The UPside Delivered Giveaway + Review.

 

The last year has been hard on many of us, being stuck inside for long periods of time can be draining. It has been difficult on adults, but it can be even harder on young children who may not understand why we've been spending more time indoors instead of out at the park, etc. I recently found a fantastic company that was helpful before Covid, but I feel like their boxes make an even bigger impact now. 

The UPside Delivered is a subscription company that was the brain child of two counselors (Jenna & Kristin) who wanted to provided families with an additional set of recourses to help their children deal with stress and their emotions. Each box has a number of tools in it to help provided some stress management, tools for working with your child and information on everything provided in the box. 

I was recently sent The Begin Box along with a Story of Tomorrow book and a set of Fox Feeling cards to review. I am pretty excited to share this review with you as we are all pretty impressed with this box, plus there will be a bonus giveaway at the end. 

Before I get to the Begin Box, I am going to share the card set and book with you first. Let's start with "The Story of Tomorrow", this is a spiral notebook that has a calming cover that features a field of purple flowers in the forest. 

This book was written and designed by Kristen who created it to help her own daughter who was dealing with anticipatory anxiety. We've all had the days when we are worried about what the following day will bring, maybe we have a big event coming up or will be doing something new and we aren't sure how it will play out. Writing in this book can help alleviate some of the worries about how your day will go, as it allows you to take a few moments to write a bit about how your day went and the main events you'll do the next day, some of the examples they give are "Tomorrow my day will start with getting up, getting dressed an having breakfast". I think this is a creative way to help your kids deal with anticipatory anxiety in an easy to understand process. You can purchase this journal for $12.99, I counted fifty nine "Tomorrows" so the journal will last you for two months. 

Next up is the Clever Coping Cards, these are perfect for at home and I believe they would fit in quite well in a classroom setting. To use these cards you'll look through the stack to find your current feeling and look on the back where it will give you a number of activates you can do that relate to that feeling. Each card has four different activates or things you can do, I will give you an example of a positive feeling that makes us feel great and one that makes us kind of sad.

Feeling Loved; You can give a hug, write or draw a poem, smile or share the love by doing something nice for someone.

Feeling Frustrated; You can ask for help or a hug, take 5 deep breaths, Play & Squeeze clay or play-doh, blow bubbles real slow. 

In total there are fourteen different emotions listed on these cards and each one features an adorable fox expressing that emotion. I enjoy these cards, they are easy to access and each suggested activity is easy to do and doesn't cost anything to complete. As mentioned before I think these are great for using at home with your own children, but I can also see them fitting into a pre-school or kindergarten setting quite nicely as well since teachers often have to deal with a wide arrange of emotions from their students. Each card set can be purchased for $12.99 and the cards come on a metal key ring to make them easier to keep together and flip through. 

Now we can move onto the Begin Box. I want to first state that this box isn't just for children, it can be a lot of fun for adults as well! My box had seven different products in it, each of which has it's own reason for being in the box. As you can see above the inside of the begin box has a small chart with a blurb of info on each item and why/how it is helpful. 

Inside of the box I found a post card which has lesson one on it, lesson one states "Begin to understand the connection between thoughts, feelings and actions". The goal of this lesson is to help you understand that changing the way you think about a situation, helps change how you feel and one of the examples it includes is if your child states "I'm going to fail my test tomorrow" they could be feeling stressed, upset or worried about the situation so to help chance their mind set you can get them to think |"I'm going to remember this is only one test" or "I will study what I can tonight and then do my best".

This is actually something we work on with our kids, yes we try to help them strive for good grades but we also let them know that it isn't the end of the world if they don't get perfect marks on everything. We help them study, answer questions they might have and offer help when needed along with assuring them that they did their best which has been a huge help. 

Now we can dive into the tools they provided to help ease stress, anxiousness and more. Inside of our box we found a mini thinking putty, the color provided is gorgeous and this putty is just the right consistency that it isn't sticky or droppy like slime, instead it is a little more like play-doh to where you can shape it and pull it without making a mess. A brain shaped stress ball is perfect for if you are feeling overwhelmed or upset, squeezing it helps take your mind off of what it is that is bugging you and helps to calm you.

The scratch art is quite useful as well, being able to just doodle or write something out and seeing the various colors is a great way to help change your mood. The bubble brand they included in this is pretty great, it produces a lot of bubbles and the formula they use doesn't pop right away so you can watch them float all the way to the ground before they pop, and if you blow them over carpet they make kind of a funny sound when they pop. 

A journal called "Begin to think aloud" is included in the box as a way to help both adults and children understand the connection between their thoughts and feelings. It allows plenty of space to write and even doodle if you'd like. The two items in our box that we have used the most and will get the most use out of are the Budda Board and the flow rings. When I had first pulled the flow rings out of the box, I thought it was a set of metal bracelets to play with, so I was quite surprised when they sprang open into a neat looking sphere. Reading the blurb they provided we tested out using them on our arms, once you flatted the rings back out again you can put them on your upper arm and allow them to open onto your arm which then makes it to where they roll up and down your arm. This is quite interesting to watch it is also very calming. I took the flow rings with us over to my mothers house when we went for dinner and it had all four of us adults just standing there watching it, because it is both fun to play with and see. The Budda Board is also a lot of fun to use because you use water to paint, and then it will dry and you can keep creating over and over again. A begin box can be purchased for $49.99 plus $11 shipping, and you can purchase some of the box items by themselves such as the flow rings and budda board if you want an extra one. Four of the items in this box (stress brain, putty, flow rings and budda board) can be used over and over again.

PRIZE ALERT: One lucky winner is going to receive their own copy of "The Story of Tomorrow" and a set of coping cards.

This is open to US Residents only! Please remember if you DO NOT leave a comment on this blog post as your mandatory entry into the giveaway then all of your entries will be void. Doing the Daily entries will increase your chance of winning. Winners have 72 hours to respond to the notification email! 

This giveaway ends on 02/22/2021

Giveaway entry question: Leave a comment telling me one emotion you experienced today and what made you feel that way.

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Disclaimer-  The UPside Delivered has provided the products mentioned above for the review + the prize for a giveaway free of charge no other compensation was provided. However, no product compensation will influence the outcome of any review. My honest opinions are used in all reviews, they are solely my own & they may vary from others. My reviews are posted for readers in order to provide an informed decision before purchase.