Zoe Zoppins Lights it up (book 2)

Parents & Carers

Hello parents, we hope this book has been an exciting read for you too!

For many adults, re-conceptualising pain as a changeable experience is quite confronting, so there are some great resources available to head down that path if you are interested.

After you chat through the discussion questions and bonus questions with your child, you might want to have a look at this TED-Ed video on phantom limb pain that Josh wrote - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdihphPp1Q0 – it explains the idea of a map in your brain and goes a bit deeper than the 2nd Zoe Zoppins book.

As always, we’d love to hear how you are trekking along this journey to learn about the science of pain!

Parents

Clinicians

Hi clinicians! The experiment in this book is based on this study by Lorimer Moseley and Arnoud Arntz - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pain.2007.03.002

Many clinicians find this study to be a useful starting point for pain science education, because it is so surprising. Children under the age of 12 haven’t typically developed the ability to think abstractly, so the questions in the book around “what else could this apply to?” may be very challenging. Therefore, we encourage you to have some concrete examples ready to go.

Have you seen the ‘thermodol’ paper too? https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-019-0749-5

And, smell affects nociceptive withdrawal! Bartolo et al., 2013 PAIN article https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24040974/

COPI items that may change the most with this book:

1. Feeling stressed can make you feel more pain.
2. Feeling sad can make you feel more pain.
3. Being distracted can make you feel less pain.
4. Doing something you enjoy can make you feel less pain.
14. The brain processes lots of details before you feel pain.

Try working through pages 20-21 with a child and identify which activities are most relevant for their situation.

Clinicians

Teachers

Teachers, we think that the suggestions on pages 20-21 would be a fun topic of conversation in a classroom discussion. What do you think?

The bonus questions may help to guide the conversation.

We would love to get your feedback on how you have implemented this content in your class, so please reach out. Collaborations between the health and education sectors are so important!

Downloadable Activities

Hot and cold

You will need red and blue pencils, crayons or textas for this one.

Pain volume 1.

Think about things in your life that may make your feeling of pain go up or down. We have given you some ideas.

Pain volume 2.

Write down things in your life that may make your feeling of pain go up or down.

Do you want to see the online activities (parents, clinicians, & teachers) for the other books in the series?

A book cover, 8-year-old Zoe is dressed in workwear including a yellow hardhat ad is holding a hammer. Her uncle Ozzie is also dressed in workwear and hard hat. Behind them both is a ladder on a dark green background.

A book cover, 8 year-old Zoe is at her Grandma's science lab, they are both wearing white lab coats. There are some experiments going on behind them on a white cupboard on a blue background.

A book cover, the two kids Zoe and Zak have virtual reality headsets on. Behind them is the school classroom whiteboard showing a brain. Red background.

A book cover, the kids Zoe and Zak are in fancy dress - Zoe in a dinosaur costume and Zak as a Knight but with a red bike helmet. They are standing in front of a tree house on a purple background. Green leaves are falling all around.

A book cover, 8 year-old Zoe is dressed in her soccer uniform and proudly showing us a piece of paper with her action plan on it. Streamers, a soccer ball and a diary are behind her, all on a yellow background.

Also, here are the links to the Kid's pages for each book:

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