A sealed jar of water and glitter that the child shakes and then watches settle. The visual provides an external anchor for attention during the 2–5 minutes a young child needs for physiological arousal to descend — and the metaphor (“this is your brain right now — your thoughts are the glitter”) makes the emotion concrete, temporary, and watchable.
- Make the jar together in a calm moment. Use a clear plastic (never glass) bottle with a screw lid. Fill it about 80% with warm water, add 1–2 tablespoons of clear glitter glue, a pinch of fine glitter, optional drop of food colouring. Hot-glue the lid shut. Child picks the colour — ownership matters.
- Introduce the metaphor, neutrally: “When you’re really upset, your thoughts are like this.” Shake. “Hard to see anything, right? That’s what big feelings feel like inside. Let’s watch what happens when we just wait.”
- Sit and watch it settle together. Don’t talk. Two to four minutes. Model slow breaths. This is the rehearsal.
- Place the jar somewhere visible and reachable — bedroom shelf, the Cozy Corner basket, the kitchen counter. The child must be able to grab it on their own.
- In a real upset, offer (don’t impose) the jar. “Do you want your jar?” If yes: shake, sit, watch. If no, respect that — forcing it converts a tool into a punishment.
- Debrief later, briefly. “After we watched the jar, your body felt different. What did you notice?”
Variation: make a second jar with denser glitter that settles slower (for bigger feelings). Try a three-layer jar with mad / sad / calm labels. Pair with belly breathing (“breathe in while the glitter falls, breathe out when it touches the bottom”).
Requirements
- Space: A quiet seated spot — bedside, Cozy Corner, kitchen table
- Surface: Any flat surface; the child holds the jar while watching
- Materials: One clear plastic bottle with screw lid (a smoothie bottle works); warm water; 1–2 tablespoons clear glitter glue; a pinch of fine glitter; optional food colouring; hot glue for sealing the lid
- Participants: 1 adult + 1 child to make it; child uses it solo or with adult co-regulation
- Supervision: Moderate during making (hot glue); light during use (adult co-regulates if needed)
Rationale & Objective
The glitter jar provides an external visual anchor for attention during the 2–5 minutes a 5-year-old needs for physiological arousal to descend after an emotional spike. The metaphor — “this is your brain right now” — is age-appropriate cognitive reframing: it externalises the emotion, normalises it as temporary, and gives the child something concrete to do (watch and breathe) during the wait. The technique was popularised by Susan Kaiser Greenland’s The Mindful Child (2010), is built into MindUP and most school-based mindfulness curricula, and is listed among Tier-1 sensory tools in Zones of Regulation (Kuypers, 2011). Honest caveat: there is no peer-reviewed RCT isolating the jar’s specific effect. The evidence is for the broader category — short mindfulness practices embedded in SEL programs (Schonert-Reichl et al., 2015 MindUP RCT; Crooks et al., 2020 MindUP in young children; Zelazo & Lyons, 2012 developmental review). Frame as an evidence-informed tool inside an evidence-based practice category, not as a magic object.
Progress Indicators
- Early: refuses the jar when upset; throws it; can only use it when an adult sits with them and breathes visibly
- Developing: sits with the jar with an adult nearby; watches it settle without talking; calms within ~5 minutes
- Proficient: goes to get the jar on their own when upset; uses it without adult coaching; can articulate the metaphor (“my brain is like the glitter”)
- Advanced: generalises the strategy — substitutes a breath, a count, or a self-talk phrase when no jar is available; offers the jar to a sibling or parent who is upset; identifies the rising feeling before the full meltdown
Safety Notes
- Use plastic, never glass — a 5-year-old in a Red-zone state may throw the jar
- Hot-glue the lid; check the seal monthly. Loose glitter is a choking and eye hazard if the seal fails
- Avoid essential oils inside — they are skin and eye irritants if the jar leaks
- Do not use the jar as a time-out object or threat (“Go shake your jar until you calm down”) — that converts a regulation tool into punishment and trains avoidance, the opposite of what you want
- For children with sensory sensitivities, the visual stimulation can be over-arousing rather than calming; watch whether breathing actually slows — if it doesn’t, swap to a quieter tool
Hints
- Playfulness: name the jar (“calm cloud,” “thought storm”). The child picks the colour and helps shake-test it. Some children love a glow-in-the-dark variant for bedtime use
- Sustain interest: make a second jar with a different settling speed every couple of months. Try a “three-layer jar” with mad / sad / calm sections. Pair occasionally with a soft sound (singing bowl, chime) to deepen the calming association
- Common mistake: introducing the jar mid-meltdown for the first time (no prior association — it just looks like a weird bottle); narrating heavily during the watching (“see? see how it’s settling? are you calm yet?”) which prevents the actual attentional anchoring; expecting the jar to work as a stand-alone fix without the adult co-regulating
- Limited space: the jar sits on a single shelf or bedside table; pocket version: a small kaleidoscope or a smaller “travel jar”
- Cross-domain: pair shaking and settling with breathing (interoception); count the seconds it takes to settle (numeracy); name the feeling before and after (emotion literacy); draw a picture of “thoughts settling” (visual arts + metacognition)
- Progression: adult-led shared use → child-initiated with adult nearby → child-initiated solo → fade to internal version (“imagine the glitter in your head settling”) → substitute a single breath or self-talk phrase when no jar is at hand. The fade is the goal, not lifelong jar dependence
Sources
- Greenland, S. K. (2010). The Mindful Child: How to Help Your Kid Manage Stress and Become Happier, Kinder, and More Compassionate. Free Press
- Greenland, S. K. (2016). Mindful Games: Sharing Mindfulness and Meditation with Children, Teens, and Families. Shambhala — "Mind Jar" practice
- Schonert-Reichl, K. A., Oberle, E., Lawlor, M. S., Abbott, D., Thomson, K., Oberlander, T. F. & Diamond, A. (2015). "Enhancing Cognitive and Social–Emotional Development Through a Simple-to-Administer Mindfulness-Based School Program for Elementary School Children: A Randomized Controlled Trial." Developmental Psychology, 51(1), 52–66 (MindUP RCT)
- Crooks, C. V., Bax, K., Delaney, A., Kim, H. & Shokoohi, M. (2020). "Impact of MindUP Among Young Children." Mindfulness, 11, 2433–2444
- Zelazo, P. D. & Lyons, K. E. (2012). "The Potential Benefits of Mindfulness Training in Early Childhood: A Developmental Social Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective." Child Development Perspectives, 6(2), 154–160
- Kuypers, L. (2011). The Zones of Regulation. Think Social Publishing — calming jar listed as a Tier-1 sensory tool
- American Academy of Pediatrics — "The Power of Play" (Yogman et al., 2018) on adult co-regulation strategies
- Head Start ELOF — Social and Emotional Development (Emotional Functioning; self-soothing strategies)
- CASEL — Self-Management competency (managing emotions; calming techniques)