Have you ever noticed how kids are sometimes unable to recognize their feelings even though it’s pretty obvious that they’re feeling mad, glad, sad, scared, or even tired?  The How Is My Engine Running? tool is meant to give children a visual aid to notice and pay attention to what they’re feeling inside their bodies.  It empowers them to become mindful of their thoughts, behaviors, and reactions to stressors, so they can adjust accordingly and make a change if needed.  The goal is to teach self-awareness and self-regulation with tangible actions they can use to change their outcomes.

The How Is My Engine Running? tool is one we share during our parent training classes.  It’s helpful because vulnerable children who have developmental trauma often experience extra difficulty developing the skills of mindfulness and self-regulation, but it’s truly a valuable tool for all kids.  It probably works best with younger to elementary aged-children, but we’ve had fun using it playfully with our teens too (especially to demonstrate to the younger kids how to use it!).

Don’t we all need to live less on auto-pilot and pay more attention to our bodies anyway?

Especially as all children are likely experiencing all kinds of big feelings with quarantine life continuing to be the norm, this is a fantastic exercise to work into daily routines.  Creating a How Is My Engine Running? visual tool is pretty easy and could be a fantastic at-home project.  In this post, I’ll share about how to make it and how to make it work for you in your home.

My model is made with a paper plate, but I encourage you to let children use whatever medium they prefer.  What’s most important is that they’re part of the process.  Construction paper or any paper works just fine too!  If you have brass fasteners, you can fashion an arrow out of whatever you have laying around.  I laminated a piece of black construction paper.  If you don’t have anything like that in your home, it’s fine to leave the arrow out of the project too.  Use the pictures of my model as inspiration, but feel free to change it to suit your family’s needs.

Though there are several different versions of How Is My Engine Running?, I like to use the simplest one in my home, based on the Alert Program, as it keeps the concept easy to understand.

There are three basic engine speeds: high, low, and just right.  I’ve used the colors red, blue, and green to represent them.

Reminds me a bit of Goldilocks, but it’s very effective!  I’ve written the general feelings and thoughts that those engine speeds represent on the back of my model as a reminder, but kids catch on pretty quickly and don’t necessarily need the help.

When we’re feeling LOW, JUST RIGHT, or HIGH, it can look like:

As you are making your How Is My Engine Running? tool, be sure to explain to your children what each engine speed represents.  Ask them to think about how they are feeling right then and talk about it, so they can get used to the concept.  They will eventually internalize the idea, but it’s important to model how to use it by sharing our low, just right, and high feelings ourselves, as well as also recognizing and noticing our children’s feelings with them.

Leave the visual in a main area of your home so it can be referred to often.  As the concept is being learned (and during times of more extreme highs and lows), you may need to be proactive and say to your child, “Oh, I’m noticing that your face has a frown, is your engine running low?”  Or possibly, “Wow, I wonder if you’re feeling a little bit busy inside with all that energy, is your engine running high?”

Especially with children who’ve had hard starts, we may very well need to name the feelings for them, as they often have a difficult time figuring out what’s going on inside.  By being detectives, we can use their body language and actions to gently notice how they may be feeling, so they can learn to notice and recognize it in themselves.  Being mindful and noticing what’s going on in their bodies is such an important life skill to learn.

When children can recognize that they’re feeling too low or too high, the next step is understanding that they can do something about it!  They don’t have to stay stuck where they are, and we parents can empower them with tools to make a change.  This is such an important part of this tool because children need to learn how to self-regulate in appropriate ways.  How many of us adults take a walk to “cool off” after an argument?  That’s a totally appropriate self-regulation response!  Our kiddos need a toolbox to be successful, too.

Below, I have included a bunch of different activities and ideas, with links when appropriate.  Don’t feel overwhelmed, you do not need to provide all these choices to your children.  In fact, that would be overwhelming to them, too.  Instead, take a look at the list to find ideas you want to make available and you feel will help your children.  Consider offering them two choices (of your choosing), experimenting with different options to discover what works best.

I CAN DO SOMETHING!

Once you’ve decided what activities to try in your home, use the tool as you go about your daily routines.  It’s not a quick fix and it won’t always work beautifully, but it does encourage mindfulness and self-regulation in our children over time.  You’ll be amazed at how quickly they catch on.  They’ll absolutely tell you they’re feeling red or blue or green (colors are great representations, aren’t they?). In fact, they may even begin recognizing and naming when you are feeling a little low or too high!  And the best part is that they can gain confidence in knowing that they don’t have to stay stuck – they can do something about their thoughts, feelings, and reactions.  That’s such a big win!

TIME TO START YOUR HEALING JOURNEY

Statistics show that 60% of adults and over 50% of children are suffering from chronic health conditions. And to make matters worse, 33% of our children have experienced at least one adverse childhood experience (ACE).

But there is hope. We can journey toward overcoming the current health trends by creating natural, wholistic, healing homes that offer safe havens where our families can connect, thrive, and find joy in wellness. When we fuel our bodies properly, practice the self-care we need, and experience connecting relationships, we can all thrive and fulfill our God-given purposes.

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