Every week I go to the library and check out about 15 children’s books to read at night to my children.  Well this week, one of the books, Silly Billy by Anthony Browne, had a big impact, quite by accident, with our family.  This book is about a little boy who worries a lot.  His grandmother gives him some worry dolls to put under his pillow.  The story explains that you are suppose to give each doll one of your worries and they will do the worrying for you while you sleep. When we were done reading, my son asked me if we could make some worry dolls.  This surprised me. I asked him if he worried about things and he said he did.  I had no idea he worried and of course this worried me.  You know how us moms can be, I flew into a panic that my son had anxiety issues.  After I calmed down, we all agreed to make worry dolls the next day.

Well, I had no idea how to make something called a worry doll. I had never heard of them.  So I got on the internet and Googled worry dolls.  To my shock, I found tons of websites about worry dolls and how to make them.  We decided to make our worry dolls from clothes pins, and we decorated them with googly eyes, pre-cut cloth squares for clothing, yarn hair and magic marker for the mouths and noses.  That night, my son gave a worry to each doll, put them under his pillow and went to sleep.  The next morning he got up and happily told me he slept wonderfully thanks to his worry dolls.  I was a happy mom again!

So give worry dolls a try and maybe they’ll put your kids worries to sleep too.  Here are some worry doll websites to take look at:

• Wisegeek.com: What are worry dolls?
• WikiHow: How to make a worry doll
• Disney Family: How to make worry dolls
• Global Marketplace: Fair Trade Worry dolls (in case you don’t want to make one,you can buy them too)