12 COPING SKILLS TO HELP KIDS

DEAL WITH STRESS

Calming Coping Skills
1 || Take Deep Breaths and Make it Playful
Taking deep breaths can actually have a physiological effect on the body.
When you’re stressed, your body goes into fight, flight or freeze mode and
your breathing automatically gets more shallow. To trick your body into
getting back to a more restful state, take deep breaths. To make it a little more
fun for kids, you can use bubbles, a feather or a stuffed animal.

2 || Use Your Imagination

Talk with your child about their favorite place. Have them think about what
they hear, see, smell and feel when they are there. When they’re having a
tough time, they can take a mini vacation wherever they are just by closing
their eyes and thinking of their favorite place.

3 || Take a Drink of Water

Sometimes the sensation of having a drink of water, especially a cold one,
enter their body can help a child reset, take a quick break or energize them to
move forward with the day.  Try a water bottle or straw so the child has to
suck against resistance to get a drink.  This resistive sucking is a great oral
sensory strategy for calming.

Distracting Coping Skills

4 || Laugh and be silly
Laughter and silliness can reduce stress. When kids are in a cranky mood,
sometimes reading a funny book will make them laugh and relax a bit more.
What makes your child laugh? Joke books? Silly dance parties? Funny videos?

5 || Play a board game

There are so many fun and entertaining games out there. Arrange a play time
with a friend of theirs and invite them to bring their favorite board games.

6 || Do a word find puzzle

When kids focus on solving the puzzle, their brains will be less focused on the
stressful situation. Does your child dislike word puzzles? Pick something else
they might enjoy, like sudoku or a hidden pictures puzzle.

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12 COPING SKILLS TO HELP KIDS DEAL WITH STRESS
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Physical Coping Skills
7 || Play at a playground
When you are feeling stressed, your body gets a ton of extra energy. To
release it, the best thing to do is to move. Visit a playground and encourage
your child to run, climb and play with other kids.

8 || Keep your hands busy

Find an item that your child enjoys holding or playing with and keep it
nearby.
Some ideas for fidget toys include:
-Small stones -Cards to shuffle
-Tangle Therapy fidgets -Jacob's Ladder
–Small shells -Baby Bumble Bee

9 || Go for a walk

By simply taking a walk together, you and your child can take a break. Being
outside in nature can be calming and relaxing for everyone.

Processing Coping Skills

10 || Talk about what’s happening
A great way to get a snapshot of a child’s day is to ask about their “roses” –
happy and positive things that happened and their “thorns” – tough or
negative things that happened at school. This can give you a good
understanding of what’s happening in their life day to day.

11 || Understanding Triggers for Stress

There are certain things that might make your child feel more frustrated and
stressed. It could be a class presentation, small group work, or certain
classes. Once you know what those triggers are, you can make a menu of
strategies for your child to use to manage that stress.

12 || Where do they feel things in their body?

When kids have big feelings, their body can give them clues about it. Once
they are able to recognize those clues, they can start to use the appropriate
coping skill to deal with that stress. For example, have them think about the
last time they felt worried and ask the following questions:
-How did their neck and head feel?
-How about their face? Their arms and hands? Their bellies?
-How did it make their legs and feet feel? THEINSPIREDTREEHOUSE.COM
 CREATIVE ACCOMMODATIONS FOR
WRITTEN EXPRESSION
1 || Fill-in-the-blank format Provide journal pages that have prompt sentences pre-printed
on the page with words for the child to fill in.For note-taking, provide pre-printed notes
with blanks for kids to fill in key words.

2 || Highlighted lines Highlighted writing lines can provide a visual prompt to encourage
better alignment and sizing.

3 || Boxes and lines Open writing spaces can be very difficult for struggling writers.  Add
boxes or writing lines to open spaces to give a visual structure to the task.

4 || Visual and tactile guides Cut a window out of a plastic folder that is the appropriate
size for shorter written responses on worksheets or tests (e.g. spelling tests).  Have kids
place the window on top of the blanks on the paper, writing inside the cutout.  This can
help with sizing and alignment.  Wikki stix can also be used to create raised boxes and lines
on paper.

5 || Adaptive paper Use paper with raised lines, highlighted lines, shaded lines, or boxes to

provide a visual cue for spacing, sizing, and alignment.  This can require some problem-
solving to figure out which type of paper works for each child.

6 || Graph paper
Use graph paper or paper with larger boxes to help kids organize and line up math
problems.  Kids can also use graph paper to help provide a structure for writing letters,
words, and sentences.

7 || Voice recorder For older kids, using a voice memo recorder on a tablet or smartphone
can be a good strategy to replace taking notes or as a supplement to note-taking.

8 || Close model Providing a nearpoint model of the information being presented can be a
good strategy for kids who need to copy rather than writing on their own.  This can be a full
version of the information or an abbreviated version.

9 || Dictating Many kids will need to dictate their responses to be written by someone else.
 They may then be able to copy the responses onto their paper.

10 || Self-editing Providing a written self-editing list can be helpful for some kids to be
able to go back and check their sizing, spacing, alignment, overall legibility, and
punctuation.

11 || Word bank Providing a word or phrase bank can help kids narrow down the correct
response to a question on their paper and gives them a model to copy from.

12 || Adjust time and volume of writing Many kids benefit from increased time to complete
written expression activities and/or decreased expectations for how much they need to
write.
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 CREATIVE ACCOMMODATIONS FOR
WRITTEN EXPRESSION
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13 || Highlighting notes Rather than taking notes, provide kids with a pre-printed version of
the notes and a highlighter so they can highlight the information as it’s being presented.

14 || Cooperative writing Kids can team up on writing assignments so each does the work
for a different part of the assignment (outlining/brainstorming, writing,
proofreading/editing).

15 || Make it hands-on So many kids struggle with pencil/paper tasks and can benefit from
assignments that are adapted for a more hands-on approach.  Instead of a word bank, try
placing small stickers or pieces of masking tape with the words written on them on the
child’s desk.  He can then peel them off to place them in the correct spaces on the page.

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 KIDS MOVEMENT ACTIVITIES USING TAPE
Cross Crawls
Place a piece of tape on a child’s right hand and a piece of tape on a child’s
left knee.  Encourage her to touch the taped hand to the taped knee and
then repeat on the opposite, “no tape” side.  Bonus: if you have two different
colors of tape, mark the opposite hand and leg with another color!

Make a Floor Ladder

No need to buy an expensive agility ladder that trainers use! Grab a roll of
tape and stick some connected squares on the floor for a quick movement
challenge that kids will love! 

Jumping
How far can you jump?  Challenge kids to start behind one line of tape and
then jump as far as they can to put their own mark on the floor.  Or, put an “X”
on the floor as a starting point and have kids jump to targets all around them
to practice agility, body awareness, motor planning, and balance.

Balance Practice
Use tape to create a balance beam or get creative and make a shape like a
tree or a flower to balance on!

Toss and Catch

Hand-eye coordination gets a workout in a simple game of toss and catch
with a roll of tape!  Plus, it’s so much more entertaining than a ball!

Target Practice
Place bits of tape at varying heights along a wall and have kids jump, squat
or reach on their tiptoes to touch the different colors.  

Body Awareness
Kids love this game! Call out body parts and have kids use their fingers to rip
off a tiny piece of tape to mark their nose, ear, knee, etc.

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