Note to the trainer: Remind participants that children may find it frightening to speak directly about intense emotions as their own. Emphasise the “safe distance” provided by puppets.
Method: Group work.
Materials: Two hand puppets or soft toys.
1. The safe-distance metaphor: The trainer explains the method as follows:
“Children may be unable to describe intense feelings of anger, jealousy or injustice directly as their own. Directly owning the emotion may create guilt, shame or fear of punishment. This is where puppets act as a magical bridge, enabling the child to process the intense emotion from a safe distance. When a child takes a puppet, they move the enormous anger out of themselves and place it on the inanimate object in front of them. In psychology this is called ‘projection’ and ‘safe distancing’. The child is no longer speaking on their own behalf, but on behalf of the ‘Angry Dragon’ or the ‘Hurt Bear’. A child may be unable to tell an adult directly, ‘I am very jealous of my friend and I want to hit them.’ Through a puppet, however, the child can express the feeling in the red zone without censorship by saying, ‘This bear is very angry because its friend did not share the television remote control.’”
2. Scenario activity: Ask groups to select a crisis that occurs frequently in the institution (for example, a toy that cannot be shared or a television remote control). Using two puppets, they work as a group to create a scenario in which the crisis is resolved through conversation without becoming aggression.