My eldest daughter worries over lots of things. She gets nervous when we are late places, and sometimes finds it very difficult to process her emotions. She can get very anxious in new situations and places which, more often than not, leads to a meltdown. I have tried many different methods to help her, none of which seem to have eased the issue as she has got older.
The Irish fairy door company have a no more worried kit which I have been using with both girls. When the kit arrived nothing happened and I told the girls it was because we had to leave it near our fairy door for our fairy to sprinkle the magic on to. They left it there over night and the next morning it worked. [Don't tell them but actually what happened was I pulled the plastic tab out of the back of the worry plaque to activate the batteries inside]
The concept is very clever, tell the fairy your worry and let them help take it away for you. Often the simplest ideas are the very best. Within the kit are 15 conversation cards. The cards each have different conversation openers that you can use to talk to your child about their worry. I like the idea and often having the prompt there can help spark a conversation you may have found difficult.
A feelings journal also accompanies the kit and both girls have taken to using this. Sometimes they write their feelings and other times, I think when they are struggling to process things, they draw a picture. The feelings journal has been really good for me to understand more about how they are feeling and what, if anything, is causing them any issues. Our feelings journal lives near our fairy door so our fairies can once again help with any worries throughout the night. They often come up with solutions and leave them by the door for the girls in the morning.
When the girls feel worried they think of their worry and go to the worry plaque. Our plaque is portable so we attach it to our bags when we go out of the house and book bags for school. It means they don't have emotions building up throughout the day and we can deal with their emotion as it happens. The plaque glows red when the fairy has heard their worry.
It then changes to green to say the fairy has taken it away.
So far the no more worries kit is working really well. The portability I think really helps as it doesn't matter where the girls are they can use their no more worries plaque to help them. The conversation cards have been great to get the girls to open up more and sometimes to think more about why they feel they way they do and find ways to make them feel better. We are going to be taking our no more worried plaque when we fly later this year as one of my daughters is currently very worried about the plane getting struck by lightening, so I am hoping this will help to settle her nerves.
I only wish we had found the No more worries kit sooner, as it would have helped my eldest daughter when she was worrying about her SATS last year.
The item was sent for review, all words are my own opinion.
