{Thanks to everyone for your kind comments following my post about Hurricane Irma and how Julie Andrews helped during my evacuation with my two babies. I really enjoyed hearing from you. We are still cleaning up in Miami and it’s been a slow process, but things are slowly getting back to “normal.”}

One thing that can be really tough for those of us who work with school age and teen populations is finding “appropriate” music: songs that have clean lyrics, clean content and can be used therapeutically to meet clinical goals.

I struggle with this on a weekly basis.

So, when I finally looked up the song “Everything is Awesome” from The Lego Movie, I have to admit I was pretty excited.

The students at Children’s Resource Educational Center are constantly singing this song and asking if we can use it in a session. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical to say the least. Lego Movie and therapeutic don’t really seem to go hand in hand, am I right?

But when I looked up the video on YouTube and checked out the lyrics online, I was surprised that the song actually works really well with our session goals.

Everything is awesome, everything is cool when you’re part of a team.
Everything is awesome, when you’re living out a dream.
Everything is better when we stick together.
Side by side, you and I.

To address the students’ social/emotional goals, I came up with a few questions for them about working together:

When have you been part of a team?
Why are things better when we work as a team?
What can you do if you don’t agree with someone on your team?

Next are the following lyrics:

Awesome items are the best.
Trees, frogs, clogs, they’re awesome.
Rocks, clocks, and socks, they’re awesome.
Figs, and jigs, and twigs, that’s awesome.
Everything you see or think or say is awesome.

To address the students’ communication goals, I created a fill-in-the-blank songwriting experience. I wrote the following on a dry erase board:

_____, _____, _____, they’re awesome.

_____, _____, _____, they’re awesome.

_____, _____, _____, that’s awesome.

Everything you see or think or say is awesome.

I then grouped students in teams of three and asked them to come up with three things that are awesome. I wrote the answers in the blanks and then we “rapped.” As I’ve shared before, all you need to rap is a hip hop beat on your keyboard or an MP3 from GarageBand (I created an original one to fit the song).

I’m happy I was able to find a way to merge my students’ favorite song with the therapeutic goals I have for them. Everything is awesome!

If you’re looking for even more creative ideas for working with teens, school age clients or adults, I’d love for you to check out the E-Course I created, Tune In To Teens. It’s approved by CBMT for 5-15 continuing education credits and is packed with creative session ideas and strategies for working with teen clients: