Cool Trick to Calm Temper Tantrums

Here is a quick tip I wanted to share with you about helping to calm fussy, over-active kids. About 15 years ago, I worked at a school catering to behavioral and exceptional children. Many of them had autism and severe behavioral problems. Besides the challenges, they were the most amazing kids to work with. I think working there was the reason I've developed so much patience and understanding for children...especially now that I have my own...

At the school, whenever a student would get frustrated or out of control, he or she would be taken to an area to sit with another teacher or therapist. The teacher/therapist would try and calm them down using similar items shown below. I am not certain that they are the exact items but they looked like nuts and bolts. They students were told to take the nuts and bolts and put them together. Depending on how long the bolt was, (the long screw looking thing) the longer the kids would take to screw on the nuts (the round things). This indirectly calmed their tempers and tantrums. This can surely work for adults also :)

I took the experiences I have learned and applied them to my children when they get a bit fussy and hard to handle...It works great during timeouts. It calms them down and gets them out of their grumpy moods. They become so tuned into getting all the pieces together that they completely forget about their little hissy fit.

Concentrating so hard!

Below...this was funny: This was a stormy night and all of a sudden, loud thunder started and scared the pants off of him! He got really scared because of how deeply mesmerized he was doing this. I got the perfect shot of his eyes nearly jumping out of their sockets.

OK. Back to work he went...

My little one wanted in on the action...As you can imagine, our home was completely silent. They were occupied for nearly an hour until I had to put the pieces away. I do not recommend leaving children under the age of three unattended with these items. Although I chose parts that were not that small, you just never know...

All done. He was very proud...

 

For additional fun, I threaded as many nuts as I could onto one bolt (all the way in). 

Using old nail polish, I painted the hexagon nuts on one side. Paint other bolts with coordinated colored nuts. It adds more fun to it. This is very good for developing fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. You can even write letters on them and have the child spell out words or names...

 

 

These items below all cost about $6 I chose Hexagon nuts and bolts because I wanted to paint the sides. I chose non-pointy bolts for obvious safety reasons and the washers (round, flat donut looking thing) were just added to mix it up...

Have fun and share with anyone that can use this EXTREMELY helpful tip.

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