How a Glitter Jar Creates Calm​

I came across this article in the New York Times on helping adolescents deal with emotional ups and downs (worth a read) and remembered how fantastic a glitter jar is, both literally and figuratively. 

A glitter jar is filled with glitter, glue, and water. Here's a quick YouTube tutorial on how to make one.

On the crafty side, it's fun and easy to make with your kids, and you can even use biodegradable glitter. Besides being lovely to look at, a glitter jar can be an excellent tool to help children calm themselves when they are in the middle of an emotional storm.

Shaking the jar and watching the glitter swirl and settle provides a great metaphor for how emotions can feel inside us. Having a visual to focus on that encourages calm can be a helpful addition to the usual tools of taking deep breaths or counting to ten.

Eventually, they may even internalize what it's like to watch the glitter jar and then only need to visualize the jar to help them calm down when they are feeling stormy. 

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

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