What Are Worry Eaters?

The National Autistic Society state that around 40% of people on the autism spectrum have at least one anxiety disorder. And for reference, that’s in comparison to 15% of people in the general population. That’s a much higher rate.

What is an Anxiety Disorder?

Anxiety is the way that your body naturally responds to stress. You could be worried or fearful about something happening. But, for some people, the feelings of anxiety are much more extreme. And if they’re lasting for longer than 6 months.. or are having an impact on your life.. then you may have an anxiety disorder.

Anxiety can manifest itself in different ways. And if you suspect anxiety, I’d recommend finding a therapist, rather than trying to do it all yourself.

How to Help

There’s a lot of techniques that can be used for helping anxiety. But, for us, we recently came across worry eaters. And I have to say – I was a little skeptical. I didn’t know how well they would work.

What Are Worry Eaters?

These are usually soft toys with zip mouths, which open and close. Their main purpose is pretty much as their name sounds – to eat worries.

I think we all probably know ourselves, how much our worries ease when we talk about them. And take them out of our minds. And worry eaters help to do this.

Where to Buy

You can get these in pretty much all sorts of toy stores now, as well as online. They come in all sorts of designs and patterns, but here are some of my favourites;

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How to Use

You can use these in a range of ways with your students. But for us, the most popular way with our students was to write down their worry and feed it to the worry monster.

Students can have their own worry eater – or you can have a class one. Whichever way works best for your students. Then, your students can write down anything that is worrying them – and feed it to the monster.

You can keep these confidential, or you can talk through them with your students. But it’s also a great way for your students to offload some of their worries – and for you to have an idea of what they may be worried about.

Of course, these can be used at home as well – not just in school.

Do you use worry eaters in your classroom or home? How do you use them? Let us know in the comments below.

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