Coping Skill Spotlight: Using A Worry Box
Where to Use It:
home, school, outdoors, indoors, with a trusted adult
Why It Helps:
Sometimes, to really help deal with stress, you need to take some focused time to think and talk about your worries. However, it’s helpful to limit the amount of time that you are dwelling on these thoughts. You don’t want to be thinking about it constantly.
Using a worry box is a good way to help manage stressful feelings. By using a worry box, you can focus and think about the things that are making you worry, and then contain your worries in the box for someone else to hold on to for safe keeping. You can then come back and talk about your worries again at a specified time. This helps you address the worries as realistically as you can, and create a physical holding spot for the worries so you have some relief from feeling like you always need to be thinking about them.
How to do it:
You will need
-Paper/Sticky Notes
-pencil
-small box
-scale 1 - 10
Set aside a short amount of time, maybe 15-30 minutes.
Take pieces of paper or sticky notes and write your worries on the notes.
Using a scale of 1 - 10 (1 being a little worried and 10 being the most worried), place the worries along the scale. This will help you get a better idea of what is bothering you and how much it is bothering you.
Take time to talk about each worry, and as you talk about it, put it in your worry box.
Once all your worries are in the box, give it to your trusted adult to hold on to.
Set up the next time you will come and discuss your worries. It may be tomorrow, or it may be a week from now, but make sure you set up a time to talk with them.
The next time, start with the worries in the box, and place them on the scale. Have any of them moved? Do you have any other worries you need to add in?
If you’d like, you can take some time to decorate your worry box in any way that you’d like!
