School Counseling Character Words, Social Skill Stories, & Guidance Lesson Ideas: 

See All Social Skills Stories Below: A Warm and Fuzzy Guidance Program for K - 5th Grade

It all started years ago when I was a first grade teacher. I had a bag of colorful pom pom balls and a child asked to have one. I gave the child a fuzzy pom pom ball other children wanted one. I started to use these little pom pom balls as a reward in my classroom. 

In graduate school a teacher shared the story of “The Land of Warm Fuzzies” written on the internet from an unknown source. I read the story to my class. They immediately loved it and we started to call the pom pom balls, “Warm Fuzzies”. I quickly found out that young children would be very compliant for a silly little pom pom ball called a “Warm Fuzzy”.

School Counselor eBook Guidance Lesson & Stories Below:

Get a year's worth of school counselor guidance lessons with "Creative Warm & Fuzzy Classroom Guidance Lessons eBook". Introduce your students to the "Warm & Fuzzy Way". Click the link below for more information:

Get a year's worth of school counselor's guidance lessons, character education words, and social stories! Complete with lesson plans and behavior incentives.

Warm & Fuzzy School Counselor Guidance Lessons eBook 

A few years later, after I found the “Warm Fuzzy Story”, the tragedy of 9/11 happened. As a teacher, I had no idea what to do to help my children through such a horrible time. Many of my students were glued to the television set and had seen the planes flying into the World Trade Center over and over again on the news.

The next day my students that came to school were suffering from shock and trauma. I threw out my lesson plans for the day and said, “We are going to do the Warm Fuzzy Factory all day.” The children silently glued wiggly eyes on the pomp pomp balls. We made houses for them out of milk cartons. 

One child wanted to write a book, so the students drew Warm Fuzzy pictures and we wrote a story for the book. I even sent the book to Oprah, but never heard back from her producers. The entire process was a great distraction to the little minds that could not handle what they saw and heard on the news.

My students felt safe. We created a bubble of kindness that day in a not so kind world. The 9/11 events took away my students innocence, but the Warm Fuzziest brought some of it back

When I became a school counselor I brought my big red basket of Warm Fuzziest with me to an elite private school. The students bought into the Warm Fuzziest and would come to get one if they were sad, or upset about something.

Quite often they would come and get a Warm Fuzzy and this would be the bridge to bring them to my office for counseling. I became know as the“Warm and Fuzzy Counselor.” Even my mother-in-law heard at church about my being the “Warm and Fuzzy Counselor.”

Over the years and a few schools later I brought my Warm Fuzziest to students. I even tried it in middle school and the kids loved it! The Warm Fuzziest were especially a hit with my special education students in middle school.

Once I got a school counseling job due to showing the principal a lesson plan about using the Warm Fuzzy Curriculum. She even told me I would never run out of pom pom balls for the Warm Fuzziest. She personally bought me bags and bags of pom pom balls.

One of the most amazing things about the Warm Fuzzies was that students who were the most needy really responded to them. I have helped many a student overcome separation anxiety by offering them a Warm Fuzzy each day if they came to school. 

 

Out of all the many cases of separation anxiety I dealt with, only one student did not respond to the Warm Fuzzy. This student had one of the most severe cases of separation anxiety I had ever dealt with.

It lasted over 2 years and ended up in a DFCS referral. The student was also put in Special Ed. due to an emotional behavior disorder. He later ended up at one of our alternative schools for E.B.D. students.

The most precious of all my schools is the school I am a school counselor in now. My little elementary school only has 305 students in it. The school itself is almost a hundred years old. When you walk in you feel as if you have stepped back to the 1940’s. Most of my students come from an Appalachian Mountain background.

These kids are the most polite and loving students I have ever had the privilege to work with as a school counselor. There is a lot of poverty in a rural community, and my community has many issues with poverty as well.

Perhaps it is the fact that my students do not have as much as children in a more affluent school is a reason they responded so intensely to the warm fuzzy pom poms. The little warm fuzzies have tremendous power.

When I started at my school as the school counselor the students went crazy over these sweet little puff balls. I know it made the teachers want to pull their hair out. All the students (K-5th) wanted to do was to get as many warm fuzzies as possible. In my other school parents would go out and buy a bag of pom pom balls for the kids.     

  

Part Two of School Counseling Guidance Lessons

Get More Guidance Lessons and Social Stories Below: 

Warm Fuzzy Guidance Lesson Page One

School Counselor Guidance Lesson: The Story of Warm Fuzzy Elementary School: A Back to School Story

School Counselor Guidance Lesson on Goal Setting

The Story of Prize: Respect for Self Guidance Lesson

December Guidance Lesson Story for School Counselors and Teachers / The Gingerbread Warm Fuzzy

Charity Character Word of the Month Guidance Lesson Story

Love and Kindness Guidance Lesson Story

Study Skills and Test Preparation Guidance Lesson Story

---

See More Creative Counseling Ideas Here

Disclaimer: This website and its content is intended for trained licensed mental health professionals and school certified mental health professionals to use for their clients / students at their own discretion.

*If you ignore the disclaimer above are using these techniques on yourself and you feel any discomfort or upset it is highly suggested that you seek out a licensed  mental health professional immediately.

"Beyond Art Therapy" is the concept from Dr. Stangline that combines all creative fields in therapy. It is not the traditional "art therapy" but goes beyond to include sand tray therapy, play therapy, mindfulness, meditation, color therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and a vast majority of other therapies.

For any other type of mental health emergency call your local 911 / Police Number immediately.

Dr. Stangline does not offer advice / suggestions to anyone who is not a professional mental health provider, or a student who is studying this field and has questions about mental health programs of study.