JOYrific: The Art of Mastering Meltdowns and Attitude Adjustments

JOYrific: The Art of Mastering Meltdowns and Attitude Adjustments is a guide to the JOYrific Communication Tools created, written, and illustrated by a mother daughter team.  

This book is a compilation and synthesis of generations of experiences, advice, stories, wisdom, foolishness and some lessons learned the hard way.  
Mastering melt downs and facilitating attitude adjustments is a tongue in-cheek way to say if the behavior can be identified and explained then the task of changing undesired behavior is more likely a possibility in the future. Begin with the basic human needs. Understanding human needs is critical in the personal growth process. 

The JOYrific Chart is a communication tool to help parents and children identify and express their emotions, feelings and attitudes.  The goal is to express appropriately in all types of circumstances.  The chart’s principles are established from children as young as three years of age, as well as easily adapted to tweens, teens, adults, parents, and grandparents.  

Vocabulary & Topics:
• JOYrific • Helpful • Excited • Patient • Kind • Sad • Grumpy • Whining • Temper Tantrum • Thinking Time • Meltdowns & Attitude Adjustments • Sarcasm • Bullies & Bullying • Caution Signs • Personal Inventory • Brain Development • Breaking the Cycle • And more!
A child’s brain is developing and growing every day.  Understanding this development and integration will give parents opportunities to help their children thrive while utilizing the JOYrific chart in everyday situations. Helping children identify emotions flowing in their right brain and express those emotions with language through the left-brain.  Integrating these two brain hemispheres is a goal of the JOYrific chart.  Using the chart to identify and express emotions is journey under construction in your child’s brain.  Make today better than yesterday and tomorrow better than today by using everyday opportunities to teach and integrate the left and right side of the brain.

Encouragement focuses on effort rather than achievement, so it gives positive feedback to children who are trying hard but may be unsuccessful. Sometimes adults mask their attitudes, which are affected by their inner emotions and feelings. An important strategy to use with the JOYrific Chart is to display and express attitude changes in a healthy and socially acceptable manner in the moment. Cause and effect are great lessons to teach children.

Life’s journey is filled with challenges.  Everyone can learn to identify, control and appropriately display emotions, feelings and attitudes, in the good times and in the difficult time.  “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass; life is about learning to dance in the rain!”