CBT Activities for Kids with Compassionate Counseling St. Louis Therapists
Image Credit: Unsplash Stephen Andrews @porkbellysteve
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is well-researched and very effective for helping kids and teens manage anxiety, anger, and overwhelming emotions. This is why the therapists at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis love to use CBT for both in-person therapy and online therapy.
Today we wanted to share with you some of our therapists at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis favorite CBT tools to use when they are working with kids who are struggling to manage anxiety, anxiety-driven anger and big emotions.
Kelsey Dunn, MSW, LCSW
Kelsey Dunn, MSW, LCSW
Owner & Teen Anxiety Expert
CBT explores how your thoughts can change your feelings, which impacts your actions. What we can teach kids to recognize is that the level of their emotions can really impact how hard or easy it is to change thoughts, and have calm behaviors. After we learn about emotions elevators, I love empowering kids to recognize how relaxation skills can lower the intensity of their emotion.
One of my favorite relaxation activities for kids is the 5 Senses Scavenger Hunt. Using your five senses, you take a moment to just notice what you can see, hear, smell, touch, or taste. I find that it can be a really powerful and brief tool that kids can incorporate in the therapy office but also at home and in the classroom. In fact, when I reach out to schools, it's my favorite handout to send along as an in-class resource.
Molly Shaffer, MA, LPC
Molly Shaffer, MA, LPC
Child & Teen Therapist, Trauma Specialist and Parent Coach
I often use the "what are you thinking team” to begin to look at negative thinking patterns for recognition of positive and negative thought. For little kids, my go to activity is to identify positive and negative thoughts with a "Superhero vs Villain" activity.
In this activity we create, through art, the client as a superhero and a villain (it can be changed to any type of good/bad character that resonates with a client). Then we begin to state descriptive words for each (Superhero: good, helpful, safe, kind, motivating/Villain: bad, mean, unsafe, unhelpful, dangerous, etc.) we then relate this to the client's negative thoughts that are leading to increased anxiety/anger/aggression and place these thoughts on the villain page. We then create a positive statement to combat the negative thoughts and place it on the superhero page.
The clients take these home and begin to track the negative thoughts and use the superhero page to replace the negative thoughts with a positive one. Parents are incorporated into this by sharing the pictures and then encouraged to remind clients of superhero thoughts.
Samantha Ferrara, MSW, LCSW
Samantha Ferrara, MSW, LCSW
Teen & Child Therapist, RO-DBT Level 1, Parent Coach
When I’m working with kids, I love to help them externalize thoughts. One way that we do this is by creating a worry monster and naming the worry monster. Some ways that we create a worry monster is by building one out of Legos or creating an art piece that represents the worry monster. Then we name the worry monster.
We can label the unhelpful thoughts as the actions of the worry monster and talk about how the worry monster can try to direct their thoughts vs directing their own thoughts. I also like to talk about thought traps as worry monsters. These are thought patterns that we may not be aware of that could be unhelpful to us. Thought patterns like black and white thinking, predications and judgements could lead us to feel unhappy and worried. The worry monster is a great way to help kids work through their unhelpful thoughts in a way that makes sense to their brains.
Rachel Simons, MSW, LMSW
Rachel Simons, MSW, LMSW
Child & Teen Therapist, Play Therapist in Training and Parent Coach
I’ve really enjoyed doing a Lose Your Bruise activity with kids. I make a slight modification by letting the kids create their own shields using craft materials. After some psychoeducation on self-talk, I have the kids identify an example of unhelpful self-talk they’ve experienced.
The next step is for them to develop "shield" language they can use to counter these negative thoughts. They write the language on the shield and decorate it however they like! When the session is coming to an end, I encourage clients to leave the shields somewhere that they might need encouragement (like next to their beds or where they do homework) and to practice using the phrases at home or at school too! I often ask if I can make a copy of their shield before they take it home so we can refer to it as needed in the future.
Interested in working with our team of anxiety therapists?
If you are curious to learn more and would like to work with one of our experts, you can reach out today. You can schedule a free phone consultation to find out more about Compassionate Counseling St. Louis and get your child scheduled right away!
Curious to learn more about anxiety and anxiety-driven anger? Wondering if CBT at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis could be a good fit for you or your child? Reach out to us at hello@compassionatecounselingstl.com. As child anxiety experts, we love working with kids, teens, college students and parents to help manage their anxiety, stress, and anger. Compassionate Counseling St. Louis is located in Clayton, MO and works with families by offering both in-person counseling and online therapy throughout St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Ladue, University City, Town and Country, Webster Groves, Creve Couer, Kirkwood, Richmond Heights, and Brentwood. We also provide online therapy Missouri -wide to teens and college students. You can set up your first free consult on this website, on our consultation page.