Therapeutic iPad Apps for Children in the Classroom
By: Teresa Loos, EC-SEAT Scholar
Many children have difficult and stressful home lives that may come with them into the classroom. It is often too much for them to learn when basic needs at home are not met. Children come into the classroom with their family’s baggage along with their own problems. More and more students have anxiety, depression, and trouble focusing and dealing with their emotions. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, “Anxiety and Depression are treatable, but 80 percent of kids with diagnosable anxiety disorder and 60 percent of kids with diagnosable depression are not getting treatment.” Even though as teachers or professionals in the classroom are not doctors or therapists, we can still give students resources to help them manage and identify overwhelming emotions. In order to help these students, it is necessary to give them therapeutic tools to handle their stress and emotions in a healthy way. Below are two helpful iPad apps and screenshots for potential tools to help students in the classroom get in the right frame of mind in order to learn. Both apps are free and available at the App Store. However, there are hundreds of more apps on teaching children about emotions and strategies to relax and cope with difficulties in life.
The first therapeutic app that I found is called Smiling Mind. It is about mindfulness and healthy meditation that can be used for a child for regulation of emotions and relaxing techniques. It allows the individual to check in with themselves about how they are feeling by rating their feelings by happiness, contentment, and alertness. It also provides a variety of programs for meditation and relaxing with recordings you have to listen to. It talks you through breathing and has relaxing sound output with music and imagery. There are specific videos for classrooms depending on age as well as videos for the workplace and for adults. You can set up sub accounts for families or for individuals. You can also track your progress with the programs and how it has influenced your mood. I signed up easily with my Facebook account, or you can sign up with email. This app would be useful for children with anxiety in the classroom or a brain break for those that get easily overwhelmed with transitions and learning environments.
The second therapeutic app is called Emotionary, emerging from Stanford University's Learning, Design, and Technology program in the School of Education. This app is an emotional diary that can be individualized for a specific individual or student. It allows the user to identify how they feel by labeling their emotion that day. It also has a visual of that emotion with an avatar along with voice output. It also gives the opportunity to take a picture of the real life user to compare it to. It allows you to pair your emotion with another picture from your library or online that could be related to your life or day. You can also explain your feelings through text in a diary format or record why you are feeling a certain way. This app allows a user to explore their emotions through a lot of different media with pictures, voice output, and writing. It also saves the entry so you can look back on your life and memories. I think this app would be a good therapeutic tool for students or adults, especially those that need help identifying emotions and why they are feeling the way they are.
Many children have difficult and stressful home lives that may come with them into the classroom. It is often too much for them to learn when basic needs at home are not met. Children come into the classroom with their family’s baggage along with their own problems. More and more students have anxiety, depression, and trouble focusing and dealing with their emotions. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, “Anxiety and Depression are treatable, but 80 percent of kids with diagnosable anxiety disorder and 60 percent of kids with diagnosable depression are not getting treatment.” Even though as teachers or professionals in the classroom are not doctors or therapists, we can still give students resources to help them manage and identify overwhelming emotions. In order to help these students, it is necessary to give them therapeutic tools to handle their stress and emotions in a healthy way. Below are two helpful iPad apps and screenshots for potential tools to help students in the classroom get in the right frame of mind in order to learn. Both apps are free and available at the App Store. However, there are hundreds of more apps on teaching children about emotions and strategies to relax and cope with difficulties in life.
The first therapeutic app that I found is called Smiling Mind. It is about mindfulness and healthy meditation that can be used for a child for regulation of emotions and relaxing techniques. It allows the individual to check in with themselves about how they are feeling by rating their feelings by happiness, contentment, and alertness. It also provides a variety of programs for meditation and relaxing with recordings you have to listen to. It talks you through breathing and has relaxing sound output with music and imagery. There are specific videos for classrooms depending on age as well as videos for the workplace and for adults. You can set up sub accounts for families or for individuals. You can also track your progress with the programs and how it has influenced your mood. I signed up easily with my Facebook account, or you can sign up with email. This app would be useful for children with anxiety in the classroom or a brain break for those that get easily overwhelmed with transitions and learning environments.
The second therapeutic app is called Emotionary, emerging from Stanford University's Learning, Design, and Technology program in the School of Education. This app is an emotional diary that can be individualized for a specific individual or student. It allows the user to identify how they feel by labeling their emotion that day. It also has a visual of that emotion with an avatar along with voice output. It also gives the opportunity to take a picture of the real life user to compare it to. It allows you to pair your emotion with another picture from your library or online that could be related to your life or day. You can also explain your feelings through text in a diary format or record why you are feeling a certain way. This app allows a user to explore their emotions through a lot of different media with pictures, voice output, and writing. It also saves the entry so you can look back on your life and memories. I think this app would be a good therapeutic tool for students or adults, especially those that need help identifying emotions and why they are feeling the way they are.
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