The Imagine Neighborhood: This new podcast for families is designed to help children and grown-ups practice their social-emotional skills. Each episode tells a story.
Captain Compassion®: Here, children can find games, comics, and activities they can do on their own, or with their families, to learn about how they can help stop bullying.
Little Children, Big Challenges: Committee for Children and Sesame Street have partnered to create a collection of resources for young children facing significant challenges. These materials are aimed at building children’s resilience.
ParenTeen Connect: For families with older children, this resource provides an online experience they can share together. It’s loaded with videos, resources, and useful advice to help teens and the adults in their lives address hot-button topics.
Have Questions about any of the above programs/sites? Contact Committee for Children anytime via email at support@secondstep.org, or call Monday through Friday, 6:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Pacific time, at 800-634-4449, ext. 1.
Reducing “What If?” Anxiety: Make and fill in a chart in the following sequence – Worst Case Scenario, Best Case Scenario, Most Likely to Happen – Getting anxious feelings out and written on paper helps to diffuse some of the anxiety. Starting out with the extremes and ending with what is most likely to happen helps to identify extreme thinking and become more rational in self-talk. Once completed, have your child keep it, not necessarily in view, but someplace accessible, to be used as a reminder when negative self-talk and thinking errors kick in
Gratitude: Write a letter to someone and express why you are thankful for them; Every day come up with three things you are grateful for; Make a collage of pictures representing what you are grateful for
The ABCs of Gratitude: In a seated position, with eyes closed, make your way through the alphabet, beginning with the letter “A.” Think of something you are grateful for that begins with each letter of the alphabet. See if you can make it all the way to “Z” with a light and grateful heart.
Positive Affirmations: Come up with positive personal affirmations/mottos you can read to yourself every day
Volunteer: Pick up trash; Write letters to those in quarantine; Complete an errand for an elderly neighbor; Bake cookies/Make food for elderly or sickly neighbors; Garden
Mindfulness Activities: Journaling; Lying outside in nature and writing down what you notice with all five senses; Imagining a peaceful place and thinking about the place in terms of all five senses
Mindfulness Apps: Calm; Headspace; Smiling Mind; Super Stretch Yoga; Breathing Bubbles; Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame Street
Mind Yeti®: Fifteen mindfulness program sessions are now available for anyone to use; Designed for families to do alongside children, or for older children to do on their own
Children’s Books Read Aloud features a number of books about self-regulation, feelings, and expected behaviors, including: Today I Feel Silly (& Other Moods That Make My Day), My Many Colored Days, What If Everybody Did That?, The Most Magnificent Thing, The Invisible Boy, The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes, Wemberly Worried, Breathing Relaxes Kids, Crabby Pants, No, David!, Do Unto Otters, Scaredy Squirrel, Enemy Pie, I Was So Mad, etc.
