Deal with Worries and Feelings

Often, the best thing is to talk to a trusted adult if you're feeling upset, worried, scared or stressed. This could be a family member or someone at school.

If there's no one you can talk to, remember you can call Childline on 0800 1111. 

Below are some other activities you can do to help you think about your feelings.

Write a list of all the things that made you happy today. They can be very tiny or very big!

Put your worry in the waiting room! Sometimes worries can keep coming into our heads when we don't want them to. This can be really annoying and tiring! One way to help is to imagine putting your worry in a 'waiting room' and making an appointment to 'listen' to it later on.

Decide on a time, place and length of time that you will 'listen' to your worry (for example, after dinner in my bedroom for 15 minutes). You can even write the appointment down if you want to! Then focus on the activities of your day - do something enjoyable or a mindfulness activity to help you ignore your worry until appointment time.

When it's time to 'listen' to your worry, ask yourself: Does this worry still seem so big? Is it still bothering me?

If it is, it could help to write your worry down or draw a picture to represent it or talk it through with a family member or friend. Remember that you are only 'listening' to the worry for the planned amount of time and then you can put it back in the 'waiting room' until the next day. 

If your worries won't go away, remember to ask an adult for help.

Make a worry eater!

To make your very own worry eater you will need:

• An empty tissue box
• Googly eyes, but you can also make your own eyes from white paper.
• Glue
• Bits of paper for teeth
• Poster paint (any colour)

How to make your worry eater:

1. Paint your empty tissue box and leave it to dry.

2. Once your box is dry, stick on as many eyes as you would like.

3. Cut some triangular shapes for teeth. Stick them around the edges of the opening on the front side of the box.

Your worry monster is now ready to be used.

How to use your worry eater:

Write or draw pictures of things that you feel worried about and put them into your worry eater’s mouth.  The worry eater will look after you worries, so you don’t have to.

If your feelings were monsters, what would they look like? Draw each feeling as a monster: anger, sadness, joy, worry, excitement, jealousy...

Look at theses llamas. Which one do you feel like now? Which one would you like to feel like? Try doing some mindfulness or wellbeing activities to make yourself feel better.

Which of these blob people do you feel like today? If you don't feel great today, try doing some mindfulness or wellbeing activities.

Below are some more activities you can do to help you explore and manage your feelings.