ChildTherapyToys.com continues to be the number one source for child and play therapy supplies for many reasons, but chief among them is the fact that we are constantly updating our selection with the newest toys, books, and games around. Whenever a new fantastic product is developed, you can bet it’s in our stockroom. For example, My 2 Homes, a fun, engaging new game for children having difficulty dealing with their parents’ divorce, is newly available and destined to be a bestseller. In fact, we’ve already sold out of the first shipment!

 

In the past month we’ve been focusing on sand tray products. We are currently putting together an updated, 2010 edition of our wildly popular Sand Play Therapy Kits which should be available very soon. And, of course, since you can never have enough sand tray miniatures, we've added a bunch of new ones to our inventory. We've had a lot of requests for very small human figurines, so this month we've introduced a large collection of these "mini-miniatures", towering at upwards of 1.5 inches. Over the past year, we've also improved our selection of fantasy figures, such as Dragons, Faeries and Elves, Mythological Characters, and Witches and Wizards. 

It’s very satisfying for us to find fun and helpful new products and make them available for professionals and non-professionals alike. To keep everyone up-to-date on new and upcoming products we created a ChildTherapyToys newsletter. To join, just go to the homepage and enter your name and email address. And while you're at it, why not join our facebook group?       

Liana Lowenstein, MSW is the author of several books and resources that have served as great references for me over the years. Her newest installment Assessment and Treatment Activities for Children, Adolescents and Families, Volume Two is now available and is just as indispensable as her previous work. Like the first volume, this book is full of effective and practical techniques from veteran practitioners, all expertly compiled and edited by Lowenstein. This is yet another treasure trove of engaging activities and interventions aimed at assessing and treating children of all ages and their families. Many issues are addressed including Feelings Expression, Self-Esteem, Social Skills, and Termination. Volume Two is an updated best-of-the-best collection that should not be missed.       

Lowenstein's previous books are equally essential for mental health professionals. Creative Interventions for Troubled Children & Youth and MORE Creative Interventions for Troubled Children & Youth are best-selling collections filled with creative assessment andtreatment interventions to help clients identify feelings, learn copingstrategies, enhance social skills, and elevate self-esteem. Lowenstein addresses more specific issues in Creative Interventions for Bereaved Children and Creative Interventions for Children of Divorce. The former is a uniquely creative compilation of therapeutic games, art activities,and stories to help bereaved children express feelings of grief, learnbasic concepts of death, diffuse traumatic reminders, addressself-blame, commemorate the deceased, and learn coping strategies. The latter consists of therapeutic games, art techniques, andstories to help children of divorce express feelings, understandmarriage and divorce, deal with loyalty binds, parental conflict, andreunification fantasies, address self-blame, and learn copingstrategies. And of course there's the original volume of Assessment and Treatment Activities for Children, Adolescents, and Families I mentioned above.

Lowenstein has been a key player in the field of children's mental health for years and many practitioners, myself included, are always excited and intrigued by her output. The new volume of Assessment and Treatment is yet another gem and hopefully not the last in this series as our field of therapy continues to evolve.

I have been meaning to write a post in praise of Pat Palmer's and Betty L. Shondeck's wonderful books on self-esteem and bullying, and it wasn't until Psychology Today beat me to it that I was reminded. As the review suggests, there are plenty of books available on these subjects, but Palmer's simple-yet-innovative approach, together with Shondeck's charming illustrations, elevate these to "must-have" status for any child clinician.   

Liking Myself approaches issues of emotion and self-esteem with a simple philosophy: "Feelings are our good friends", and we should treat them as such. Divided into six parts ("Liking Myself", "Feelings", "Feelings Talk", "Allowing", "Body Talk", and "Letting Go"), the book gives children the tools for developing self-awareness, managing emotions, and letting go of negativity. Palmer stresses assertiveness and a healthy, attentive mind-body relationship, and reminds us that it is okay to like ourselves. This charmingly-illustrated, hand-lettered edition is loaded with ideas and exercises to improve self-esteem and well-being.

The Mouse, the Monster, and Me is an excellent companion to Liking Myself that applies Palmer's principles of assertiveness and self-appreciation to the issue of bullying. This book helps children identify passive ("mouse") and aggressive ("monster") behaviors in themselves and others, and discover their own true and assertive "me". Palmer effectively illustrates the value of knowing yourself (your strengths, rights, responsibilities, and more) in situations when you are faced with criticism and other threats to your self-esteem. This edition also includes a note to the young reader by the author.



Like all great children's books, these classics hit home for kids and adults alike. I have been using them in my practice for years and was very excited about these revised editions. Both are available at ChildTherapyToys, along with many other books on feelings/self-esteem and bullying.

Innovative child and play therapy product—we’re not sure why no one has thought of this before.  This is the most  innovative play therapy product of 2009. Our sturdy chalkboard is a commercial grade composite board with baked on black coat. It is specifically designed for heavy, daily use. This human shaped board and chalk set provides another way for children to express themselves. By providing a completely neutral figure children are free to create any person or character they wish. The board is 18inches tall, and 1/4 inch composite.  The coating is baked on to increase durability. This is a custom made product, produced exclusively for childtherapytoys.com. Click here for more information.

  The chalkboard on the right was created by an eight year old male angry with
  his father for divorcing his mother, and now living with another woman.

Many of our clients come to us with a very poor feelings word vocabulary, making it difficult for them to effectively use language to communicate their internal state. Literally dozens of products now exist that encourage and allow our young clients to express themselves; everything from posters to books, board games, and our very popular Mood Dudes. Check out our large collection of feelings items here.

Three of our most popular feelings products are the Laminated Feelings Poster (available in English and Spanish, and in a variety of sizes), Feelings Playing Cards, and Feelings Fair. The Feelings Playing Cards can be used to play the game "Fish" (when a player gets two matching cards, they get to lay them down after they identify a time they had a feeling). The Feelings Poster can be used to open a session by simply inviting a child to look at the poster and see if they can find a feeling they've had today. The Feelings Fair game allows children to express their feelings while going on a journey through the fair. It's perfect for children ages six to twelve.

Two other products of recent popularity are the Emotions Mania Thumball and Faces and Feelings Listening Lotto. The Thumball works great as an icebreaker activity in groups, and the Faces and Feelings Listening Lotto explores the look and tone of emotions as kids match narrative statements to photographs of kids' faces showing different expressions. To play, players listen to a CD and place tokens on the images on their game cards that match what the hear.

All of these have been very impactful in my sessions. Has anyone else had experience with these items? Let us know on the comment boards.

We have finally located a bop bag that should last for years.  This bop bag was designed by an industrial designer and developed specifically for settings where toughness and durability matter.The exterior is covered with Marine vinyl, and the interior consists of a polystyrene center, surrounded with fiber fill. A heavy sand base keeps the bag upright. We think the size is perfect:20” base and 42" tall.
Check it out and let us know what you think. TUFF BOP BAG

COMMENT: The following true story by Dr. Rubenstein illustrates how board games can be used to teach social skills necessary for maintaining employment, in a way direct instruction never could. Similarly, board games in therapy can be used to teach numerous skills needed by our clients. Skills include identifying and expressing feelings, communicating assertively, anger control, friendship maintenance, cooperation, compliance, empathy, impulse control, and so on. We are pleased to be able to carry many games developed by Dr. Rubenstein^**. You may peruse games on our web site by content, age, or topic.

The Prisoner Educator’s Dilemma
a true story by Dr. Franklin Rubenstein

The state of Maryland had a policy of securing jobs in the private sector for all of the juveniles that passed through their juvenile justice system.  This was not an easy task, because the vast majority of the youths were only able to keep their jobs for just a few days. Once they lost their jobs, the juveniles were much more likely to go back to drug dealing or other ways of making money.  The Superintendent asked a consultant to develop a curriculum to deal with this problem.  The consultant found that the youths did not understand the basics of the informal contract that any job entails.  They did not see anything wrong with coming in late, cursing the boss if he or she complained about their work, loafing whenever the opportunity arose, threatening other employees, etc.  In addition, they had no realistic concept of the role of a supervisor (separate from giving them a hard time). 

After many dead ends, the consultant set up an exercise where the youths were divided into groups which would function as companies.  The companies were given a production task, creating the tallest building possible out of a length of aluminum foil.  Motivation was established by announcing a prize for the tallest building.  The companies would compete for the prize.  Some youths were assigned the roles of company presidents (bosses) and the remainder of the youths were the workers.

Unknown to the presidents, certain youths were coached ahead of time to be lazy and uncooperative – to exhibit the same behaviors that would cause many of the youths to be fired from their real jobs.  After about fifteen minutes the exercise had to be stopped because the presidents were so frustrated and angry that they were threatening to beat up the poorly performing workers.  After tempers had cooled, the experience was discussed by all involved.  It was apparent that reversing the role of some of the youths (that is, making them the boss) gave them insight into the legitimate role of the boss.  They felt the frustration that real bosses feel when workers don’t perform, and they stated that if it were a real company, they would have fired all the poorly performing workers.

Since the exercise could lead to violence and required a great deal of supervision, the consultant turned the concept into a board game.  Players were in the role of managers of a store similar to Target or Wal-Mart.  Each player had several employees (fictitious instead of real people), some of whom are good employees, and some of whom are bad employees who come in late, stay out the first day of the big sale when they are needed most, are rude to customers, etc.  These are the same behaviors that the youths were likely to display when they started their real jobs.  The only way to win the game was to fire the bad employees, which the players did with enthusiasm.  The board game was a huge success; the youths began to understand that any normal person in the boss’s job would fire bad employees.  They developed respect for the boss and learned what they had to do to keep their jobs. 

When faced with the need to teach a skill which is very difficult to teach using traditional methods, a board game can sometimes do wonders.  Here the key was reversing the roles of the youths from real life. . . making them the bosses instead of the subordinate roles in which they would start their careers.  If you don’t have an existing game that suits your needs, with a little guided role-playing, you can help your students understand what's happening on the other side of the desk. Games are the perfect solution because they can safely give students rewards that emulate what happens in the real world.   The concept of role reversal can work for school (kids play the teacher and deal with disruptive students) or home (kids play the parent and deal with misbehaving children).

^** Games developed by Dr. Franklin Rubenstein and Franklin Learning Systems(all are available from www.childtherapytoys.com): Anger Control: Play-2-Learn Dominoes, Bully Wise: Play-2-Learn Dominoes, Feelings Fun: Play-2-Learn Dominoes, Friendship: Play-2-Learn Dominoes, Out of Your Mind! (social and emotional skills), Boundaries Baseball, Furious Fred, Character Circles, The Big Top Game (Autism, Asperger's, PDD, NOS), One Step at a Time, Clear Thinking, Feelings Fair, Common Ground, From Rage To Reason, Listening Counts (basic social skills and listening), Circle of Respect (understand and show respect), Bridge Over Worried Waters (for Anxiety Disorders), BullySafe, CyberSmart, Remote Control Anger Control, Splitsville: Coping with Separation and Divorce, Remote Control Impulse Control, Focus, Breaking the Chains of Anger, Conflict Busters, Friendship Island.

In the past six months we've added over a 100 products spread across all of our major categories: books, games, toys, and miniatures. Rather than bore you with all the details visit our New Products page and browse at your leisure. We've also added a new video of our sand trays on YouTube.com and a video of our exhibit at the Association for Play Therapy conference in Atlanta. Speaking of Atlanta, our number one best seller was our custom made Play Therapy Chalkboard. In addition, to adding new products we've updated our homepage, many of our product pages, and our seach function. We're trying hard to be a "full service" child therapy store, so please let us know if there's something you need but can't find. As one conference participant said after seeing our exhibit in Atlanta, "You're like the Walmart of play therapy."

As invaluable as the internet is for finding help and information, there can also be too much information to sift through. Even the most practiced googlers can sometimes find themselves scrolling through 5 or more pages of search results to find what they're really seeking. It is with this in mind that I created our three sister sites: My Play Therapy Page, My Parenting Page, and My Special Ed-504 Page.    

Like any professional, I like to keep up with new developments in my field and will often refer clients to particular articles that I think could be of value in a given situation. In the past year and a half I've collected tons of great articles, resources, products, multimedia, and more and organized them into appropriate categories and subcategories. This way, if I'm looking for, say, play therapy research and case reports, I need only click on the category to view my entire collection. Or if a parent needs help advocating for special ed for their child, I can easily point them to a host of resources.

My goal was to create ideal bookmarks for practitioners, educators, and parents. The sites grow more and more every week as I add articles, categories, videos and whatever else I find while mining the world wide web. I also regularly update news items from all over the world concerning play therapy and special education.

I'm happy to share my findings with you and I hope you find these sites as simple and useful as I've intended them to be. Check the homepages monthly for my top picks!

The following is taken from the latest issue of Diane Cantrell's wonderful newsletter "Preparing Children for Love, Life, and Loss". Enjoy and feel free to comment!

Explaining death to a young child as well as dealing with the ramifications of such news is a stressfull task for even the most courageous parents.The loss of the family’s beloved pet is often a child’s first experience with death. Many parents are dealing with their own issues around the loss of their dear friend and family member as well as attempting to explain what is happening to their young child.  Listed below are some frequently asked questions and responses that I hope will serve as a road map during a time when one often feels lost and without guidance.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do pre-school children view the death of a pet?
Pre-school children don’t have the ability to conceptualize the permanence of death.  They think in terms of death as if someone is going on a trip or going to sleep.  Though they can’t understand the finality of loss they do experience great sadness because they miss their pet’s presence.  Unfortunately, children this age don’t have the ability to express their feelings in words.  As a result they may act out their sadness by being irritable, oppositional, withdrawn, or aggressive.
Children from infancy to age 6 are also very egocentric.  They literally believe that the world revolves around them and that things happen because of them.  Thus, the child often blames him/herself for the death of the beloved pet.  For example, if a child has been told not to pull the family dog’s tail, they may think that because they disobeyed this command the dog died.
What are some of the questions they may have?
Due to the child’s inability to conceptualize the permanence of death he/she may repeatedly ask when they will see their pet again or when the pet is coming home.  Children may ask and worry about who is caring for their pet and how the pet is getting their needs met.
How can parents answer these questions?
When responding to children’s questions about death it is important to be honest without giving more information than the child can understand.  For example, an appropriate response to a question about when the family will see their pet again is, “When a pet dies we are never able to see them again but we can remember them forever.”   It is also important to reassure that the pet’s death is not due to anything that the child did or didn’t do.
In response to questions regarding the care of the pet it is important to let the child know that when animals and people die they no longer need to eat, sleep, play or go on walks.  The young child may not fully comprehend this answer but it may relieve them of their worries.  They do need to be reassured that the animal is not in danger or facing further harm.
Telling a child that their pet has gone to sleep may cause anxieties around their own sleep.  Comparing death to falling asleep may be frightening to a child and lead to sleep disturbance.
In general, how can a parent help their child handle the death of a family pet?  
There are many things parents can do to assist children in dealing with loss. They are:
1.    Listen, validate and reassure. Be patient in answering repeated questions and assure children that it is okay/normal for them to feel mad, sad, or afraid and tearful.  If your child expresses worry or sadness, you can provide validation by telling them that you feel sad as well.  While acknowledging feelings be sure to let the child know that even though the feelings may be overwhelming they can handle them.
2.    Observe. After the loss of a pet play close attention to your child’s play, artwork, and behavior for these are the blueprints to your child’s feelings and concerns. Remember, children ages 4-6 don’t have the language to express complex emotions but do so through their play and behavior. Notice any themes that may emerge in your child’s play and artwork.  Also be aware of behavior changes such as increased aggressiveness, anger, or withdrawal.  These are signs that your child is having a difficult time with the loss.
3.    Engage.  It is so important to provide opportunities to engage your child in conversation about the loss. Reading fictional picture books that address grief and loss can serve as valuable springboards for discussion.  Having your child tell about their artwork can also lead to meaningful interactions.  Assist the child in planning a special good-bye for their pet.  It may be a traditional funeral or a memorial in which the children draw pictures for the pet, make gifts, and or take a special walk in the pet’s honor.  Children have many good ideas about how they wish to say good-bye to their special family friend. Be sure to ask, listen, and assist in the implementation of these ideas.

-Diane Cantrell, MA, LPC

Diane Cantrell is a former kindergarten teacher and the author of the Mom's Choice Awards Gold Recipient book Good-Bye, Baby Max, available at ChildTherapyToys.com.