might be feeling (or what you are feeling), make that statement with them. Moving from the painful to the positive. Tell them to do what you do and say what you say.

My story is hard.
My story hurts.
My story makes me feel sad.
My story makes me feel angry.
My story makes me feel ashamed.
I don’t like my story, it’s hard (you can repeat some of these again or try some other emotions you think of)
What is I could write a new story?
What if my story didn’t affect me as much anymore?
What if I could write a new story.
I’m thinking I can write a new story.
A story that I want to have in my life.
A story full of love, fun, and joy.
I deserve a new story.
Because I am amazing.
I’m excited about writing a new story.
Anything is possible.
Because I am,
I can,
And I will!

For more support helping kids with stress and trauma download My Imagine Journals—they are free!

Good luck!

Dianne

The Imagine Project, Inc., a nonprofit organization that helps kids, teens, and adults overcome challenging life circumstances through expressive writing. Dianne is a thought leader in the area of stress and trauma in children. Her simple, yet profound 7-step writing tool, now used by schools across the US, gives kids and teens the opportunity to rewrite a challenging personal story and Imagine new possibilities in its place.

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School Shootings: A Tool that can Help Stop this Horrible Trend

By Dianne Maroney
Thursday, May 9th, 2019

Ugh, yet another school shooting. Our hearts are all breaking once again. When will it ever end? What are the solutions? How can we help? We could debate this subject for days, but staying out of politics, I would like to offer a tool that is at least part of the solution. The Imagine Project is a simple 7-step writing process that can be incorporated into any classroom, group, or done individually with kids K-12. It’s supports social emotional balance and mental health. If also changes the climate and culture of a classroom, school, and even society—by bringing kindness, compassion, healing, and hope to the kids. Which in turn, may keep kids from making the horrendous choice of shooting someone else to ease their own pain.

The day of the latest school shooting, my videographer, Christie Taylor and I were just finishing up hours of interviewing teachers and kids about the impact The Imagine Project had on their school. Walnut Hills Elementary had just finished doing the project with their entire school a few weeks earlier. Every interviewee—teachers and students alike—had endless affirming statements and stories about how the Imagine Project had positively impacted their lives and their classrooms. Kids from 2nd through 5thgrade spoke about how they loved being able to talk about something that was difficult for them—an issue they might not have mentioned otherwise, but what negatively affecting them. Some talked about friend issues, divorce, moving, pet—or even worse, parent losses. These experiences or issues often caused emotions such as sadness, anger, fear, even confusion and anxiety. Over and over they expressed how good it was to write and speak about their feelings. And when their classmates heard their Imagine stories (they often read them out loud), they felt heard, found new friends, learned compassion, and they stopped feeling much of the intense emotions related to the issues—they could move on and create a new Imagine story in their lives.

Teachers couldn’t stop talking about how powerful it was for their kids to have a tool that helps students express emotion, share experiences, see their resilience, and just plain feel better about life! When kids shared their stories, they made new friends, smiled more, felt lighter about heavy issues, and best of all saw possibility in their lives. When asked if The Imagine Project might lessen bullying—without hesitation the teachers answered yes. Why? Because The Imagine Project creates connections between students, understanding of another student’s story, and compassion for another student they may have not even known anything about prior to hearing their Imagine story.

Research shows kids are more stressed than ever. Trauma is also very prevalent among our youth. When kids are stressed and traumatized—and don’t have the proper help—they can find unhealthy ways to cope: Addictions, self-harm, dropping out of school–and even harming someone else.

We must give kids tools to cope with, mitigate, and heal from their stress and trauma. Give them positive, healthy tools and strategies so they don’t make horrific choices like seriously hurting someone else. The Imagine Project is the perfect tool for this. Our research shows it increases a child’s ability to manage stress, makes them open to outside support, and they take more academic risks so they do better in school! Please check out the free journals and download them today. Bring them home to your kids, ask your teachers about them, share it with other teachers, counselors, and admin. The kids will love it and you will love it!

For more information you can refer to my book, The Imagine Project: Empowering Kids to Rise Above Drama, Trauma, and Stress. It’s not necessary to do the project, but it may be helpful.

Thank you and take care,

Dianne

The Imagine Project, Inc., a nonprofit organization that helps kids, teens, and adults overcome challenging life circumstances through expressive writing. Dianne is a thought leader in the area of stress and trauma in children. Her simple, yet profound 7-step writing tool, now used by schools across the US, gives kids and teens the opportunity to rewrite a challenging personal story and Imagine new possibilities in its place.

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New research Showing Positive Outcomes after using The Imagine Project!

By Dianne Maroney
Thursday, April 11th, 2019

Little girl writing her Imagine story.

When teachers, counselors, admin, etc. use new curriculum/ideas in their school and classrooms, they like to know what they are using is backed by credible research. We have good news! Phase One of our research on The Imagine Project has come back significantly positive! If you aren’t familiar with The Imagine Project writing process, click here to see the free journals.

Until now The Imagine Project writing activity has been based on the plethora of research that’s been done on expressive writing over the last 25 years. In most of the studies, participants were asked to take 15 to 30 minutes to write about an emotionally challenging, stressful, even traumatic incident in their lives. Typically, they are asked to do this once a day for three to five days. Even though the time spent writing can be emotional and make the writer feel vulnerable, the long-term benefits are positive. Study measurements were done months, even years, after the writing exercises and positive results still existed.

Expressive writing research shows it can:

  • improve grade point average,
  • improve working memory,
  • improve writing skills,
  • decrease school dropout rates,
  • enhance immune function (fewer illnesses and fewer trips to the doctor),
  • decrease blood pressure,
  • promote wound healing after surgery,
  • decrease anxiety and depression,
  • help people feel better about life, and
  • lessen post-traumatic intrusion and avoidance symptoms.

We wanted to see more specifically how The Imagine Project affects a student who uses it. So we hired a well sought after research company called QREM (Quantitative Research Evaluation and Measurement) in Littleton, CO. QREM then designed extensively researched questionnaires for elementary, middle, and high school students looking at themes that included academic risk taking, outlook toward their future, positive school attitudes, stress management, support, and writing.

The research process took about 5 months to complete. We recruited various schools in Colorado and Washington. Students took a pretest ora posttest to minimize the test-retest effect. So students who took the pretest did not take the posttest and those who took the posttest had not taken the pretest. All did the Imagine Project writing activity steps 1-7 once in their classrooms. We tested 4th, 5th, 8th, and high school (from Alternative High Schools only because those were the students who were available at the time).

Our results were even stronger than we anticipated:

The Imagine Project has a substantial impact on middle school students.Middle school participants made more significant gains on the established constructs than any other age group. Specifically, middle school students made gains in their ability to manage their stress and their perception of support from others (increases of 11.5% and 6.3%, respectively).

Boys were especially receptive towards the Imagine Project.Boys of all age groups made substantial gains in many of the constructs –seeing improved attitudes towards school by 11.6%, their ability to manage stress by 9.8%, and their perceptions of support by 8.0%.

Girls improved with stress management.Middle and high school girls participating in the Imagine Project improved their overall stress management by 9.4%

Elementary School Findings showed gains in skills and comfort with writing. This information is backed by many teachers reporting their student’s love of writing increased after using The Imagine Project writing project. QREM researchers believe we did not see more changes in stress management with elementary school students because they are more difficult to measure due to being easily influenced by life events on a daily basis—and developmentally it can be challenging to measure these types of issues. But, teachers tell us all the time, the Imagine Project makes a huge impact in a student’s self-awareness, ability to cope with stress, improved kindness, and it brings classrooms together in support of each other.

We are very pleased with the results of our Phase One research project. We are now in Phase Two, looking more in-depth at constructs such as compassion, self-awareness, stress management, and love of writing. We understand how critical mental health and education research is to implementation of programs in a classroom/school, and we want to know the best format for applying the Imagine Project writing process. With kids as stressed as they our in our world, they (and you) need tools for support. Go to www.theimagineproject.org to download our free journals!

I hope you find this helpful and spread the word about The Imagine Project!

Thank you,

Dianne

The Imagine Project, Inc., a nonprofit organization that helps kids, teens, and adults overcome challenging life circumstances through expressive writing. Dianne is a thought leader in the area of stress and trauma in children. Her simple, yet profound 7-step writing tool, now used by schools across the US, gives kids and teens the opportunity to rewrite a challenging personal story and Imagine new possibilities in its place.

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7 Tips to Teach Kids/Students to be Resilient

By Dianne Maroney
Thursday, March 21st, 2019

Teaching kids to be resilientA very important question all parents, teachers, counselors, youth leaders, etc. must always be asking is, “How do we teach our kids to be resilient?” Resilience is so important when trying to navigate and succeed in our complicated world. Research shows stress is growing with our younger generations. Social media, faster moving information, pressures from peers, parents, and education is intensifying quickly. Knowing how to teach our kids to cope with life and become resilient is critical to their ability to overcome stress and become resilient in their lives.

Everyone has the ability to be resilient; some kids are naturally more resilient than others based on two factors; their genetic make-up and their environment. Two individuals with the same exact genetic makeup may have two entirely different expressions of their genes, purely because of environmental factors. For example, in studies of identical twins adopted into different homes, researchers found many similarities (personality traits, interests, manner- isms), but also many differences, suggesting that environmental factors can “turn on” certain genes. Genes that make us susceptible to conditions like depression, cancer, and bipolar would “turn on” in one twin and not in the other, due to differing circumstances such as level of parental nurturing, the physical environment, school experiences, individual and family stress.

Even though we are influenced by our genetic makeup, and our environment, coping can be learned which boosts our resilience. A child learns to cope with adversity by encountering difficulty and figuring out how to work through it. This process begins at a very young age—falling over when learning to walk, for example—and trials and errors continue throughout life. To strengthen coping, let your child struggle and make mistakes without jumping to fix it for them. Instead, let them do it. Let them fall, listen with compassion, be a supportive presence, and whenever possible and advisable, let them figure out their own solutions. Your trust in their ability to prevail boosts their resilience, a key feature of emotional wellness.

Here are 7 tipsfor boosting emotional resilience in your child/student (adapted from the American Psychological Association):

  1. Self-care:Many of us have moved have away from embracing self-care for ourselves, and our kids/students—yet if our buckets are empty we are pretty much worthless. Taking care of yourself is making a come back—and it’s critical to teach kids not to over book themselves; play everyday, laugh everyday, take time to be quiet at least once a day (10 minute meditations are perfect), and be mindful of listening to others. (click here for more information on self-care)
  2. Socialization:Children learn through face-to-face interactions with other children (and adults). Give them opportunities after school and on the weekends to just be with others (without a computer or device) so they can learn about themselves and others.
  3. Giving back:Kids learn so much by seeing and helping others in need. It feels good to give to those who need it—it feeds the soul and teaches them so much about life.
  4. Sleep and eating properly: None of us can function well on lots of sugar and lack of sleep. Eating a healthy diet filled with protein, veggies, and fruit will fuel their brains—and their resilience. Sleeping at least 8-9 hours (more for younger ones) will give them clear minds and the ability to think and move.
  5. Talk about feelings:We as a society often don’t like to talk about how we feel; yet processing challenges in life out loud or on paper is imperative to building resilience. Talking or writing about the experience not only helps us understand what we’ve been through, but it gives us a better look at how we’ve already coped (good or bad) and thoughts about what else we might do when facing difficult situations. The Imagine Project journaling is a simple and powerful format for writing about life experiences.
  6. Positivity: There is so much research on the power of positivity. People who live longer are often positive by nature. Teaching kids that there is always something positive in any situation is so important to keeping their brains and bodies healthy and a smile on their face.
  7. Imagining new possibilities: Teach a child to imagine and define their goals, supporting them in achieving their goals, then joining in when they are proud of themselves will build any child’s resilience. Some kids need smaller goals, some bigger, but every child needs to imagine new possibilities in their lives, hope is everything in keeping us resilience.

Resilience is a critical part of emotional wellness for all of us. It’s important to teach kids—no matter what their age—that they can overcome obstacles, imagine new possibilities, and enjoy life no matter what they face. Humans are resilient—I see it every time I step into a classroom and listen to the powerful Imagine stories of all ages. Download The Imagine Project Journal and try it with your child or classroom. There will be ample opportunities to teach and show resilience—I promise.

Good luck and take care,

Dianne

Dianne Maroney is a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Psychiatric/Mental Health Nursing. She is the founder of The Imagine Project, Inc., a nonprofit organization that helps kids, teens, and adults overcome challenging life circumstances through expressive writing. Dianne is a thought leader in the area of stress and trauma in children. Her simple, yet profound 7-step writing tool, now used by schools across the US and internationally, gives kids and teens the opportunity to rewrite a challenging personal story and Imagine new possibilities in its place.

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