Skittles Game

 

 

The M&M games were a big hit with James and Joel yesterday, as well as with the Mobile Therapist!  I decided to create a few more games to have on hand, these ones use skittles.  Free printables for these games can be found here, which links you to google docs.

 

 

 This game board connects with our "Calm Down Corner" and relaxation exercises we have been practicing.  There is another game board for emotions located in the packet as well!

 

The basic directions of the game: Each person will receive a fun size bag of skittles. They will pull out a skittle and move their piece to the next space of that color.  They will then do the activity listed for that color and eat the skittle.  Whoever gets to the finish first wins!

 

 

Be sure to check out the M&M game!

 

If you want to follow me on Pinterest for more great ideas and activities click the Pinterest button on the right side of the blog :)

M&Ms Feelings Activity

My kids LOVE m&m's, they may or may not be used frequently as a bribe in our household.
I found this idea on Pinterest and it's been sitting around on one of my "Boards" forever!!  I've modified he original game a bit to fit my families particular needs and I think it turned out great!  We will be doing the activity on Monday when James' Mobile Therapist is out, so Ill let you know how it goes.

I've made two versions of the M&M game, the first one focuses on feelings and the second focuses on feeling Angry and calming down.  You will need to print out a game board, you could either print one for the whole family to share or print mini boards so each person has their own.  I laminated mine so we can use them again without getting them ruined.  Each person will need a fun size bag of M&M's or an assortment of 10 or so M&M's.  You can go around in a circle each taking a turn, pulling out a M&M and doing what the game board says.
 

 Here is a link to my post about our Calm Down Corner and strategies:  Calm Down Corner

Here are both games to download from google docs.  They are full page size, I just set my printer to print multiple pages to make them half or quarter page sized.

If you want to follow me on Pinterest for more great ideas, click the link on the right hand side of my blog!

Be sure to join us on Art Therapy Thursdays, for great arts and crafts ideas to use with special kiddos:

 

PTSD and Weight Gain

Have you read this article about how PTSD could lead to sizeable weight gain in women.

"The women were asked about the worst trauma they experienced and if they had symptoms of PTSD. Symptoms included re-experiencing the traumatic event, feeling threatened, avoiding social situations and feeling emotionally numb. PTSD was defined as having four or more symptoms over a month or more."

Often times the "trauma" that we as mothers of attachment challenged children is referred to as secondary PTSD, although not an official diagnosis, it refers to the mirroring of PTSD symptoms that our children exhibit.  I think this is dismissive to what we as mothers have gone through.  I hear from families all over about the constant threats and violence that some of them have endured, often for years.  They have lived with locked doors, hidden their kitchen knives, installed video monitoring systems and developed safety plans.  They have been physically and verbally abused by their own children.  They have been isolated from the outside world.  Our homes and experiences have moved beyond "secondary" trauma. 

Ill take it a step further and say that the majority of moms I know go beyond Secondary PTSD and meet the criteria for full blown PTSD.  Yes, our children may have PTSD and we very well may mirror their symptoms.  However, the longer you live with a child who has experienced trauma the more direct and indirect trauma you receive from the child.  I can confidently say that even though our home is relatively free from direct trauma, threats and violence at this time, the effects from the PTSD that I suffered early on are real and still something that I am working through.

I encourage you to take a look at the PTSD criteria, read over the article and discuss it with your doctor.  I know I for one am totally blaming my weight gain on this..........it definitely has nothing to do with my love of cheese fries and hatred of exercise!

Take a look at the DSM-V criteria for PTSD: (link the following definition was taken from)

Diagnostic criteria for PTSD include a history of exposure to a traumatic event that meets specific stipulations and symptoms from each of four symptom clusters: intrusion, avoidance, negative alterations in cognitions and mood, and alterations in arousal and reactivity. The sixth criterion concerns duration of symptoms; the seventh assesses functioning; and, the eighth criterion clarifies symptoms as not attributable to a substance or co-occurring medical condition.
Two specifications are noted including delayed expression and a dissociative subtype of PTSD, the latter of which is new to DSM-5. In both specifications, the full diagnostic criteria for PTSD must be met for application to be warranted.

Criterion A: stressor

The person was exposed to: death, threatened death, actual or threatened serious injury, or actual or threatened sexual violence, as follows: (one required)

1. Direct exposure.
2. Witnessing, in person.
3. Indirectly, by learning that a close relative or close friend was exposed to trauma. If the event involved actual or threatened death, it must have been violent or accidental.
4. Repeated or extreme indirect exposure to aversive details of the event(s), usually in the course of professional duties (e.g., first responders, collecting body parts; professionals repeatedly exposed to details of child abuse). This does not include indirect non-professional exposure through electronic media, television, movies, or pictures.

Criterion B: intrusion symptoms

The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in the following way(s): (one required)

1. Recurrent, involuntary, and intrusive memories. Note: Children older than six may express this symptom in repetitive play.
2. Traumatic nightmares. Note: Children may have frightening dreams without content related to the trauma(s).
3. Dissociative reactions (e.g., flashbacks) which may occur on a continuum from brief episodes to complete loss of consciousness. Note: Children may reenact the event in play.
4. Intense or prolonged distress after exposure to traumatic reminders.
5. Marked physiologic reactivity after exposure to trauma-related stimuli.

Criterion C: avoidance

Persistent effortful avoidance of distressing trauma-related stimuli after the event: (one required)

1. Trauma-related thoughts or feelings.
2. Trauma-related external reminders (e.g., people, places, conversations, activities, objects, or situations).

Criterion D: negative alterations in cognitions and mood

Negative alterations in cognitions and mood that began or worsened after the traumatic event: (two required)

1. Inability to recall key features of the traumatic event (usually dissociative amnesia; not due to head injury, alcohol, or drugs).
2. Persistent (and often distorted) negative beliefs and expectations about oneself or the world (e.g., "I am bad," "The world is completely dangerous").
3. Persistent distorted blame of self or others for causing the traumatic event or for resulting consequences.
4. Persistent negative trauma-related emotions (e.g., fear, horror, anger, guilt, or shame).
5. Markedly diminished interest in (pre-traumatic) significant activities.
6. Feeling alienated from others (e.g., detachment or estrangement).
7. Constricted affect: persistent inability to experience positive emotions.

Criterion E: alterations in arousal and reactivity

Trauma-related alterations in arousal and reactivity that began or worsened after the traumatic event: (two required)

1. Irritable or aggressive behavior
2. Self-destructive or reckless behavior
3. Hypervigilance
4. Exaggerated startle response
5. Problems in concentration
6. Sleep disturbance

Criterion F: duration

Persistence of symptoms (in Criteria B, C, D, and E) for more than one month.

Criterion G: functional significance

Significant symptom-related distress or functional impairment (e.g., social, occupational).

Criterion H: exclusion

Disturbance is not due to medication, substance use, or other illness.

Specify if: With dissociative symptoms.

In addition to meeting criteria for diagnosis, an individual experiences high levels of either of the following in reaction to trauma-related stimuli:

1. Depersonalization: experience of being an outside observer of or detached from oneself (e.g., feeling as if "this is not happening to me" or one were in a dream).
2. Derealization: experience of unreality, distance, or distortion (e.g., "things are not real").

Specify if: With delayed expression.

Full diagnosis is not met until at least six months after the trauma(s), although onset of symptoms may occur immediately.

There are some really great therapies out there for PTSD, if your looking for more information I would check out EMDR (Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) and see if it might help you or your child in your healing.

Instant Mom by Nia Vardalos

ADOPTION BOOK ALERT:

If you all are anything like me you love reading other people's adoption stories!  You may remember Nia Varalos from the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, well she has recently came out with a book documenting her adoption story.  Nia and her husband first met their daughter when she was almost three years old.  The book tells her families story, "Some families are created in different ways but are still, in every way, a family."

I cant wait to read it!

Art Therapy Thursdays: Animal Sculpture

I found this weeks Art Therapy Thursday idea on Deborah Hage's website.  There is some really great articles on her site, its worth taking a few minutes to explore!   http://www.deborahhage.com/articles/sculpy.html

The activity involves the children making their own animals out of clay.  You can pick up the Sculpey brand clay at any craft store. I got mine at Walmart for about $8.  This type of clay can be baked after the kids are done to make the sculptures hard.  You could use regular modeling clay as long as you didn't want the sculptures to be able to stick around for awhile!

I explained to the kids that they needed to make an animal out of the clay that they would want to become.  It could be a real animal or a made up animal, but it had to be 3D (able to stand up) not flat.  I also told them when they were done they would get to tell us all about their animal and why they would want to be that animal.

When they were finished I gave them each the opportunity to tell me all about their animals.  I asked some guiding questions like "What does your animal eat" and "Where does it live" if they needed help telling us about it.  It really was amazing the insight I was able to get by observing and interpreting their choices when creating the animals.

Matthew created an Elephant.  He told us he wanted to be an elephant so he would be big and strong and have sharp tusks that could defeat anybody.  This has been an ongoing theme for Matthew since he came to me three years ago, the desire to be bigger and stronger than everyone, "defeating" the bad guys.  Makes perfect sense given his history, clearly there is still a lot of vulnerability and feeling helpless here. 

James made an octopus.  When asked why he wanted to be an octopus he told us that he could swim after people in the ocean and catch them with all of his arms. This describes James to a "T".  He is an attention seeker and a hugger with some serious boundary/personal space issues :)  I can definitely picture him swimming around the ocean chasing people and hugging them with all those arms.

Joel made some rock thing that he called his "baby", cause....well, he's 3 and he liked to smoosh the colors together, LOL!

We had a great time together doing this activity.  The boys were all engaged in their own sculpture.  They had to ask me for pieces of clay so it gave us an opportunity to practice manners and sharing. 

I'd love to see pictures if you try this activity at your house!!  Feel free to link to your blog post in the comments!

Art Therapy Thursdays: New Blog Segment

 

 

 

Introducing a new weekly blog segment:

 

 

ART THERAPY THURSDAYS

If you are new to my blog, let me give you the quick summary of my family!  I am a single mom who has adopted three boys through the foster care system.  I am still a foster parent so we may or may not have some extra children in our home at any time.  My three boys suffered a great deal of early childhood trauma before coming to my house due to abuse and neglect.  As a result of their trauma my oldest two have experienced varying degrees of difficulty forming healthy attachments.  If you want to know more about the effects of early childhood trauma and attachment resistance I encourage you to check out Beyond Trauma and Attachment, Inc. (BETA) at www.momsfindhealing.com .  Parenting kiddos who have experienced trauma is unique and challenging but every step of progress they make is a huge blessing.  Knowing you played a hand in their healing is beyond satisfying, it is a comfort to your soul.  There are thousands of kids right here in the United States waiting for homes, it is not easy road and this whole parenting gig is not easy, but to that one child it matters.  I encourage you to look into foster care and/or adoption in your area.  If you have any questions I'm happy to discuss it with you!

With that background out of the way, my kids love arts and crafts of any kind! They beg to break out the glue, glitter, and scissors and I cringe at the suggestion.  Do any of you know how MESSY boys are???  My sons teacher calls him Houdini due the amount of mess he can make in mere seconds.  So how do I solve this dilemma, I turn this arts and craft time into a learning opportunity.  We have Art Thursdays at our house. It is almost as popular as Pizza Friday!  This means that Thursday afternoon/evening we have a craft.......well they think it is just a craft.  In reality the "crafts" that I pick for us to do serve many purposes.  First, we do the "craft" together to encourage some family bonding time.  Fun, no pressure bonding time is GREAT for our work on attachment issues.  Second, we focus on the kids using positive social skills, if you want to participate in the "craft" you have to use manners and be kind to one another, passing the materials, encouraging one another, and focusing on the task. Third, the "crafts" focus on therapy type things (so official sounding right 'therapy things'), feelings, self-image, social skills, trauma, etc.  There is always a hidden goal to the activities.  Despite my randomn unsuccessful attempt to get into Johns Hopkins University and study Art History, I know little about art or therapy!  There are some GREAT activities out there that you can do with your kids, especially if you spend an insane amount of time on Pinterest like I do :). Sometimes are activities are more "therapeutic" than others, the point is just to get the discussions and thoughts started.  Many times when I have thought the activity was a disaster, weeks later one of the boys will mention it in relation to something they learned.  Melts your heart!  

Each Thursday I will be featuring a craft or art activity that you can use in your home.  I'm hoping you find them as fun and helpful as we do.  Feel free to link up an activity or ask questions in the comments!

Doctors Visit

We went to the doctors office today for my boys' annual physicals.  I also needed physical forms filled out for our foster care license.  We get to the part where they tell them to undress and leave on their underwear. Apparently none of my kids were wearing underwear............REALLY??!!!!!  Oy vey, I give up!

 

 

ETA:  Shortly after this the neighbors came over to tell me one of my lovelies had thrown a stick of butter in their yard.  They found their dog eating it and were afraid he would be sick.  REALLY???? BUTTER?????