Big Heart, Flashlight & Fence: A Healthy Boundaries Workbook

Kind kids do not need to become hard. They need language, practice and a plan.

Big Heart, Flashlight & Fence is an 11-page printable workbook that helps young people ages 10–15 understand friendship patterns, healthy boundaries, self-worth and when to ask an adult for backup.

Rather than handing kids a list of labels or teaching them to be suspicious of everyone, these activities help them think through real-life situations. They will practice distinguishing one difficult moment from a repeated pattern, recognizing the difference between being useful and being valued, noticing what their bodies may be telling them and choosing a healthy “Now what?” step.

The workbook includes:

• Does This Relationship Make Room for Both of Us?

• One Hard Moment or a Pattern

• Useful and Valued Are Not the Same

• Support Is a Verb

• In Dog We Trust

• Build a Fence Around Something Important

• Your Body Is Part of the Flashlight

• Spotlight or Shared Light

• Build Your Backup Team

• The Now What Pivot

The activities are especially welcoming to sensitive, creative, highly capable and neurodivergent young people who may need reassurance that their value is not measured by how much they fix, produce or carry for everyone else.

Use the workbook at home, in a classroom, during counseling or alongside the Middle School Mary Poppins episode “Living in a Material World: Spotlight People, Scapegoats and Staying Clever.”

You can remain hopeful, forgiving and kind while also paying attention to how someone treats you. A fence around your heart is not a wall against love. It gives healthy love a protected place to grow.

Created by Suzanne M. Swain, EdS, LMSW

The Middle School Mary Poppins Podcast

msmarypoppins.com

This printable is an educational resource and is not a substitute for individualized mental health care.