Counselors Rachel and Victoria made this video to review the game Boom Boom Balloon. A transcription of this video can be found below.
Video Transcription:
Rachel Brewer:
All righty. I think that we’re ready.
Victoria Williams:
Okay.
Rachel Brewer:
See, nice to meet you. Miss Victoria. I’m Rachel.
Victoria Williams:
Nice to meet you as well. How you doing today?
Rachel Brewer:
Doing good. Thank you.
Victoria Williams:
Today I was going to be showing you how to play a game that I’ve been utilizing in my counseling sessions and it is called Boom Boom Balloon. Try to get it close so you can get a good picture of it, of what it looks like.
Rachel Brewer:
Interesting.
Victoria Williams:
And it’s definitely a pretty fun game. And so in order to begin playing the game, it does have some setup pieces that I’ll be going through with you today to show you how to get this game set up. And so it comes in this little contraption and the instructions are very simple of how to piece the contraption together. And I don’t have it all the way put together. What you would simply do is there are arrows on each of these separate pieces, which shows you how they snap into each other. And you kind of just press the leg piece and the arm piece into the arrows. And it just instantly snaps in place. Once you have the setup complete, where both pieces are in place, then you’ll continue to add this piece to the rest of the system. And that just snaps in place as well. And then you have your base piece, which also has indicator on the bottom of it. You can’t really see within the device, but it has these indicators right here on the side, the cooks, the grooves, and they just kind of snap into place. And the whole…
Rachel Brewer:
Everything kind of has an arrow, like everything’s pretty well marked.
Victoria Williams:
Right. It’s difficult to see the arrows because it’s, the arrows are green and contraption is green. But if you pay attention to where the arrows are, they just kind of easily snap in place from there.
Rachel Brewer:
Okay.
Victoria Williams:
And so once you have your game set up, I’m going to lower this a little bit. You may not be able to see much in my face because I want you to see the game. And so once I lower it, you have your game set up and then you add your balloon and your balloon must be blown up inside the game device. And once you have your balloon blown up. There have some grooves on that base piece. Just wrap your balloon around that and it holds your air in for you. Okay.
Rachel Brewer:
Oh cool.
Victoria Williams:
Yeah. And so now we have our balloon set up and so there are a few more pieces to add.
Rachel Brewer:
Wow, my six year old Bowie Brewer is going to love this. That is so cool. Can the kid blow the balloon up?
Victoria Williams:
Outside of session if you’re playing at home. I don’t see why the kid wouldn’t be able to blow it up? However, in session I am the only one blowing up the balloon, just because of safety precautions. You do have to put your face and your mouth kind of on this area. And just to eliminate the passing of germs and things, you don’t want too many people faces and mouth on that area. And so in session, I am the only one blowing up the balloon just for that safety precaution.
Rachel Brewer:
Okay.
Victoria Williams:
And so once you have your balloon in, then you add what we have comes with the game, our sticks, and they just easily snap in place. However, I do allow kids to put the sticks inside the game when I set up, but I also demonstrate how they go in, because sometimes you can push too far and it puts pressure on the balloon before it’s time to start the game. And so these just snap in place here. I don’t know if you saw how that kind of went in a little bit too far. Oftentimes just kind of push them on in.
Rachel Brewer:
Yeah, my heart stopped for a second.
Victoria Williams:
Right and one more to add. And so from here, your game is set up complete and it is ready to be played. And so how you play it is it comes with the dye and the dye has numbers. It ranges from three, two and one and you just simply roll the dye and whatever the dye says, that’s the number of clicks that each stick would get and it will put pressure on the balloon.
Rachel Brewer:
Okay, what do you feel like this might help Bowie with specifically? Who is this good for maybe?
Victoria Williams:
I feel like this game is good for individuals who have poor interception awareness skills. And what that means is the ability to identify what’s going on internally inside your body. Our body always gives us warning signs before we consciously or unconsciously know what’s happening with ourselves. For example, if your mouth gets dry, that’s a warning sign that I’m thirsty. I might need to have something to drink. Or a good example that I use often is when we become hungry, what happens? Our stomach may start to rumble. We may get fatigued. We may experience headache. All of these are internal warning sign that our body is giving us to let us know that we’re about to become dysregulated before dysregulation actually happens. And so I feel that this would be a good game to utilize, to help individuals increase those interception awareness skills so they have the ability to recognize internally what’s going on before they become dysregulated.
Rachel Brewer:
Okay. So just dysregulated, just like mean like upset or like…
Victoria Williams:
Oh, go ahead. I’m sorry.
Rachel Brewer:
Like out of sorts or what would you say that means exactly?
Victoria Williams:
Dysregulation means the inability to become not on tune or not aware with what’s going on or becoming thrown off consciously or unconsciously and not feeling okay. And that I’m at my baseline that’s a balance.
Rachel Brewer:
Okay. That makes sense. With anxiety don’t, I mean, this looks like kind of like an ancient torture device, like just looking at it, I mean, wouldn’t it maybe make anxiety worse you say.
Victoria Williams:
I don’t think it will make it worse because what you’re working on is not the anxiety itself, but you’re working more towards those warning signs before anxiety actually happens.
Rachel Brewer:
Oh.
Victoria Williams:
And so anxiety itself causes an individual to become dysregulated. But like I mentioned before, with poor interception awareness skills, it helps you increase the ability to recognize the warning signs before you actually achieve or become dysregulated.
Rachel Brewer:
Okay, so it tells you what to look for before you get there?
Victoria Williams:
Right. It gives you those signals and those warning signs.
Rachel Brewer:
Okay, and do you ever have like for Bowie, do you think the pop of the balloon? Cause it does eventually pop, right?
Victoria Williams:
Yes, it does pop and sometimes it pops on its own without anybody even touching it.
Rachel Brewer:
Okay.
Rachel Brewer:
I was going to ask too. Do you think that would freak Bowie out or is that something that we want to work towards, like resiliency wise or what?
Victoria Williams:
Ultimately before even beginning playing the game or setting the game up, we want to have that conversation either with parents or with the child if this age appropriate, as far as a response of have they had any history of trauma? What are their trigger symbols? Would a balloon pop be something to trigger flashbacks or memory from a traumatic experience or would that cause to become dysregulated? You kind of want to do some pre-questioning before actually playing the game. So you know ahead of time, if this would be a good game for the client or not.
Rachel Brewer:
Okay, I get what you’re saying about helping him become aware of what he’s feeling before. I really like the idea of like, how do you know… What do you do when you feel thirsty? That helps you know the feelings you have when you’re feeling thirsty, let you know that you’re feeling thirsty. How can I talk to bow about paying attention to his body,, as related to anxiety while we’re playing this so that it’s helpful for him.
Victoria Williams:
Usually how I would present this to talk to Bowie to recognize was going on in the body is playing the game and then processing what’s happening in the middle of the game as we’re playing. For example, I’ve had to draw little faces on our balloons here and there. Let’s say client is feeling sad today or something. Let me see what I can get going here.
Rachel Brewer:
Oh cool. You can draw on the?
Victoria Williams:
You can draw on our balloon. Let’s say we came with a face like that. I don’t know if you can see it. It’s a little sad and worried. And I would go through the motion, we would begin our game and we would roll the dot. Let’s see, we got two, and so this would stick would get two click. It’s clients turn. Ooh, three, three always makes me jump.
Victoria Williams:
Let’s see 1, 2, 3. And I’m just going to do it one more time to see what I get. I got another two. Let me see. Go one, two. And so you can see how it pushes that pressure on the balloon. Even when watching you watch the game, I saw some faces. And so in that moment, I would say, “Tell me about that face. What does that face mean?” And depending on the response, oftentimes it would be I’m feeling nervous or I just, I’m not sure. And so when I get that, I’m not sure answer. That’s when I go through processing, well, tell me what’s happening inside your body right now. What do we feel internally inside our body? And oftentimes depending on the age, I may get a response or I may get another, I’m not sure. And I would just go off base of what I observe.
Victoria Williams:
Well, I see your hands are getting tight. I sees you getting this on our face, what do those gestures mean? And oftentimes it kind of hones into, “Okay, I am feeling something in my body. Let me target what is actually going on.” And so after I made the observation, you, we continue to play some more. And so we roll and as we’re playing, I got another three. Let’s say 1, 2, 3, here. Let’s say I rolled again. I got a two here, one, two. And so I was like, “You made that face again. What’s that face about?” And then it helped increase their awareness to my stomach is beginning to turn or I’m feeling my muscles tightening or my hands are becoming sweaty. And then we move to trying to identify emotions and feelings based off those warning signs that our body is giving. That would be a good way to discuss with Bowie what’s going on while he’s playing this game.
Rachel Brewer:
Okay. And so if it like, maybe so you can draw faces on it doesn’t necessarily have to be like a face that’s already on, like we can make stuff up. It sounds like there’s no like right way to play it.
Victoria Williams:
For sure.
Rachel Brewer:
Okay, cool, so we can kind of adjust it to what Bowie needs and then like, so what if we’re just sitting here processing and that pops. Does it… Like I’m talking to Bowie and it just pops. How do you usually handle that with your kids?
Victoria Williams:
And so in that moment, if we’re just kind of processing things from the game and it pops, because like I said, “It pops on its own sometimes.” I would model deep breathing in that moment. I would maybe go, “oof.” I would model deep breathing and my own self regulation for that kid to be able to observe me regulating myself to become regulated. And then we might go through and work towards some distress tolerance skills because in the moment when you become dysregulated and things happen unexpectedly, that causes dysregulation. That’s a good time to work on some distress tolerance skills to better learn how to maintain regulation in a moment when the unexpected happens and our body becomes thrown off.
Rachel Brewer:
Okay. That makes sense. Because just looking at it, I’m having a little anxiety myself. The stuff I should be asking Bowie as we’re playing, it was like, paying attention to our body, how he’s feeling, noticing, and then taking time to stop and kind of talk to him about it in between, being prepared for if it did sort of pop on its own, like how to kind of help him because that could happen with anything. My kid, I can tell you, but was going to be like super pumped when we play this like real high adrenaline. I don’t want them to be like that like all day. Is there something you recommend for like calm him down or bring them back down after we play?
Victoria Williams:
Yes, for sure. Definitely just working on calming skills is a great way to kind of maintain regulation after we play. Cause I can see how a lot of kids adrenaline gets the pumping and they’re super hype and yeah, excited about playing the game and that could go on all day depending on if we decide to bring them down. And so in regards to helping that client bring down, we might do some grounding skills, which would be body scanning. I’m paying attention to what’s happening also inside our body, after playing the game to kind of work on a more relaxation state, deep breathing is good to do, utilize there as well. What could be some other skills to utilize? Hmm. I’m thinking. This is my thinking face. Looks like the balloon.
Rachel Brewer:
Yeah.
Victoria Williams:
Doing maybe like some slow exercising things that will slow your heart rate down. Maybe stretching or…
Rachel Brewer:
Yeah, we stretch a lot.
Victoria Williams:
Going for a walk.
Rachel Brewer:
Okay.
Victoria Williams:
Would be helpful. Things that would just slow their heart rate down to reduce that increase hyper activity that maybe happening there.
Rachel Brewer:
Yeah. I could have maybe like a healthy snack for him right after and we could just chill and talk about it and okay. That would be helpful. Let’s see. Is there something that I need to get with this? Is the game by itself okay? Or is there like a book or something or music or anything that goes with it that you would recommend?
Victoria Williams:
The game by itself comes with everything that you need as far as whole setup. However, I would recommend a book that would go along to increasing interception awareness skills and activities. You can just have a further education in regards to what this means and how do I utilize this? And this book is called the comprehensive assessment for interception awareness, the eighth sensory. And it is by Kelly Maller.
Rachel Brewer:
Kelly Maller. Okay. And is that something I can just get at the bookstore?
Victoria Williams:
From what I’ve seen, as far as this book, it’s definitely available online. Through Kendall, through Amazon and you can also order hard copies and I’m sure if you did seek out bookstores, maybe like Books-A-Million that they might have a copy there for you as well.
Rachel Brewer:
Okay, so it’s something like you don’t have to have a degree or whatever to get it or something.
Victoria Williams:
No, not at all.
Rachel Brewer:
Cool. Cool. Okay. That’s all that I can think of for baby Bowie. Is there anything else that you can think of?
Victoria Williams:
No, not at this moment.
Rachel Brewer:
Okay.
Victoria Williams:
Just a reminder that, we’re playing this game, you really just want to hone in and work towards having the individual or having Bowie understand what’s going on inside his body and ways to put feelings or emotion with what he’s experiencing internally to be able to also increase that emotional intelligence is very well. Especially if you’re utilizing this for Bowie who’s age four or five that maybe don’t have much awareness of feelings and emotions. Specifically just one of the hone in and target those areas when playing this game.
Rachel Brewer:
Okay. Well cool. And so is it okay if I were to get back in touch with you, we could do this again if in case like I come up with something and when we’re talking about it.
Victoria Williams:
Oh yes. For sure. Please do.
Rachel Brewer:
Okay. Cool. All right. Well I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. You guys are always so good about keeping in touch and helping us out with our kids and doing what we need to do. I’ll catch up with you next time and I’ll let you set that balloon free or put it out of its misery. Whichever one works best for you.
Victoria Williams:
Probably put it out of his misery. It still didn’t pop.
Rachel Brewer:
All right, I’m going to go do some deep breathing. Thank you, miss Victoria.
Victoria Williams:
All right. Thank you, Ms. Brewer. See you later.
Rachel Brewer:
All right. Bye bye.