What was the name of the teddy bear you would tightly squeeze until you fell asleep at night because you were afraid of the dark? Or that beloved doll you would tell your secrets to when you were sad? Whether you realized it or not, your may very well have been employing coping mechanisms (at that young age) to relieve stress in your life.

Many of the children, youth and adults we minister to come from difficult situations and struggle with emotional regulation and sensory processing. Often when we enter a classroom, it can feel like being tossed into a popcorn popper with the students bouncing off the walls. Having resources we can use to help children relax and feel grounded is vital to our work.

One resource we utilize in helping children, and sometimes adults, soothe and return to a place of inner calm and safety is weighted stuffed animals. The gentle pressure of holding a weighted stuffed animal can help to calm the body and reduce stress and anxiety, improve focus and attention, and ease sensory processing caused by various issues.

We recently invited a group of local volunteers to help us make these weighted stuffed animals for therapeutic use with children and adults at our learning center and in the community. Volunteers carefully ripped out and restitched seams in the stuffed animals so that we could add pouches of rice weighing around 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) to each one.

The programs we teach and the therapy we provide help those who struggle with emotional trauma to move forward. God desires to tend His flock like a shepherd, to gather the lambs in His arms and carry them close to His heart (Isaiah 40:11). Together we can share in this sacred responsibility of meeting the needs of God’s children among the Isan Thai people of northeast Thailand.

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