This past week, I had the sincere joy of Zooming with a Girl Scout troop from Orange County, CA.  For just under an hour, we chatted and played games from my book, How to Be Angry, with the goal of helping the girls learn important concepts about anger such as:

  1.  Anger is a normal emotion–a natural way of feeling in response to frustrating life events
  2. There’s nothing wrong with feeling angry at times.  It’s how we express our anger that counts!
  3. Three Anger Expression Styles: Passive, Aggressive & Assertive…made MUCH more fun and relatable by teaching kids to identify styles according to their Spirit Animals, the turtle, the tiger, and the giraffe.
  4. How facial expressions and tone of voice impact the words we choose
  5. How to use I-Messages to express anger in honest, direct, straight-up ways without hurting or harming anyone else–just like a giraffe!

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The workshop encouraged parents and kids to work together to learn and practice assertive expression styles.  Here’s what some of the attendees had to say:

 

PARENT:
Signe led a workshop for our Brownie troop of 3rd graders and their parents.  She delivered the material in an engaging, fun and age-appropriate way for the kids, including activities for the kids to practice individually and with their parents.  My daughter was very excited to tell my husband all about what she learned after the workshop and we were able to use the language Signe taught us already today in our communication with each other.  Last night during our drive to dance class, my daughter and another one of the participants sat in the backseat practicing and talking through their experiences using each of the animal expressions in real life as well as being on the receiving end of the animal expressions.   At her suggestion, we’ve put the “I message” script on the fridge as a reference so we can all practice and improve.
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GIRL SCOUT:
Signe’s class was really fun.  I liked learning about the tiger, turtle and giraffe voice.  I want to be a giraffe and I think I’m usually a tiger or a turtle.  It was fun to practice the animal expressions with my friends. 
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Click here for more information on How to Be Angry workshops.
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Click here to buy the book for your child, student, troop or group.