Fun Ways to Practice Skills at Home!

PHOTO BY KATE GLICKSBERG

Erica Sava, LMSW, a DBT child specialist at BHBA, shares these great strategies to help your child with distress tolerance! Practice these strategies with your child as often as you can (age-dependent). Think of practice like a fire drill to prepare for a real emergency. Role-play and pretend play the likely triggers as much as possible, always ending with modeling distress tolerance skills as well as fully relaxing the body. As always, reward your child with warmth, attention, and praise when they do this!! They are working hard, especially when their emotions are high! Erica recommends:

• Creating A Comfort Box:
  Create a box with your child and fill it with their most comforting items to increase the use of the distress tolerance skills of self-soothing with 5 senses. Show enthusiasm for how soothing each item is and model how they would use it by focusing on the senses that are engaged. Consider all five senses and pick multiple items. If your child gets a lot of comfort from, say petting a pet, then place a picture of the pet in the box with a note reminding your child to go pet the animal. It is very challenging for us all to remember to self-soothe when upset, so remind your child often to engage with their soothing items often so that they become attuned to the feelings of comfort and how to attain it. Common items: cozy blanket, sentimental pictures or mementos, slime, fidget toys, stuffed animals, pictures of family members, pets, vacation, candy, lotion, or cards/ games. 

• Encouraging / Positive Self-Talk Projects:
  Create something that provides encouraging words and also boosts self-esteem! Write encouraging statements "I've got what it takes to cope with my emotions!" or "I can cope with any stressor that I face now and in the future!," in order to boost inner strength and grit. Encouragement is an essential DBT distress tolerance skill. They can also write things about themselves and what they are good at on homemade hearts and place them in a jar or bag. When they are feeling incapable, worried, or sad, they can read their own words to boost themselves up. For children who like to craft or draw, use a pillowcase to decorate with their hearts. Get creative!

• Staycation:
  Have a vacation at home by gathering items that put you in a vacation mindset. Go to the beach! Gather beach towels, sunglasses, an umbrella, beach balls, a frisbee, sounds of waves or seagulls, and lemonade with an umbrella straw. Again, creativity is key! Not only will this help increase the use of the distress tolerance skill of ‘take a vacation’ by stepping away from stressors, it will also help increase imagery skill and accumulate positive emotions. 

• Contributing Cards:
  Contributing to others’ happiness and well-being can help increase our own happiness. This is an often overlooked and very powerful distress tolerance skill. When your child is sad or worried, have them write cards, send pictures, or other creative projects to family members or friends. If your child does not want to make something, they can also bring food to someone’s house, call them on the phone, or donate their own savings to charity. This also provides an opportunity to praise your child for being thoughtful or generous.