Teacher/ Parent/ Guardian Follow-Up Suggestions Worry Monsters

Session #1- Get to know you!

Session Purpose: Introduce the topic of worry/ anxiety. Anxiety is a subjective sense of worry, apprehension, and/or fear. Everyone feels fear, worry and apprehension from time to time, but when these feelings prevent a person from doing what he/she wants and/or needs to do, anxiety becomes a problem.

Group Activity: Students listen to the story Wilma Jean the Worry Machine by Julia cook- Wilma Jean worries about everything. Her teacher helps her figure out what worries she can control and those that she cant and what to do about both types of worries. This book gives children helpful advice and tools to deal with their anxiety and fears.

Group Assignment: Students should notice how their bodies feel when they get nervous, worried or anxious.

Classroom/ Home Follow-Up: During this group students will be asked to identify the things that make them nervous, worried or anxious. For some students this process is a struggle. It is important for children to be able to name their worries so they can work through them. Adults can help students notice when they seem to be getting anxious while allowing them to talk through their feelings.

Teacher/ Parent/ Guardian Follow-Up Suggestions Worry Monsters

Session #2- Where are my worries?

Session Purpose: Worry/anxiety can cause many sensations in your body as it prepares for danger. These sensations are called the "alarm reaction", which takes place when the body's natural alarm system (that is, the "fight-flight-freeze" response) has been activated. Anxiety is helpful and adaptive when it works right. But, if it goes off when there is no real danger, it is not only scary, it is also very exhausting. However, we DO NOT want to get rid of the alarm (or eliminate anxiety) because it protects us from danger. We want to fix it (i.e., bring the anxiety down to a more manageable level) so it works properly for us!

Group Activity: Students identified where on their body they feel the effects of worry/anxiety. Then students helped to brainstorm ideas of how to calm each part of our bodies down (ex- progressive relaxation, square breathing or visualization)

Group Assignment: Students are to practice using the skills they learned during session #2 when they feel nervous, worried or anxious.

Classroom/ Home Follow-Up: Adults can help to remind children to use the skills they learned in session #2 to help themselves calm down. There are videos on YouTube that will lead you through progressive relaxation if you are not sure what that means. Square breathing is a technique of slowing down your breathing; Inhale 2 3 4- Hold 2 3 4- Exhale 2 3 4- Hold 2 3 4. Visualization involves thinking of a place where one feels very calm and remember what each sense feels like in that place. Students can practice each of these skills when they are not stressed so they remember how they work when they are feeling stressed.

Teacher/ Parent/ Guardian Follow-Up Suggestions Worry Monsters

Session #3- What are my worries? Session Purpose: It is as important to discover the triggers of worry/anxiety. Triggers can be either
physical or emotional. Working through worry/anxiety is more than learning how to manage symptoms. It is also understanding triggers and facing each one in order to alleviate, or at least minimize, the trigger's effect on us.

Group Activity: Students brainstormed a list of things that make them nervous, worried or anxious. Students then ranked those worries from biggest to smallest. Next the students took their list of worries and thought about which ones they can (tests, relationships, appearance) or cannot (weather) control.

Group Assignment: Students are to ask for help from adults to help resolve some of the worries they are feeling.

Classroom/ Home Follow-Up: Once students have identified their worries that can be controlled adults can help them come up with a plan to reduce the stress. For example if a child gets very nervous about tests teachers and parents can help the child prepare and study for that test, give them extra time to take the test (if able) and help them through relaxation exercises. With parent and teacher support, the childs confidence will increase and the worry will decrease lessening the need for these type of interventions.

Teacher/ Parent/ Guardian Follow-Up Suggestions Worry Monsters

Session #4- Chain of Thoughts Session Purpose: What we are thinking can directly lead to how we are feeling, both in good and bad
ways. During this session students demonstrate how different ways of thinking can lead to different beliefs, thoughts and actions.

Group Activity: Students wrote down one example of what makes them nervous, worried or anxious on a strip of paper. On the next slip of paper they write down the worst case scenario that could happen when thinking about that worry. Finally they wrote down how that worst case scenario made them feel on a slip of paper. They then created a chain with their slips. Next the students used the same worry to create another chain, this time using the best case scenario.

Group Assignment: Students are to try to keep their thoughts positive, thinking about the best case scenario, especially when thinking about their worries.

Classroom/ Home Follow-Up: Adults can help children learn to have an inner positive dialog by sharing examples from their own lives. For example, if my students came worry group and I had forgot to print out the worksheet we were going to use, I could talk my feelings and thoughts out loud as I work towards a solution. Im sorry I forgot to print out that worksheet. I am always afraid I wont be prepared. Luckily the copier is right outside the door so this isnt a disaster. I will just go copy the papers quickly. Talking your feelings out shows children that even when worries do come true they can easily be overcome.

Teacher/ Parent/ Guardian Follow-Up Suggestions Worry Monsters

Session #5- Making My Monster Work For Me! Session Purpose: Sometimes we worry about things over which we have no control (the weather,
parents are getting divorced, teacher being absent, dad lost his job, ect.) When that happens we need a place to put the worries so we can go on with our lives.

Group Activity: Students will create worry monsters out of paper bags. They can write down the worries they cannot control and let the worry monsters eat them.

Group Assignment: Students are to let go of worries they cannot control, putting those worried on a piece of paper for the worry monsters to eat.

Classroom/ Home Follow-Up: Worry monsters can be used in many ways at home or in the classroom. They can be a place to keep the worries children cannot control or they can be a place where children can put any worry on paper. Either way adults can check to see what worries they are putting into the monster. This allows adults to monitor worries and intervene when necessary.

Teacher/ Parent/ Guardian Follow-Up Suggestions Worry Monsters

Session #6- Float Your Worries Away!
Session Purpose: Worrying is a balancing act. Worrying a little bit is a good thing. When we worry too much, our lives get messy. This causes us to over-react and makes a mess out of the stuff we have going on in our lives

Group Activity: Students enjoyed root beer worry floats. The ice cream represented all that we have going on in our lives, and the root beer represented the worrying. At first I only poured in the correct amount of root beer to show that a little worry wont hurt anything. Then I overflowed the cup to show how too much worry can make a mess. The hope of this activity is to give the students a visual to motivate them to continue to use the skills they learned in group so their worries wont make their lives messy.

Group Assignment: Students are to take home their folders and share the activities with their teachers and parents. Students are also to use all the skills they have been taught during the Worry Monster group.

Classroom/ Home Follow-Up: Adults can reinforce the skills that were taught during the group and keep an open dialog to allow students to work through new worries that may come up throughout their lives.