The thought box technique

Time to think...

It's easy for tension to build in a household where children and parents have stopped talking to one another. The thought box can help encourage communication, particularly when one child feels unfairly blamed in battles of sibling rivalry.

It works well on older children who can write down what they're feeling and you can continue to use this till they're in their late tweens/ early teens. After that check out the Video Diary Technique as this uses more grown up skills (and will be more fun for an older age group, so your kids are more likely to do it!)

To use the thought box:

• decorate an empty box or buy a special chest for the purpose.
• give your child a special pad and pen to make a note of things that went well or that made her upset or angry during the day. She can use words and pictures to express herself.
• She then posts these 'thoughts' into the box.
• In the evening when her siblings are out of the way, the two of you sit down and go through the box together. You can do this every evening, if you think this will appease her, but every two or three evenings is also fine. Important is that you are giving her regular one-to-one time.
• Your aim is to give her a less threatening way of telling you her thoughts than in a stand-off situation. Take each 'thought' in turn, be patient and don't get angry with her, but show her you're treating her with respect. Discuss what happened and make sure you both agree on what should happen next time, if the situation arises again.  
• If it seems like you're sprialing towards another argument, explain that you need time to think too, and put the 'thought' back in the box until tomorrow. If it helps, limit the time for discussing each 'thought' to ten minutes.

To ensure you make time to review the Thought Box, why not schedule it into your Family routine?

Was this article helpful?