Tag: social and emotional health

Reframe It!™: A Game for Parents Looking to Solve Behavior Problems

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Reframe It!™ game reduces anxiety and boosts social emotional mental health!

Reframing is a social-emotional mental health tool or strategy that helps to understand the function of human behavior. The American Psychology Association defines reframing as “a process of reconceptualizing a problem by seeing it from a different perspective.” This, then, creates possibilities for parents and others to solve child problem behaviors. Reframing shows how to foresee behavior and bypass it while building empathy and reducing anxiety.

As a parent, I loved learning about reframing. It showed me ways to try to get to the source of my child’s behavior problems. I was able to predict what might happen and diffuse their triggers.  It also helped me improve relationships with family members and friends. Reframing showed me how by to see behaviors from another’s perspective.  I enjoyed learning and teaching reframing so much that I developed “Reframe It!™,”* a game that teaches reframing. It shows a way to see why children or adults behave the way they do. The games also helps to build compassion for others and ourselves.

Reframe It!™ is a fun game!

“Reframe It!™” is a game for parents and others who are parenting to help them understand child behavior and behavior problems. The game can also help parents understand their own behavior, building self-compassion.  With reframing, we gain an understanding of “the function of behavior,” or why people – children and adults – do what they do.

An aws Studios.art cartoon illustration showing a bunch of celery reframing two onions with behavior problems

Reframe It!™ offers players:

  • A chance to think about ways to modify their reactions to challenging or problem behaviors
  • Ways to predict difficult behaviors and then
  • Make changes to the environment or situation to bypass potential problems.
  • For example:

A parent learns that sibling conflicts often arise from children seeking attention or they are bored or jealous. The parent sees the connection and plans ahead to give each child positive attention regularly. Or they change the environment by helping the child engage in a personally stimulating activity.

Reframe It!™ objectives include helping parents:

  • Learn about reframing.
  • Learn how to reframe behaviors to understand the function of behavior.
  • Begin a practice of reframing to help plan for and modify behavior/reactions and the environment.
  • Build empathy.
  • Build an understanding of personal behavior and “why we do what we do.”
  • Enter into discussions about behavior, stress, family roles, tasks, conflict or anger management, etc.
  • Increase comfort in communicating with each other.
  • Improve parent-child communication.

More about reframing here, here and here!

Click here to purchase Reframe It!, a downloadable pdf for $12.00

* Reframe It!™ is a trademark of aws Studios and was developed using the child and parent behavior reframes in Intervening with troubled families: Functional family therapy and Parenting Wisely. D.A. Gordon, author. 2003.

Picture Book Boosts Disabled Children’s Mental Health

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From art to mental health and back

When I first started this blog, I mainly wrote about my art – how I made it and why. Then, as I tried to find a publisher for my picture book Adventures with phearnik!™, I learned the importance of building a platform to help launch my books and curricula into the market. That’s when I started to post more about how most of my work is about boosting mental health skills. Today’s post has a little of both –art and mental health skills.

Most of my picture books so far, I wrote for my granddaughter, Fia.  One Christmas, I made her a pillow out of a coat that had been her great-grandmother’s, my mother, Lucy. I wrote Lucy’s Pocket to tell the coat story and how it became a pillow. The following year Fia wanted a rag doll like the one I had made for myself. I made her a matching doll and wrote Adventures with phearnik!™ to explain the meaning of the doll and gave it to her for her birthday. The book giving is now a tradition where I try to make one a year for her birthday.

JP character sketch for a book about children with disabilities

Picture books in the making

This year I had two book ideas – one a pastiche of the book Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey (more about this later) and a book about her Uncle Peyton. She doesn’t see him often, so I wanted to tell her more about why he drives a power wheelchair and how he’s a power soccer athlete.

When I started writing about “Uncle Peyton,” I couldn’t stop! I wrote pages and pages – many more words than a picture book. So, I thought I had started a chapter book. But after getting feedback from my critique group, I got the manuscript back to picture book size. This week, I sent the “Uncle Peyton” story, JP Wants to Play Sports, out to a publisher looking for stories about disability, diversity, and inclusion!

JP Wants… is a somewhat fictionalized story of how Peyton (“JP” in the story) looks for sports to play as a power wheelchair user. I hope the book is published so that non-disabled children like Fia learn about their disabled peers and see how, in many ways, they share the same desires. Plus, the book provides a way for disabled children to see characters like themselves in picture books, an essential mental health booster for their social and emotional health!

New character sketch

I submitted the manuscript without illustrations but told the publisher that, if interested, I would be happy to do the pictures. I did do a character sketch of JP, though. I like how it came out. I think he looks a lot like the young Peyton – happy, confident, and full of life!

So, fingers crossed that I get a positive response from the publisher. In the meantime, I’m working on the illustrations for the pastiche (I’ll tell you more about that later)!

If you know a publisher who is looking for picture books about children with disabilities, contact me here!

This is a picture of the cover of the children's picture book "Lucy's Pocket." A great book to help celebrate Grandparents' Day.

Debut of “Lucy’s Pocket”, a new picture book!

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  • “Lucy’s Pocket” © 2020
  • Excerpt from “Lucy’s Pocket”
  • Page from “Lucy’s Pocket”

Can a great-grandmother’s warm, furry coat transform into a fantastic surprise for an unsuspecting granddaughter?

Great grandmother Lucy had a very special coat.  And, like “The Giving Tree”, the unassuming coat obtained 80 years ago (with a secret spot to hold special memories), still to this day, keeps on giving.

From social and emotional health curriculum developer honoree Alis Wintle Sefick, “Lucy’s Pocket” is an endearing story about a treasured family heirloom – a special coat – that travels through the generations into the future and heart of its youngest family member. 

“Lucy’s Pocket” is a “book and plushie” package.  It is a 8 x 8 inch, comfortable to hold, spiral bound, “touch and feel” picture book for children ages 3 – 5.  Using bold and simple, black and white clip-art illustrations, the tastefully designed book maintains an easy page-turning cadence that keeps children – and adults – coming back to the story again and again.  The plushie “surprise” is a replica of the coat’s transformation (but we’re not giving the surprise away here)!

Sure to delight readers and plushie lovers young and old, the “Lucy’s Pocket” package is a perfect anecdote for anyone needing a little warm and fuzzy grand-mothering.  These days, who doesn’t need a little bit of that now and then!

If you are a picture book agent interested in seeing more of “Lucy’s Pocket” or if you are interested in purchasing a copy of the book or book package, contact me here .