FAQ 2

Our Reality Mat™ is a primary tool used to teach the Happy Kid Tool Kit™. The Reality Mat™ is the printed and expanded version (printed on a floor mat) of a diagram originally developed by Dr Stephen Karpman, PhD. called the Drama Triangle. The Drama Triangle, (we call it the Unhappy Kid Triangle™) depicts the three roles of Unhappy Kid consciousness (a worldly state of mind that prompts us to feel at the mercy of something outside us — or, prompts us to rescue someone else who we perceive as needy, mistreated, or unable …) and helps us locate where we are, and where our children are, on the triangle at a given time. Since ALL dysfunction takes place on the Unhappy Kid Triangle™, once we locate the source of our misery, our self-centered thoughts and feelings, we share tools for stepping beyond it into one of the three Happy Kid (Christ-centered) roles instead. It’s a model that is highly visual and kinesthetic for greater learning appeal for children ages four and up. Once the Biblical principles of the Happy Kid Mat™ are learned, children automatically move towards becoming self-diagnostic and self-regulating. The Happy Kid Tool Kit™ promotes self-control, self-responsibility and age-appropriate independence among children, so that they can learn healthier options and make more mature choices that move them off the Unhappy Kid Triangle™ to the more preferred, Happy Kid role. Their relations with other children improves whether supervision is immediately available or not. They no longer require constant external supervision to insure that they are acting responsibly. They WANT to be responsible peacemakers simply because it FEELS BETTER! So it’s a model that is easy for child-care professionals to learn and to use with children who have all sorts of issues. The Happy Kid ToolKit™ is relevant in every situation, and can be used both as an educational tool, and as a tool for crisis management.

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We do not shame kids for bullying behavior. We have not noticed that making kids feel worse, helps them do better. Change cannot occur until a child feels safe enough to allow it. We encourage building trust and relationships with counselee's so that, using the Reality Mat™, we can show the aggressor child what sequence of events follows an act of bullying. We help bullying kids notice how they too get propelled around the Unhappy Kid Triangle™; they don’t simply stay the bully-in-charge, but move instead from one unhappy role to another, until they too end up as a victim, Helpless Baby™. This is awesome awareness for a kid who has been convinced that bullying keeps him/her safe. Suddenly they see it does NOT keep them safe at all! Our goal is to help those kids explore, and choose, healthier ways of interacting towards themselves, as well as towards others. What most bullies really want to ask is, “What can you offer me that works any better than what I do already?” For years, we could only offer words, that like sweet pablum, sounded okay, but really were no help at all. Feeling totally powerless over the bullies in our midst, we offer words and throw impossible consequences at them, hoping to at least get their attention. We tell them how bad it is to bully, that it’s wrong, and makes us mean people who are not nice, or kind, and we tell them how they hurt people, etc. In other words, we resort to shaming (bullying) the bullies, thinking we can shove them into right behavior. But, as many of us have noticed, that approach simply does not work. But now, perhaps for the first time, we CAN show these hurting kids something that works better for them. We can show them on the Reality Mat™ for instance, about how playing the bully role lands us in the helpless baby role every time! It’s a fact, all bullies, no matter how big or bad, end up as victims in the end. We then introduce them to alternative ways of interacting that produce the feelings they, like the rest of us humans, really want; most of us simply want to feel safe, powerful, and valid. Bullies are no dummies. They, like all of us, want to feel better. We can show them how to get there, and, don’t be surprised when the biggest bully counselee becomes your most respected leader.

So, even young children can, and do, get this model. Anyone with the reasoning capability of a child can achieve peace and happiness through these Biblical principles made simple. We’ve found that teenagers, for instance, and young adults, also resonate with the lessons taught in the Happy Kid Toolkit™. The more anyone, whatever age or maturity level, works with the principles presented through the Happy Kid Toolkit™, the better they get at applying them to their own life dilemmas and complex relationship issues. These simple, but true, Biblical principles, when applied, always bring self-awareness and clarity to any, and all, of our life situations. Our general rule to determine the appropriate age for benefitting from the Happy Kid Toolkit™ is this: if someone can understand basic concepts of life, (like for instance, “when we hurt others, we end up getting hurt too …” then that person can learn to apply this model. The younger the better, because there is a variance of success with people as we get older. We find that the more entrenched someone is in old, dysfunctional patterns of belief, the longer it seems to take for them to apply and benefit from the tools offered. But the simple answer is that kids of all ages relate well to this material. We’re all in this together, and there’s much to learn from the journey for both kids and adults — so climb aboard the Happy train, everybody, young and old alike. It’s time for real peace.