In January the Center's new waiting room furniture arrived in huge card board boxes and all but one of the boxes made its way to the recycling bin. Melinda Gossett, LPC, our amazing play therapist kept one of the large boxes and placed it in her office for her clients to play with thinking it would be destroyed soon and it would be done.
Soon Melinda realized how many small children had no idea what to do with a box; most of them just ignored it. She told each of the kids as they came in that lots of other kids didn't know what to do with the box either.
One day a 10 year old female client (severely traumatized from an early age) commented that she knew exactly what to do with the large box and began to make what she titled a "Little Kid House."
Since that time the box is not just a box. It has become a house with pretend pet dogs in their dog house and a lizard house, but most of all it has become an avenue by which kids are connecting with other kids to help heal their hurts.
The children are writing notes to each other. As each kiddo adds to the house they give Melinda instructions as to what to say to the other kids. The children have never met each other.
One boy put a mailbox up and made a balloon face that was worried because he was lonely. Three other children have written him notes and put them in the mailbox to tell him he does not have to be lonely because they will be his friend. They made happy balloon faces and taped them all around his balloon.
The girl who created the box has blossomed and continues to heal as she uses the box house to teach the younger kids how to heal too. She put stitches all over the box as a symbol that she and the other kids can heal from bad things and hurt feelings. It is quite amazing what God has done with this simple act of kindness from a young girl who was believed to have no empathy for others.
