Nurture House Nugget: Cool as A Cucumber

This intervention was created by the founder of Nurture House, Paris Goodyear-Brown (LCSW, RPT-S) in her book - Digging for Buried Treasure.
This intervention is aimed to:
• Reduce stress reactions and promote relaxation
• Provide nurture through physical touch
• Provide a concrete image of “calm”
• Provide engagement and delight between you and your child
All you need is:
• Refrigerated cucumber slices
• Paper and drawing materials (pens, colored pencils or markers)
• Cucumber scented lotion (if you have it), though any scent is fine!
Steps
1. Introduce the phrase “cool as a cucumber”. If they’ve heard it before, let them tell you their definition. If they haven’t, define it for them (i.e.: it means staying unruffled in the midst of upsetting events). Talk about how Covid-19 has been an upsetting and chaotic event for our world and for families.
2. Have the child draw a picture of someone staying “Cool as a Cucumber” while chaos or fighting or the Corona virus is happening all around them.
3. Explain that cucumbers have thick skin that protects its cool inside. Let the child eat a slice and explain how you want to pamper your child with ‘cucumber treatments’ like they do in real spas
4. Ask the client to sit back or lay in a comfy position and practice a deep breathing exercise with them. Then place the cucumber slices on the child’s eyes. You can ask the child if they also want a special cucumber lotion applied (*be sure to ask them where they’d like it). Tell the child that the lotion makes their skin feel soft and it “thickens their skin” so that the chaos around them can’t get underneath their skin.
5. While the child is calm and wearing the cucumber pads on her eyes, you might ask her, “what are you feeling in your body right now” for bring body-awareness.
After the activity is over you might…
• Ask questions such as “what does it mean to be cool as a cucumber” or “what relaxation strategies did you use while you had the eye pads on?”
• If it’s close to dinnertime, you also might invite your child to help prepare dinner with you and use the leftover cucumbers to make a salad or a side dish.

[@Liliarthan]

Thank you for sharing this!!