Dreamcatchers/Patches the Bear Review & Giveaway at MommyPR

MommyPR, has a refreshingly touching Dreamcatchers/Patches the Bear Review & Giveaway going on right now until August 6th, 2009. “Living Light Kids and Patches the Bear are dedicated to advocating for children, guiding them to find their voice. With the help of Patches and the eight expressive emotion face symbols, children can learn to name, understand and appropriately express the emotions he/she is feeling. During childhood, children begin to develop communication skills, and it is imperative that the adults in a child’s life encourage healthy communication. This enables children to learn, form relationships, build their sense of worth, develop coping skills and express their feelings, all of which empower them to endure challenges, through life’s journey of happy times and painful moments.”



Who is Patches the Bear? While being warm and cuddly, Patches is not meant to sit on a shelf and look sweet. This amazing bear with his soulful eyes allows for children to express their feelings by using eight expressive emotion face symbols found on a plastic key ring. Basically you show the child the emotions and allow the child to pick the emotion he/she is feeling. Some children find it easier to show an expression of an emotion than to verbalize the emotion. Many time children will wait until you have left the room and when you come back they have placed their emotion on the front of the bear’s overalls.Patches is being used in a wide variety of settings. All children including those in healthy or poor health, neglected – both emotionally and physically, sexually abused, traumatized by catastrophic events or bereavement, disabled and or learning disabled children, and those having to cope with deployment need to communicate and express their feelings can use Patches. I have used Patches with my healthy, happy 3 yr old when he just doesn’t want to use words with astounding success.

Click here to for more info and even read Angela's (founder of MommPR) own heartwarming story about how Patches Bear has touched her own family. While you are there, instead of entering for yourself, MommyPR would like you to nominate a deserving military family or a family dealing with child abuse/neglect. Please no names just a reason why the family would benefit from having the Patches Bear in their life. I encourage my readers to do this and get their own warm fuzzy feeling inside!

I personally visited the Patches Kids website and learned that the founder of the company, Kathylee Forrester, has been a Children’s Advocate for almost 20 years, and she has an impressive resume! If I were to win a bear, I would gift it to a family that I’ve been friends with for the last 3 years via Girl Scouts fuctions (I am a leader of a brownie troop) The Dad is a special Ops Navy SEAL stationed in Afghanistan at the moment. They have 3 adorable children ages 11,3 and 1 year. We live in Virginia Beach (Tidewater -Hampton Roads area), and it is a Military town (3 Navy bases and 1 Air force base in the vicinity) there are many deployment estranged Military families here in this area. I personally know many of them that would totally love the concept of Patches the Bear. What a great concept, indeed! Thanks to MommyPR for the heartwarming and enlightening review & giveaway!