Kimochis® for Mental Health Professionals
Kimochis® feeling pillows offer a hands-on, playful and interactive way to help children explore feelings.The Kimochis® Feeling Pillows Guide: Activities for Mental Health Professionals to Help Children Process and Regulate Big Feelings elevates the feeling pillows to a therapeutic intervention that provides novel ways to help children ages 5-12* process and regulate BIG emotions.
Created through the collaboration of a clinical psychologist, educational director and Kimochis® co-founder, and tested by child therapists around the country, the 49 activities provided in this guidebook will lead children to:
- Actively communicate feelings with more showing and less talking
- Build the mind-body connection which underlies the belief that ‘feelings fuel behavior’
- Confront hard to have feelings by being physically able to hold, move, sort, hide and throw them around
- Nurture compassion for self and others
*Everyone has feelings and these activities are easily adapted for children of all ages, working one-on-one and in groups. Adults too can benefit from having feelings they can see and touch!
Read Excerpt
SEL Training
What Therapists Are Saying About The Guide
I really appreciate the emphasis in the Guide on the mind-body connection and have found I am able to utilize my mindful foundation in many of the activities. Particularly, the concept that feelings fuel behavior.
So much of my work is around supporting children in understanding their feelings/emotions don’t have to control their behavior… they can be in control their behavior! A big concept for little people… made easier by Kimochis and feeling pillows!
I really like using the Kimochis feelings as a jumping off point for my students to talk about the specific instances that they had these feelings in. They work really well even with the older elementary student I have tried using them with.
They definitely got one student to open up more than I’d been able to get him to do in the past.
The Kimochis Activity Guide provides a variety of activities that are adaptable to many age groups. It includes very helpful suggestionsfor creating activities that make it safe for children to explore their feelings.
My counseling sessions with students seem to flow very easily with the use of the feelings pillows. Students of all levels, early childhood, elementary, and middle school are drawn to them.
I greatly enjoy using this guide. It has allowed me the flexibility to use with a variety of students and to be able to pace the lessons based off each particular students’ strengths and needs.
The students loved the Kimochis pillows, and they were able to express themselves better when holding one of the pillows in their hands.
I think that it gave them some type of confidence!
The game Charades was also a fun one for them!
Utilizing the “negative” feelings and experiences with those feelings really helped my fifth grade girls’ group open up and share about how they all have experienced sadness, being left out, mad, etc.
The Kimochis activity guide has assisted in engaging and motivating all my students, K-5, in SEL during the school day.
Don’t have a Kimochis Tool Kit?
For School psychologists and counselors working in an educational setting: Use the Kimochis® Educator’s Tool Kit in addition to the Activity Guide because it offers a very comprehensive Kimochis-based approach to social-emotional learning.
Purchase PreK-K
Designed to give children the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they need to recognize and manage their emotions, demonstrate caring and concern for others, establish positive relationships, make responsible decisions, and handle challenging situations constructively.
Purchase Grades 1-5
This program will help you create an optimistic, caring environment where children feel connected, included and valued—a place where significant learning can occur and everyone can communicate with respect and kindness.