Make Myself Better Box (helping the addict's children)

Exercise: How to help the smaller child of a practicing addict or alcoholic take back control even when a parent is out of control.   

If parents are responding well, you can teach them how to introduce this to their kids--to help children feel less helpless when being raised by an alcoholic/addict. Children can learn to feel better even when their world is chaotic. This exercise allows recovering parents to understand the stress addiction puts upon their children.

According to Adult Children of Alcoholic Parents--one of the worst things about being the child of an alcoholic parent is the feeling of loss of control. The child tries desperately to please the dysfunctional parent to make the situation OK--to alleviate family stress. This contributes to co-dependency. An adult or child learns, “I must try to please this person to stop the hurt, fear, and chaos,” and thus the cycle begins.

The Make Myself Better Box is a therapeutic tool that teaches a child they are not completely helpless. It teaches them that they can do things to lower their own negative feelings like stress, frustration, anger, and sadness. When the youngster feels stress, depressed, angry, or out of control, let them know it’s “time to make it better.” This is not for you to make them feel better, but they must do something to make themselves feel better which doesn’t include trying to please a parent who can’t be pleased.

NOTE: There are some non-labeled pictures so that you can tailor some of the the exercises to this child's unique cultural or family circumstances.