Welcome to the

Kimochis Feeling Pillows Guide:

Activities for Mental Health Professionals to Help Children Process and Regulate Big Feelings

Authors: Jill Kristal, Ph.D., and Ellen Pritchard Dodge, M.Ed., CCC-SLP

Kimochis feeling pillows offer a hands-on, playful and interactive way to help children explore feelings. This guide 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 guide 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 adaptable for children of all ages, working one-on-one and in groups. Adults too can benefit from having feelings they can see and touch.