DAY 2: MAKING
FEELINGS OF THE LOSS VISIBLE AND EXPERIENCING THEM IN ORDER TO HEAL THEM
In advance:
Copy the emotional person (see
example below)
Copy masks (see example below) and prepare elastic bands and
a hole punch.
Copy a mandala for home to colour in. (kindermandala’s,
see also examples at the bottom of this chapter)
Tear jar: buy some small glass round or teardrop-shaped
beads, stones, different in shape and colour, and put them in a jar.
Shell Have some (different) shells at hand.
________________________________________________________
From worry tree to tree of life
How about your worries? Are they still hanging in the right place? Can the worries come out already, or do new worries need to be added? ……………………
Is there anything else you
would like to be answered?
(from your mother, from your father, or from other
people?
Then make a list together with all the questions you can
think of .........................
It is important that the children get answers to all
their questions;
There is not always an answer to all questions.
…………………………
Feelings are just there. We all have them. They come and
go.
Children often don't have words for them yet. By making feelings
visible, you can "play" with them.
Grief task 3 = WORKING WITH
FEELINGS: MAKING FEELINGS OF LOSS VISIBLE AND EXPERIENCING THEM IN ORDER TO
HEAL THEM
Inside
- outside
Recognizing the grief - living through / feeling the pain
Show the SHELL
Shells have an inside and an outside, just take a look. The inside can be surprisingly different from the outside. Can you see the difference?
What do you look like on the
outside? And how do you feel on the inside? Sometimes you look very different
on the outside than you feel on the inside……..
Sometimes you have a feeling
inside that you immediately know a word for. For example, you know that this
feeling is called sadness. However, it often happens that you don't have a word
for it at all.
Then you only know that there is a feeling somewhere
inside. In your stomach, in your throat or in your head. Sometimes you can see
from the outside of someone how he or she feels. For example, when someone is
shouting or kicking something really hard. Then you can see and hear that
someone is angry.
There can also be tears visible on the outside of
someone. Then that person could be sad or in pain, but he could also have tears
of laughter. Often you cannot see from the outside of someone what feelings are
inside. Then you are angry on the inside or you have tears of sadness on the
inside. Then you are crying "on the inside" as a little boy once
said.
Turn the hand puppet Longear the rabbit inside out and
give it to the child to look at.
READ ALONG: about the feelings of the rabbit that turns itself
inside out.
(The following story by Toon Tellegen is about
feelings. When you have read the story aloud, you can let children tell you
what they feel inside. They can also draw or write about it.)
The rabbit was so curious about what he
actually felt inside, somewhere inside himself, that he turned himself inside
out to find out.
They were in the middle of the forest, a
bit later in the day. The blackbird had just woken up from an afternoon nap and
didn't really know whether he was still dreaming, and the sparrow almost fell
out of the sky in surprise, because there, in the wet grass, in the warm sun,
with much panting and puffing, the rabbit pushed his insides out, while his
outsides disappeared inwards. The blackbird flew to the grass and a little
later the cricket also emerged from the bushes, where he had been looking for
food.
"How is this possible?" said
the cricket. "Hello!"
Suddenly they heard a voice very softly
from inside, from the inside-out rabbit.
"Is that you rabbit?" asked
the cricket. "Yes" said the voice.
"What are you doing there?"
"Can you see my feelings?"
"Your feelings?" "Yes, you know what feelings are...? It must be
in there somewhere". "Do you see anything?" asked the cricket to
the blackbird. "No", said the blackbird. "What should I look
for?"
"And my thoughts?" asked the
muffled voice. Again the cricket and the blackbird looked at the inside-out
rabbit, shrugged their shoulders and said: "No". "Oh", said
the voice. "What do you see then?" "Yes", said the cricket.
"How can I say that. It doesn't look like anything".
"But maybe that's my feeling!"
said the voice. "It looks strange", said the blackbird. "You
can't eat like that, rabbit" said the cricket. I don't see your mouth
anywhere." "That's right," said the voice. "My mouth is
here." "Aren't you hungry?" asked the cricket.
There was a moment of silence. Then the
voice said: "That's a feeling, isn't it? I don't know. Look." The
cricket and the blackbird examined the inside of the rabbit again carefully and
the cricket thought he could see that the rabbit was hungry.
"Yes, you're hungry," he said.
"Oh," said the voice. "What now?" "I think ……,"
said the cricket, "that you should turn your outside in, rabbit. There is
no other way". "I think so too", said the blackbird. Rabbit
asked again if they saw his feelings and also certain thoughts that he
sometimes had against his will. But they saw nothing. Then the rabbit turned
himself inside out again with a lot of creaking and noise. The cricket and the
blackbird helped him pull and push.
"And yet", said the rabbit,
when he was standing in the grass again, his insides inside and his outsides
outside, "you should have seen my feelings. Because now it is here
again." He tapped his belly. "Here".
The blackbird greeted the other two and
flew away, while the cricket took the rabbit to a mysterious place under the
oak tree where there was a jar of soft honey, which the cricket had hidden
there for a very special occasion.
"Strange, isn't it, cricket",
said the rabbit, as he took a big bite. The cricket nodded.
"I think my feelings are red",
said the rabbit, "light red. I think so. But I would like to know for
sure. Too bad you couldn't find it."
The cricket nodded and took some more
honey.
Coloring the human body - inside
Emotional person - Where is your feeling?
Coloring the human body - inside
When you have physical complaints, such as pain in
your stomach or your head, you cry inside. If the doctor can't find anything,
and you still have pain, then you have emotional pain.
Sometimes you can see feelings on your face. Often,
however, feelings are deeper inside.
Do you know where your feelings SADNESS, ANGRY,
AFRAID, PAIN, HAPPY are located?
(On day three, turn the drawing over and ask: when are
you sad, scared, angry, do you have a stomach ache, worries on your mind or are
you HAPPY?)
Feelings of
..................................................
EVERY FEELING HAS ITS OWN COLOR
1. WHAT COLOR DOES YOUR HAVE?
HAPPY
AFRAID
ANGRY
SADNESS
PAIN
.............................
(let the child come up with:
..................
e.g. lonely, abandoned?)
2. WHERE ARE THESE FEELINGS WITHIN YOU,
(colour it in)
At school - Thinking of solutions for that together!
And if you happen to get a difficult feeling at school,
and you can't ask anyone at that moment, how would you solve it? ……………………………..
For example: massaging the pain in your stomach or
head, just sitting quietly for a while, taking one or two deep breaths, stop working,
telling the teacher, leaving the classroom for a while, for example to go to
the toilet and drink some water, go and draw.
Tears jar: I cry a jar of tears –
SADNESS
READING ALONG: poem
A bucket full of tears
When someone leaves you
who you love very much,
your sadness
seems like a bucket full of tears
that all have to be cried.
Only when that has happened,
can your sadness be borne.
Therefore:
don't be ashamed of your tears,
don't hold them in,
just let them come,
it gives you air,
the bucket becomes emptier,
there is more space again.
For some the bucket is empty quickly
for others it takes longer,
because everyone cries in their own
time.
But don't close the jar off
with a lid of courage or shame
or fear of people,
because then you have to carry it
and it becomes heavier and heavier.
So let your tears flow freely,
even in tears there is comfort:
they carry drop by drop
your sorrow outside.
Sometimes you have tears on the inside. Sometimes you
have tears on the outside. Sometimes your mouth laughs and your belly cries.
There are many types of tears. Crying is a relief, afterwards you feel better
again.
For example: I feel so lonely tear, I miss you so much
tear, I don't think it's fair tear, I don't know how I feel tear, I miss daddy
tear, I have a pain in my stomach tear, I miss mommy tear, I can't sleep tear,
I never want to forget you tear, a bad dream tear, I want to talk but I don't
know how tear, why you tear, I'm worried tear, I feel lonely and alone tear.
Do you want to have a tear too, or
more!?
What types of tears do you have
………………..?
(also from happiness? Sometimes you have
to laugh really hard when you are happy)
(children grieve in pieces, in a moment they are sad,
and then they play and are happy. Emphasize that children are also allowed to
play and be happy, and don't have to be sad all day.)
If you are sad and want to be comforted, you certainly
can ask someone. Your father, or a friend, or your aunt, or your grandma or
grandpa of course, or the teacher at school.
And then tell them what helps you. For example, a
kiss, a hug, or an arm around you.
I feel miserable. What helps?
What are your tips? . . . . . . . . . . . . (let children come up with
their own)
0 Crying is a relief.
0 Talk to mom or dad, grandpa or grandma, the teacher
about it.
0 Call mom or dad on their mobile to hear their voice.
0 Watch a video/television.
0 Play a (computer) game.
0 Talk to your cuddly animal. Your cuddly animal won't
tell anyone else anyway.
0 Tell your dog/cat/hamster/doll what you're thinking.
Tell your secrets.
0 Write down what you're feeling in a notebook.
0 Write a note to your father or mother
0 Take a walk or cycle outside.
0 Play outside with friends.
0 Sing a song or dance to music.
0 Going to the Fantasy World, where everything is
possible, where you can do magic.
CRAFTING:
Making a feeling mask (colouring/drawing/decorating, see below)
Every person has an inside and an outside. When
someone feels good, it can sometimes be seen on their face. With other feelings
such as sadness and anger, it is also possible to see that on the outside of
someone.
Sometimes people choose not to show the feeling they
have inside on the outside.
They then put on a mask, as it were.
Today we are going to make a mask.
Name a number of feelings (let the children also come up with their own)..............
(angry, fear, sadness, pain, happy, lonely, guilty,
jealous, confused, not feeling like doing anything, etc.)
What does your inside look like? What does it look like on the outside.
You can colour the mask, but also draw on it how you
feel.
It can be very protective if you put on a mask.
MUSIC: play music with the songs about saying goodbye.
Show the (mussel) shell again,
mother-of-pearl on the inside, black on the outside, or other shells. They all
have a different inside than the outside.
Use a hole punch to make holes on the left and right
in the mask; attach the elastic bands and let the children put on their masks.
Arguing
Sometimes dad blames mom for their divorce. Sometimes
mom blames dad for their breakup. Then they can say nasty things to each other
in your presence. In the end you don't know what to believe anymore.
It also happens that other children or grown ups say
nasty things about your father or
mother.
It sometimes helps if you tell dad or mom or those others
that it gives you a really bad feeling that they say nasty things. And then you
sure can ask them to stop doing that!
If sadness is ignored, it can be turned into anger.
IT MAY BE THAT YOU ARE SAD ABOUT
EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS.
THAT IS LOGICAL AND NOT WEIRD AT ALL!
What can you do at school when you are
feeling sad but don’t want to talk about it?
Sometimes it can help if you agree on a gesture. For
example, raising your hand, placing something on your table. The teacher can
then comfort you for a while.
Or you can leave the classroom for a moment, for
example to go to the toilet. Or wash your hands.
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Memory
notebook
Teachers: You can place a
(memory) notebook in the classroom or at home, where a child can write some lines if they need to. Something that was an important event for that child the previous
day, or during lunch.
Once that thought is out of
their head, the child can concentrate better on the things that need to be done
at school.
This is the end of day 2.
Give the mask.
For at home:
Colouring mandalas can
help you heal yourself. You will notice that it calms you down.
This can help you make
yourself a little better.
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