There are now 5.3 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s. Many diagnosed with the disease are grandparents. Families are faced with an emotional trauma when they are dealing with a loved one with the disease, because of the deteriorating changes in memory, thinking, and behavior. Recently, there has been attention to supporting caregivers, such as spouses or grown children. This is clearly a step forward in the treatment of the disease, which does not just affect the patient, but entire families as well.

Grandchildren need attention too. After all, these youngsters may be losing someone they could always count on to play games, discuss sports, celebrate birthdays, bake cookies, or listen attentively about school achievements. For many children, this may be their first experience with loss, and it is being played out slowly over time. What is also upsetting for young people is that the family is dealing with stress and the child’s parent might not be as readily available. During this time, kids often worry about their own parents as well as other family members. Some youngsters may experience this as a childhood trauma and have trouble adjusting to their day-to-day routines.

You may want to find resources to get your child help with feelings of sadness, worry, and fear, all understandable reactions when a grandparent is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. There is a new approach to teaching children skills to deal with these tough situations. The Build Up Your Resilience Tool Kit for Kids™ strengthen kids in difficult times by teaching 20 powerful resilience skills. Children and teens in grades K-12 learn thinking and behavior strategies to cope with change and loss, deal with worries about grown-ups, and stay connected with others. These are only a few of the resilience tools in the Tool Kit, which come in two editions, one for children 5 to 11, and the other for young people ages 11 to 18. Losing a grandparent to Alzheimer’s is difficult. Resilience tools can help grandchildren with this profound loss.

Bookmark to:

Children worry about real and imagined dangers, and anxiety in children is at an all time high. The Outsmart Your Worry Tool Kit for Kids® includes elementary, middle and high school skills that help kids and teens worry less. The tool kits are comprehensive, containing anti anxiety activities and stress treatment strategies that are ideal for nervous children and kids.

Our Charge Up Your Confidence® Tool Kit teaches children skills to enhance child confidence for all kids in grades K-12. Confidence activities and self esteem activities for children include helping kids recognize their strengths, behave in confident ways, and deal with mistakes and criticism. Activities for children and teens emphasize ways kids’ self esteem can be protected from damage, and will help children’s self esteem grow.

The Build Up Your Resilience Tool Kit for Kids™ is designed for children and teens who are dealing with difficult situations, often involving trauma. The tools help young people heal after a big problem or tragedy, such as divorce or other family problems, illness and loss, death of a parent or other loved one, or environmental disasters and terrorism. Children and teens learn the most effective thinking and behavior coping strategies to bounce back after the worst of circumstances.

Developed by expert professional psychologists, each Tool Kit includes 20 powerful Cognitive and Behavior (CBT) tools that offer all kids, a fun, easy and effective way to learn emotional life skills. Whether in kindergarten or high school, our tools are exciting to use and kids will learn them quickly. They are great parenting resources too because parents can learn the right words to help their children. Visit toolkitsforkids.com often to stay up to date with interesting news & events , new products, special promotions and more!

Bookmark to:

Even though extreme violence is rare, violence in all schools is still cause for alarm and not just limited to inner-city schools. Every year in the United States, there are 3 million crimes on school grounds, 9,000 fires, and hundreds of thousands of students who are injured. Recent annual reports indicate that 1.5 million students ages 12 to 18 have been victims of non-fatal crimes, such as theft and fighting. In high school, 10% of all boys and 5% of all girls have been threatened with a weapon. Bullying and threats of violence happen at the following rates – 21% of all elementary school children, 43% of middle school youngsters, and 22% of high school students.

Despite the many efforts to prevent school violence and keep kids safe at school, these events still occur and leave many young people dealing with stress and emotional trauma. Direct victims of attack often feel depressed, angry, terrified, and sometimes ashamed. Young people who witness violence or hear about it at their school, often called secondary victims, also suffer. These youngsters report feelings of anxiety, worry, and insecurity.

There is a new and effective approach to helping teenagers and children cope with the childhood trauma of violence. Learning resilience skills is an essential way to empower children after a traumatic event, such as violence. The Build Up Your Resilience Tool Kit for Kids™ teaches skills to young people in grades K-12 who have been dealing with conflict and violence. Direct victims of violence as well as secondary victims of attacks can have flashbacks, bad dreams, and hopelessness about their future. The Build Up Your Resilience™ Tool Kit provides activities for children and teens to help them deal with these concerns in an accurate and hopeful manner. Also included are powerful strategies to manage intense feelings of sadness, anger, fear, and guilt, all understandable reactions to violent events.

The Build up Your Resilience Tool Kit for Kids™ comes in two editions. The High School/Middle School Edition is specifically designed to teach high school and middle skills, using language and concepts that young people can easily learn, understand, and remember. The Elementary School version teaches elementary school skills in a way that make sense to younger children, ages 5 to 11.

Bookmark to:

Every year, over one million more children in the United States will be dealing with stress as a result of divorce. At least 40% of all children will be part of a divorcing family before turning 18. Many parents are concerned about the short-term and long-term effects of divorce on their children. Overall, research shows many emotional, social, and academic problems in the early stages of divorce. There are mixed results about long-term effects regarding children and divorce. Research consistently indicates that high-stress divorces, dealing with conflict and frequent legal maneuverings result in a poor outcome for children.

A key factor in determining children’s favorable adjustment during and after divorce is resilience. Resilience helps young people bounce back from the worst of times. Resilient children accommodate to change and handle overwhelming feelings of grief, guilt, and anger. Fortunately, resilience skills can be learned.

There is a new and effective method for teaching resilience skills to children and teenagers. The Build Up Your Resilience Tool Kit for Kids™ helps young people in grades K-12 develop thinking and behaving skills to cope with the many changes and childhood trauma associated with divorce. Kids learn tools to manage feelings of over-responsibility, sadness, and anger – all very common reactions in divorce. There are also tools to help kids coping with divorce feel hopeful and confident about their future. Children who learn these resilience skills are able to manage the emotional difficulties of divorce and have fewer behavior problems than children who are not resilient.

The Build Up Your Resilience™ tool kit comes in two editions, one for elementary school children ages 5 to 11, and the other for high school and middle school teens, ages 11 to 18. Give your children skills, which will strengthen their resilience and help them adjust before, during, and after divorce.

Tool Kits for Kids LLC
www.toolkitsforkids.com

Bookmark to:

Mrs. Obama’s program involves four major “pillars”
• Educating parents about nutrition and exercise
• Improving the quality of food in schools
• Making healthy foods more affordable
• Focus on Physical Education

Tool Kits for Kits would like to add another dimension to this wonderful initiative on childhood obesity – Confidence. Many kids find it hard to say no to a second helping or to appealing junk foods It’s also hard to make exercise a part of everyday life when you don’t feel like doing it and when “screens” are so appealing. Confidence can help!

Building confidence and boosting self esteem in young people is an effective way to help them develop a positive identity and a healthy body image. Confident children feel good about themselves and are willing to try new things. Confident children and adolescents are able to say no to unhealthy food temptations and to hours spent sitting down watching TV or playing video games. When children feel good about themselves, they are better able to work towards the goals of healthy eating and healthy exercise.

The Build Up Your Confidence Tool Kit for Kids® helps young people develop the confidence they need to be successful at healthy eating and healthy exercise. Adding child confidence to the fight against childhood obesity will insure even greater levels of success.

Bookmark to:

It’s not uncommon to hear today’s kids say, I hate math. Yet, mathematical skills are viewed as central to the success of our next generation. It is well-known that the U.S. lags behind other nations in math, but did you know it ranks 32nd internationally in math scores?

Tough math exams, repetitive test preparation, complex math homework, and word problems can lead children and teens to exclaim, Math drives me crazy. If kids believe they stink at math, they may stop challenging themselves. Parents can help with these math concerns in three important ways. First, families can make rudimentary concepts of math fun and part of a child’s daily environment. Teach card games, especially those loaded with tracking numbers. Depending upon the child’s skill level, play complex board games, and have the child be the banker. Cook together and use recipes that call for measurements. If your child loves sports, encourage tracking sports stats.

Second, consult with your child’s teacher to determine which math skills need work. Perhaps the child needs extra help after class or requires individual tutoring. Math is a cumulative skill that requires lots of practice in order to make the fundamentals automatic. Tentative math students require encouragement, so praise your child’s efforts.

Third, your child or teen may also benefit from learning confidence skills to help them face math class. Lots of kids secretly believe that if they are lousy at math, they aren’t really smart. The Charge Up Your Confidence® Tool Kit for Kids™ is a new approach to teaching children skills to boost confidence and self-esteem. The confidence Tool Kit helps kids deal with mistakes, feelings of failure, criticism from others as well as self-criticism. They also learn to recognize their strengths and feel proud of their accomplishments. All of these skills are central when a youngster’s self-esteem has been hurt by poor math performance. The Charge Up Your Confidence® Tool Kit is designed for grades K-12, and comes in two editions, one for kids in elementary school and the other for young people in high school and middle school. Children may not become crazy about math overnight, but they may no longer say, Math drives me crazy. That’s a step in the right direction.

Bookmark to:

Parents can help kids with these weather worries. It’s a good idea to talk about sensible safety measures, such as staying inside until a storm blows over, and never standing under a tree during a thunderstorm. Inform them that the safest place to be in such storms is a strong building or a car, with all the windows rolled up. Discuss where flashlights and a portable radio are located inside the home, in case of a power outage.

For many children, helping them gather accurate information about storms is also a smart approach. FEMA For Kids posts lots of scientific information about weather. For instance, the average thunderstorms last 30 minutes and occur in every state. In fact, at any given time, there are 1,800 thunderstorms happening somewhere on earth. Accurate information helps kids realize that storms are commonplace, and do not last too long.

Another smart approach to help children deal with the What ifs of weather is learning powerful strategies to outsmart fear. The Outsmart Your Worry Tool Kit for Kids® teaches children skills to take charge of worry and anxiety. The Tool Kit contains activities for children and teens to block fear from growing, understand that many worries are highly unlikely, and practice accurate and confident coping thoughts. Kids and teens weather worries can quickly diminish, and they can then turn their attention to helping the dog during thunderstorms.

Bookmark to:

You may have seen the TV commercials from FEMA telling you to “Get A Kit, Make A Plan, Be Informed”. FEMA and the Red Cross stress the importance of an emergency supply kit for all families in case of a disaster. The tragic events in Haiti have definitely highlighted the importance of emergency preparedness, and emergency relief kits for us all. These very important kits include essentials for at least three days: food, water, flashlight, batteries, blankets, cell phone and other necessary supplies.

These vital supplies will meet the physical needs of your family, yet many parents wonder how they will meet the emotional needs of their children who have experienced the traumatic stress of a disaster. So many adults feel they are at a loss to help a child who has been through a traumatic event. And sometimes, the adult may have the same feelings, making it even more difficult to help the child.

What do you say to a child who asks, “Why did this happen?” “Will things ever be the same?” “Will we be OK?” It’s very common for traumatized children to become depressed, anxious, angry, immobilized or numb. How can you help your child find the resilience necessary to survive the physical and emotional trauma of a disaster? Fortunately, there is a new way to help children and teens who have experienced some of life’s greatest challenges.

The Build Up Your Resilience Tool Kit for Kids™ teaches twenty powerful resilience skills to help young people K-12, survive even the most tragic of events. Children learn how to accept and manage their feelings of sadness, guilt, and anger, maintain self-care and a daily routine, develop a long-term perspective, problem-solve, set new goals, and deal with bad dreams, flashbacks, and anxiety about the future. These are only a few of the many resilience skills they will learn to cope with shock, loss, and trauma.

Take care of the physical and emotional needs of your children and teenagers. When you make your emergency relief kit, be sure to throw in the Build Up Your Resilience Tool Kits for Kids. Give your children the stress treatment they need and help them be ready to meet any challenge.

Bookmark to:

It may be comforting for the child to share good memories of the cherished pet. Some children might like to draw pictures or write notes about the pet. Talking about how the child showed love and tenderness toward the pet can be especially healing.

Some children may not rebound after the loss of their pet. For these youngsters, the death represents a trauma. Sometimes, children re-play the traumatic event over and over in their minds, and for example, keep thinking about their pet being hit by a car or being put to sleep. Children also may suffer from bad dreams The Buld Up Your Resilience Tool Kit for Kids™ teaches effective coping strategies to handle big problems. Children can quickly learn tools to turn off the scariest and saddest of thoughts, and ways to deal with bad dreams. They learn how to think in accurate and comforting ways when dealing with change and loss. These are only a few of the twenty powerful tools contained in the Tool Kit, which teaches a comprehensive system of staying strong in the face of difficulty, and helps children know that in time they will be OK.

Bookmark to:

These are very difficult questions for parents, and often, no matter how reassuring a parent can be, kids and teens worry. Find calm and solid ways to deal these questions and your child’s anxiety in the Outsmart Your Worry Tool Kit for Kids®. Tools such as “Power Talk”, “Let It Go”, and “Can You Prove It?” are a few of the many tools which build an effective stress treatment to help children manage their anxiety about earthquakes and other very scary things.

Bookmark to: