Resource of the Month – March

~ The Red Beast by Kay Al-Ghani~

When we do anger management work with the children, many of them think that it is ‘wrong’ or ‘not ok’ to feel angry. For many children, anger can be a default emotion they go to when they are not feeling ‘quite right’. Often a child can be hungry, too hot, too cold, tired, anxious or be feeling something else. It is hard for children to recognise anger within themselves, and we try to help them to recognise and understand what anger ‘feels’ like.

This month our resource of the month focus is all about how we use the story ‘The Red Beast’ by K.I. Al-Ghani.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Red-Beast-Controlling-Aspergers-childrens/dp/1843109433

The story book, the Red Beast is something that we use frequently within our work as it is a great way of teaching children that is ok to be ‘angry’ but we need to manage our angry feelings in an appropriate manner.

Deep inside everyone, a Red Beast lies sleeping, when it is asleep the Red Beast is quite small but when it wakes up it grows and grows and as it grows, its ears begin to shrink, its eyes get smaller and smaller, yet its mouth gets bigger.

When the Red Beast is fully awake, it has tiny ears; it can’t listen! It has tiny eyes: it can’t see very well. It has a huge mouth; it always shouts! The Red Beast screams and says hurtful words.

How you then calm the Red Beast is the main focus of this story. Within the story calming strategies are suggested and we often use these as a basis for our anger management work, as what works for one child does not necessarily work for another child. 

We aim to teach the children strategies to help them manage their anger, through role play and visualisation techniques it is possible to lessen the frequency and the level of anger displayed in order to help them to self-regulate.

As we work with the children and develop bespoke calming strategies, we role play the use of the strategies when the child is feeling calm and we always make sure we praise them when they use the strategy appropriately. It is always important to have a bank of strategies!

Make sure to check out The Red Beast and get creative with your ideas too!
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