Making It Better: Activities for Children Living in a Stressful World

More than 75 empowering and healing classroom activities

Children living with uncertainty and insecurity often have difficulty focusing on learning. They might demonstrate disrespectful or defiant behaviors, act out, or act with aggression. As an educator, you may provide the only stability in their otherwise turbulent world.

Making It Better explains trauma-informed education, an approach that recognizes the impact of traumatic stress on children and its effect on the growing brain, and applies the latest neurological research to teaching methods, disciplinary policies, and interactions to support grieving children.

This book responds to the learning and behavioral needs of children who have experienced traumatic events or toxic stress--such as natural disasters, community violence, or abuse or neglect within the child's familial relations--and includes a collection of activities and strategies to help children heal and feel empowered.

Distressed children need absolute emotional security and an opportunity to engage in healing activities. With your help, children can begin to build resiliency and find renewed hope for the future.

Barbara Oehlberg, MA, is an education and child trauma consultant who has presented for many organizations throughout the country. With a career that has spanned many levels, Barbara has spent more than 30 years making a positive impact on children's lives.



About the Author
Barbara Oehlberg completed a graduate program in child development at the University of Akron in 1981, after receiving a degree in home economics from the University of Wisconsin and raising seven children. Since retirement in 1997, she has become a certified Child Trauma Consultant through The National Institute for Trauma & Loss in Children in Michigan and has presented to over two hundred agency and school staff development sessions.

As a family life specialist with Cleveland Public Schools, Barbara has seen firsthand how domestic violence, child abuse, and stress can affect children's behaviors and learning abilities. Recognizing that children learn violence primarily within their families, she combined her peace activism with her profession and created a program for the Ohio governor's office in 1983, titled "Parenting for Peaceful Families." She has facilitated that program in Ohio's schools, churches, and prisons.