Stories and Art Therapy for Healing

Children experience many bumps on their road, just as we do. Chronic illness or just a stomach flu can leave a child out of sorts and struggling to find their footing again. Too tired to run and play, and sick of the media machine, here is my son experimenting with wet on wet watercolors as a method of therapy.

We struggle with chronic illness at our house. My son has ulcerative colities, severe food allergies, asthma, celiac disease, and other issues to complete the mix of challenges. My husband also struggles with gut issues and recurring kidney stones. All of this can leave the sick and the well in our home feeling overwhelmed.

Sometimes, even when all is well physically, troubled feelings or general angst can also leave its mark. Here are two resources that I have found helpful when you need a creative outlet, a healing story, and some time to put things to right.

Healing Stories for Challenging Behaviour by Susan Perrow
This book is an excellent resource on storytelling and a wealth of information on putting together a plan of action for helping children iron out the rough spots of life.

Painting with Children by Brunhild Muller
Although this is a small book, it is my favorite resource on painting with children. The method laid out is simple and very easy to follow. I have experienced success with all ages of children (even teens) when using this wet on wet watercolor method.

Taken together, this is my prescription for restoring health to the spirit.

Walking the road of life is easier with good friends...

Dawson, Dahlia, Addie and Whit

Spies, Detectives, and Agents of Every Kind

Mysteries and secret missions abound at my house these days. My children are in the midst of mystery-mania. It always amazes me that despite the difference in my children's ages, they still seem to follow each other's interests. My seventh grader is enjoying reading Sherlock Holmes. This was a favorite of mine at about that age. My eight year old son is also into the Baker St. action, he loves the Jim Weiss recording of "Sherlock Holmes for Children" stories. Nancy Drew has also enjoyed a resurgence. The computer mystery games are a huge favorite. The children love to sit and do these together. The puzzles and clues are quite challenging - lots of educational value here. They have also checked out Nancy Drew mysteries for Addie to read to Whit. Even the Nancy Drew movie is a big hit with both of them. My older loves the fashion in the movie and has styled her own bag of tricks after Nancy's. My son loves the action!
The playmobile spy sets have also been big this year. Whit (my son) received these for his birthday and has really enjoyed the remote control car with spy camera. I must admit, it is cool.
Something that gets a lot of play time is Whit's spy gear. He has put together an outfit for dress up play and has gathered lots of gadgets to put in his spy bag (and old school type bag of mine). Invisible ink, black jacket and shades, a little theme music from the ipod (007 and Mission Impossible theme songs), and regular viewings of the Pink Panther cartoons seem to round out this spectrum of spy-dom. I love the smorgasbord - from Scotland Yard to cartoon antics, sleuthing and spying is super.

Story Stones

My children enjoy playing with natural objects, leaves, stones, acorns, etc. By combining their love for nature and an idea I found on Pinterest, I came up with a great DIY gift for my nieces and nephews. I gathered stones (and since we live in the city, I had to cheat a bit and buy a package of river stones at the Dollar Tree). Then I cut out tiny story characters and objects from paper, fabric, etc. and mod podged them onto the stones. My sister's children are mad about Little House in the Big Woods, so I used an old paperback (don't worry, I have another copy of this title!) to cut out Laura, Mary, Ma, Pa, and Baby Carrie along with a bear, dear, etc. for their set of story stones. They turned out charming. I made a set for traditional stories that included a pot, an old man and woman, farm animals, a gingerbread boy, and other items that would make Stone Soup, The Gingerbread Man, The Old Man and the Old Woman, and Clever Beatrice a possibility. I made simple cut outs of a mouse, cheese, and other Mother Goose items for the youngest, and a set of woodland critters for my own son and his critter-loving cousin. I also made a set with a vintage fabric that included rosy faced children and their pet dog. Finally, I sewed drawstring bags in coordinating fabrics and made gift tags with story and game ideas using the stones. The best game idea I had was to pass the bag around the dinner table or the car and for each person to add to a family story that is made up as you go along. When you take an item out of the bag, you must add something to the story that includes the character or item you drew. This is a variation on the game my siblings and I played so often with my Dad as a child. He used to love to start a story and go from person to person adding adventures. I hope the story stones continue this tradition of family story telling! I took a picture of the traditional tales set and the Little House set for here. I hope you like them!

Cupcake Cuties

We made these cuties for Thanksgiving. I found some free cupcake printables online, so making the cupcake sticks was easy. I just printed them on card stock and cut them out with crimped scissors. Then we taped them on to sticks. We made the cake itself from the Betty Crocker gluten free yellow cake mix. I prefer the Namaste mixes, but the Betty Crocker mix is cheaper and kids love it. Betty Crocker also has gluten free icing options, so this makes cupcakes so much easier than back in the day, when I made everything from scratch to meet our allergen free baking needs. I still make most things the old fashioned way, but I am very grateful to Betty for allowing me to push the easy button at times. We used food coloring to make the cream cheese icing orange. The acorns on top were made from turning a Hershey's kiss upside down and using a dab of icing to secure a tiny gluten/nut free sugar cookie on top. Then, just dab a bit of icing on the top of the cookie to make a stem. The sugar cookies were made from a Namaste cookie mix. We just made them very tiny. We made a dozen cupcakes, but we made many more chocolate cookie acorns to have in a bowl to eat. They were a big hit with the cousins at our Thanksgiving gathering - both allergy eaters and non-allergy eaters consumed them with gusto.

Dollhouse Decor

Christmas is here - even in the dollhouse world. Check out the adorable world of my daughter's mouse-sized house and the way she has it all ready for the holidays.

Will Work for Peace

Tis the night before Thanksgiving and I am contemplating the deep thankfulness I feel for my children and the lessons they teach me along the journey together. I thought I would teach them, I didn't realize how much I would be learning FROM them. Peace starts at home. When I began the path to gentle, non-violent parenting, I had no idea how the seed of that ideal would take root and grow in our family. My socially conscience children are always surprising me with the ways they incorporate peace in our daily lives. They struggle with the hard work of it, just like I do, but they bring such an openness to the table. My twelve year old recently was sharing with me how she found it difficult to remember to be peaceful on the playground when her brother was being bullied. Her instinct was telling her to strike out and pay back insult for insult. I appreciate her protective instincts for her brother, but imagine my delight when she told me that she immediately thought of why the aggressor might be acting that way and what was going on with him to cause his behaviour. Over a period of several weeks, both of my children had many conversations about this child both together and with me and my husband. We put a lot of time into talking over scenarios and solutions that could be a win-win for both parties. The verbal bullying continued for a couple of weeks, but after my children went out of their way to make positive remarks, model good communication, and practiced some peace making strategies, things began to improve. Now the child in question is counted a friend. They play together and have a lot of fun. I am not trying to over-simplify the massive bullying problem we have these days, only feeling proud of a small inroad made by my two sweeties. Peace really does begin at home. When we model appropriate responses to injustice and problems in the world, the children will follow. They may even lead the way.