Book Review: Building Bridges by Julie Lowe

Knowing how to approach children and teens in counseling can be a challenge. Learning to enter into their world and draw them out can sometimes feel impossible. But with Julie Lowe’s Building Bridges—a practical workbook of expressive activities to do with kids and teens in counseling—you will find the biblical tools you’re looking for. 

Anyone who has ever heard a child say, “I don’t know” in answer to a question about what they are thinking and feeling or about why they acted a certain way, will be thankful for these thoughtful, biblically wise, and creative ways to engage young people. Julie Lowe, drawing on decades of experience in counseling children has compiled helpful, practical ways to speak the gospel into children and teenager’s lives. By building bridges with young people, we can build bridges with them to the Lord. 

With over fifteen years of counseling experience and by working as a registered play therapist supervisor, Julie Lowe understands there is a need to speak truth and hope into the lives of children and teens in a hands-on, meaningful way. That’s why the activities and reproducible worksheets in Building Bridgescan be used over and over in multiple contexts. 

As part of CCEF’s Helping the Helper series, this workbook walks counselors, teachers, parents, and caregivers through the rationale for expressive activities, provides examples, and then shows counselors how to do it themselves. Upon the purchase of this product, customers will be given access to downloadable, colorized versions of each of the interactive charts and graphics, with the option of creating printable posters for their ministry. By pointing to the Lord through expressive mediums, counselors and youth workers will be able to reach kids and teens in a unique, biblical way. 

Building Bridges: Biblical Counseling Activities for Children and Teens is a resource I wish no one needed, but especially this year, our young people need to express their feelings and find healing. Building Bridges offers creative ways for children and teens to express their feelings so counselors/pastors/parents can work with them.

Although I felt the book started slowly, once the author talked about the activities, how to execute them, and what they can accomplish, I was captivated by how simple things like working with art, music, and even animals can help a child open up when traditional talking might not. More than that, it comes from a Biblical perspective, so the book offers Scriptures to help both the counselor and the child.

Anxiety is mentioned often in Building Bridges, and that is a real issue plaguing our young ones. I definitely believe Building Bridges is a needed tool for counselors and parents to have on hand not just for 2020 and all that entails for our young people, but beyond. I recommend.

I received Building Bridges in exchange for an honest review. I wasn’t compensated and all opinions are my own.