The Calming Jar: Glittery Sensory Toy To Calm Your Child

Does your child have a lot of tantrums? Does he or she worry a lot? Sometimes parents or guardians feel overwhelmed because they don’t know what tools to use to deal with this kind of situation. That is why today we are sharing a very suitable technique for these cases: the tranquilizer jar.

The calming pot is a technique of Maria Montessori, pedagogue and educator, who has also devoted her attention and effort to many other things.

Her main goal was to design a method to help children have fun while learning. To do this, she focused on various activities to help children engage with their emotions.

The calming pot, a technique that is also for parents

The calming pot is not only suitable for children, but also for parents and other adults. It is sometimes difficult to deal with, manage, understand and express our emotions well. Therefore, it could be good for many of us to give this technique a try.

The calming jar is nothing more than a transparent jar in which you put glitter, water, glue and dye.

It is best to let the child choose the color of the glitter and make their own calming pot. Here’s a video showing how:

The goal is to use the calming jar when kids are angry. The colors and the moving glitter will calm them down and make them forget what caused their tantrum. Then they can talk about it much easier afterwards.

This technique is not a new form of punishment

Parents might think this technique is a new form of punishment. Like sending kids to the corner when they do something wrong.

However, that is not the aim here. After you have used the tranquilizer jar, the situation has calmed down. You should then talk to the child and help him express what he felt.

Why was he angry? What made him so upset? When emotions run high, we cannot think clearly.

But once we settle down, we see the situation from a calmer and less radical perspective. In this way, we realize that we may have overreacted.

This is what we want children to understand by using the calming jar. This positive technique will teach them to deal with their emotions more effectively.

They will stop acting so impulsively, instead being given time to settle down and then clearly analyze what happened.

The key here lies in the time parents devote to their children: it should be enough for them to internalize this technique and learn it effectively.

It is important to sit down with them and supervise them while observing the calming pot. Then they should help to express their emotions.

Children often do not know what emotion they are feeling, why they feel it, what it is called, why it is there and what its purpose is. It is the responsibility of the parents to teach them this and to guide them in this.

The truth is that many adults also have trouble identifying and expressing their emotions. Therefore, this technique can be very helpful for both parents and children.

It’s a mutual lesson that everyone can benefit from. That will allow both the smallest and the largest to grow and better manage their emotions.