The rainbow review is an activity that can be used as a handy check-in for children to find out a bit more about how they’re coping at the moment by asking about the good and not so good parts of their day or week. You can do this as a parent, carer, teacher, or any other supporting adult, to ask them how they’re feeling that day or week.

A child who is grieving may not be experiencing emotions in the same way as a child who isn’t grieving. You may be surprised by their answers to this check-in activity, and their stand-out moments from the day or week might not be exactly what you expected. It’s important to listen to the child; you can also ask them questions about their answers to try and work out why these moments stood out to them. 

For more advice, please see our resources on supporting a bereaved child, where you will also find information on children's understanding of death at different ages. 

---

You will need:

• A sheet of paper
• Pencil
• Ruler (or a steady hand!)
• Coloured pencils or pens

Instructions:

1. Take the sheet of paper and divide it into six sections using a pencil and ruler (or a steady hand).

2. With the paper in portrait orientation, in the three boxes on the left side, draw a sun, rain cloud, and rainbow.

3. In the boxes opposite those drawings (on the right), ask yourself the questions below and write in your answers. If you’re doing this activity with a grown-up, they could ask you the questions, like an interview!

For this activity, there are three simple images to link to different moods or feelings: sun, rain, and rainbow, but you could add more and create a whole range of weather or nature themes to match with emotions.

• What was your sunny moment?
  Something you enjoyed. This could be a happy moment, an achievement, or a time when you felt relaxed.

• What was your rainy moment?
  This could be a moment where something didn’t go quite as planned, or you felt sad or worried about something. 

• What was your rainbow moment?
  Something that was surprising or unexpectedly brilliant. This could be something you did that was your highlight, or something you are looking forward to soon.

You can repeat this activity every day, week, month, or maybe once a year, for as long as you like. It can be useful for children to reflect on how they’ve felt, and for the adult supporting them to have a useful tool to check in with them regularly or when you feel it’s suitable.

You may find that using the same associations of the sun, rain cloud, and rainbow becomes repetitive – you could use something else, like emoji faces, colours, animals. Get creative and ask the child to think of their own ideas too.

For adults supporting children:

When the child has told you and one of you has written about each of their moments, you could try the following breathing exercise with them. Start at one side of the red band on the rainbow and trace the curve while breathing in until you reach the other side. Trace back along the red band again while breathing out. Repeat this for each coloured band of the rainbow. Sometimes breathing techniques can help to ground us and stabilise our emotions. This part may not only be helpful for the child, but also yourself!