Little Faces Big Feelings: A board book about naming others’ emotions for toddlers (age 1+)

Each week, we recommend one kids book that teaches a mental health concept. Today, we’re sharing a book that tackles feelings: Little Faces Big Feelings: What Emotions Look Like, by Amy Morrison. This book highlights the value of naming emotions in other people — the idea that noticing and naming other people’s feelings helps kids grow their emotional intelligence, laying the foundation for strong social relationships, cooperative behavior, and mental well-being. Read on to learn why we recommend Little Faces Big Feelings to the parents we know and the science behind the development of emotional awareness.

About the Book
Little Faces Big Feelings is an incredible board book with pictures of tons of kids experiencing real emotions! Each page highlights a different emotion — like happiness, fear, bravery, silliness, and surprise — and shows 100+ real kids experiencing these emotions. We love how this book highlights how a single emotion can look differently on different people’s faces. There’s also an emotion wheel and a mirror at the back of the book for you and your kiddo to practice making different emotion faces together!

Buy Little Faces Big Feelings or preview most of the book here

What Science Tells Us about Naming Others’ Emotions
A core part of emotional development is learning to make educated guesses about how other people are feeling, based on their facial expressions, body language, or tone of voice. As it turns out, this is an incredibly important life skill. Kids who have better abilities to figure out what other people are likely feeling do more prosocial behaviors like sharing and helping, are more liked by their peers and seen by their teachers as more socially skilled, and have less depression, anxiety, and disruptive behavior. These results are so strong that in research following kids over time, preschoolers with more emotion knowledge have more social skills when they reach kindergarten, and kindergarteners with more emotion knowledge have better social skills, more academic success, and fewer behavioral problems when they reach third grade.

Parents can help kids learn to notice and label other people’s emotions by making emotion talk as part of everyday family life, and by practicing linking emotions to situations and circumstances. You can do this by:

• Noticing how emotional expression varies within your family (“What does it look like when Mom is feeling sad? How do you know when your brother is sad?”)

• Talking about emotions you notice on other people when you’re in public, like a child crying at the park (“That baby looks sad. Maybe he is sad because he doesn’t want to leave the playground”).

• Pointing out and asking questions about how different characters might be feeling when reading books together (“The girl looks happy! Maybe she is happy because she got to dress up as a ladybug!”)

• Labeling your own emotions using non-judgmental language in front of your child (“I’m feeling frustrated because I can’t find my keys!”)

Researchers talk about something interesting about emotions — two people feeling happy might have two different facial expressions, and two people with the same facial expressions might be feeling two different emotions. There is not a universal way a face looks or moves when a person is experiencing an emotion. Books like Little Faces, which show many different people’s faces as they experience the same emotion, may be particularly helpful for conveying this idea.

Kids tend to gain the ability to recognize emotions in others in a specific order. A recent meta-analysis (a study which combines the results of other studies) showed that kids tend to have the easiest time recognizing happiness and the hardest time recognizing disgust and fear. Why does it go in that order? Recently, some very cool researchers used wearable cameras to record what toddlers see in everyday situations at home. They found that a) toddlers don’t see that many emotion faces in their daily lives (perhaps because toddlers are not at face level with members of their family), and b) the most common emotion toddlers see from family members is happiness - aw! The researchers think the frequency of exposure to happy faces may be why kids learn to recognize happiness first.

The fact that toddlers don’t naturally see a lot of emotional expressions in their daily lives hints that it could be helpful expose toddlers to examples of real emotions to help them learn about the wide range of emotions humans experience. There’s a good reason to think that photo books might be a good way to do this. Researchers have found that kids as young as 9 months old can learn about the world from looking at realistic pictures, and another study found that 15- to 24-month-olds were more likely to learn from highly realistic images like photos than from less realistic ones like cartoons. We also know that the “own-age” bias makes kids recognize other kids’ faces more accurately than adult faces. Taken together, this suggests that books with realistic photos of children showing a range of emotions - like Little Faces - may be an especially effective, convenient way to support kids’ emotional learning.

What Marin likes about Little Faces Big Feelings: I thought this book did a fantastic job of showing the diversity of ways a single emotion can be expressed. While it is fun to notice the similarities in how the ten photos capture expressions of silliness or boredom, it's equally educational to notice the subtle differences in how each kid conveys that emotion in their snapshot. This book (and all the books published by Little Feminists!) also does an amazing job of featuring kids with a wide diversity of ages, body types, skin colors, and abilities. The effort they made to represent so many different kids’ experiences of the world sparked a lot of joy and curiosity in me!

What Betsy likes about Little Faces Big Feelings: In addition to my love of all the cute kid photos, I also love the way Little Faces talks about emotions in a non-judgmental way: “Feeling scared is okay. No feeling is wrong” and “Mad or frustrated? Can you tell? Big emotions can make us yell.” This messaging reminds me of how we can notice emotions like sadness or anxiety without labeling them as wrong or bad.

Buy Little Faces Big Feelings or preview most of the book here

We think Little Faces Big Feelings would be a great addition to any child’s library. We’d love to hear your reactions to this review and your questions about naming others’ emotions— we’ll highlight some answers in next week’s post. Reply to this email, or join our community to leave a comment!

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FYI: The links above for buying Little Faces Big Feelings are affiliate links (see this page for more information).

Last week, we recommended The Magical Yet, which highlights the concept of balanced thinking — the idea that changing the way you think can change how you feel and act (read that post here). This week, we share some resources to try balanced thinking with your kiddo at home, and answer your real-life questions about negative thoughts.

Buy The Magical Yet or listen online for free

How to Talk About Balanced Thinking with Your Child
We want to make developing balanced thinking skills feel as approachable as possible. Here are some ideas of how you can talk to your child about making unhelpful thoughts more balanced. We’ve included some comments to help you understand why we recommend these steps.

Questions From Our Community About Balanced Thinking

Q: Before music lessons, my kid often says he doesn’t want to go because it’s too long & too hard to learn new things. Once he’s there, he often seems to like it and feel proud. How can I help when he wants to avoid going to practice?

A: This is an excellent question. The first step is to ask what kinds of thoughts he’s having before music class. When he says it’s too long or too hard, you might ask:
“Hey, what is your brain telling you is going to happen at music practice today?”

Once you identify the thought, it can be helpful to explore with him how true that thought is. For example, you might say, “Ok, it sounds like your brain is telling you, ‘It’s going to be really hard, and I’m going to do a bad job.’ Is that thought 100% true, partly true, or not at all true?”

Often, kids can recognize: “I guess I don’t know 100%. I might have a hard time with some parts, but I might do okay in others. I practiced a lot this week.” This is a great start because it helps them see that their thoughts might not be completely accurate. In this example, they might start to realize that they can’t predict the future, even if their brain tells them they’re definitely going to struggle.

Then you can ask: “Okay, if we know it’s not 100% true that you’re going to do poorly in class, what’s a more true version of that thought?” Or, if that feels too abstract, another helpful approach is: “If you had a friend in music class who said, ‘I know I’m going to do terribly today,’ what would you tell that friend?”

Then you can help him come up with a more balanced, more true thought, such as:

• “Music practice might feel hard because I’m still learning”

• “I don’t know for sure I’ll do a bad job — all I can do is try”

• “I don’t know how to play this song yet — but every time I practice I improve!”

• “I might struggle with some parts, and I might do well in others”

Once he has picked a new truer version of the thought, it can be helpful to ask: “How do you feel when you think that new thought?” This can help your kiddo understand that by making thoughts truer and more balanced often makes us feel more hopeful and ready to take on a challenge, even when the situation itself hasn’t changed.

Q: Sometimes my child gets frustrated by a new task and begins to yell or cry — what can I do to help her think through how to accomplish it?

A: This is such an important question. When kids are trying something new, it can feel really frustrating or overwhelming. Kids are learning so many new things all the time, and these new challenges can bring up a lot of big emotions.

If your kiddo is already at the point of yelling or crying, this is when we would want to consider focusing on coping skills first (like belly breathing or other safe ways to calm their body). The goal here is to help them regulate the intensity of their emotions in their body or to “bring the feelings thermometer down.”

When they’re feeling calmer, then you can come back to the balanced thinking skills we talked about above. Keep in mind this might be several hours later or even the next day. Cognitive skills are really hard to use when a kid is in a very emotional space, so waiting until they relaxed will give you the best bang for your buck.

Go deeper on the science of coping with unhelpful thoughts and balanced thinking:

1. This handout from Anxiety Canada goes in depth on how parents can teach balanced thinking skills to kids!

2. This video is a great resources for teaching kids about the “cognitive triangle” — how thoughts drive feelings and actions.

3. We also love this adult-focused NHS resource about balanced thinking, especially this video on challenging unhelpful thoughts.

4. We like this card game for helping older kids (5+) discover the connection between their thoughts and feelings and actions!

5. For ideas on dealing with parenting-related fears and worries using balanced thinking, check out this post! 🌸

6. Vanderbilt Professor Steven Hollon, a leading expert in cognitive therapy, was interviewed on the “Let’s Talk CBT” podcast, and it’s worth a listen! We like the way Dr. Hollon describes helping people suffer less through balanced thinking — for example, he has said “I…. take offense at the way [my clients’] inaccurate beliefs lead them to beat up on themselves.”

Have you noticed your child using negative self-talk? Have you considered helping them try out balanced thinking? Share your experiences or questions about negative thinking in the comments!

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FYI: The links above for buying The Magical Yet are affiliate links (see this page for more information).

The Magical Yet: A picture book about balanced thinking for kids (age 5+)

Each week, we recommend one kids book that teaches a mental health concept. Today, we’re sharing a book that teaches a coping skill for managing unhelpful or hurtful thoughts: The Magical Yet, written by Angela DiTerlizzi and illustrated by Lorena Alvarez Gómez. This book highlights the concept of balanced thinking — the idea that changing the way you think can change how you feel and act! Read on to learn why we recommend The Magical Yet to the parents we know, the science behind balanced thinking, and tips for talking to your kiddo about unhelpful thoughts.

About the Book
The Magical Yet is about a child who gets really frustrated while trying to learn to ride her bike. Just when she vows that she’ll never ride again, she’s visited by the Magical Yet, a fairy-life creature who helps the kid think differently about the situation — it’s not that she can’t ride her bike… it’s that she can’t do it yet! With this new mindset, the child sticks with her bike practice and, through do-overs, re-dos, stumbles, and flops, figures out how to ride. With colorful, enchanting illustrations, Magical Yet highlights that we all have the “magical” power to shift our perspective, and by changing our thinking, we can make hard situations easier to face.

Buy The Magical Yet or listen online for free

What Science Tells Us about Balanced Thinking
How we talk to ourselves matters, including when we’re learning new skills. In psychology, cognitive theory says that our thoughts influence our emotions and behaviors. This theory says that negative, hurtful, or untrue thoughts (like “I can’t ride my bike,” “I’ll never learn how,” or even “I’ve failed”) can lead to negative emotions (like sadness or frustration) or unhelpful behavior (like giving up). This also means that when we’re feeling a difficult emotion, there’s often a hurtful or untrue thought driving that feeling.

Once we catch a hurtful or untrue thought, we can address it using a skill called “balanced thinking,” which involves finding more helpful and true ways to talk to ourselves. This skill has many names, including “cognitive restructuring” and “cognitive coping.” Balanced thinking is a core part of cognitive and behavioral therapy (CBT). Countless meta-analyses have found balanced thinking effective for a wide array of different problems, including depression, anxiety, stress, and anger. Studies focused on kids and teens specifically have found that balanced thinking helps kids struggling with depression, anxiety, and anger. Balanced thinking works fast: A new meta-analysis found that learning balanced thinking in a single therapy session can reduce patients’ symptoms of depression by the very next session.

We love that Magical Yet highlights how balanced thinking can help kids in upsetting moments in their daily lives. Here are some tips for helping kids practice balanced thinking:

1. Identify an unhelpful thought. When a kiddo is experiencing negative emotions, we can ask, “What is your brain telling you?" An unhelpful thought could sound like “I always mess up!” “Everyone hates me,” or “I never get what I want.”

2. Ask some questions about the thought: “Is that thought 100% true, partly true, or not at all true? Is it helpful or hurtful? What’s not true/unhelpful about that thought?”

3. Find ways to balance the thought by making it more true and more helpful:

   1. A lot of times, changing just one word can make a thought more true, like swapping “never” or “always” with “sometimes” (e.g., “I never win” can become “I sometimes win”).

   2. To make thoughts more helpful, we can ask questions like, “What would you say to a friend?” or “What could you say to yourself that would be more helpful?” For example, “I’m stupid” is hurtful, but “I’m learning” is helpful. Many of us would say “I’m stupid” to ourselves, but would be much kinder when talking to a friend about the same situation.

   3. Remember that even true thoughts can often be made more helpful (“I failed my test” may be true, but it may be more helpful to tell ourselves “I failed, but now I know how I should study for the next one").

For older kids, parents can help draw the connection between balanced thinking and helpful actions. For example, saying “I’m stupid” might make us want to quit practicing something, while saying “I’m learning” might motivate us to keep trying. For younger ages, the connection between thoughts and actions can be a little complex, so we recommend focusing first on the link between thoughts and feelings (e.g., hurtful thoughts make us feel sad, helpful thoughts make us feel excited).

What Marin likes about The Magical Yet: When I am teaching balanced thinking, one of the responses I often get from my clients is “Wow, it’s like a superpower!” I love that this book takes the power of balanced thinking and illustrates how magical it can be. Often, kids may feel frustrated or powerless because they are still learning so much, and many of their daily choices are decided by caregivers and authority figures. Kids often find it very empowered to learn that even if a situation stays exactly the same, they can change their experience and sometimes the outcome of the situation just by changing their thoughts.

What Betsy likes about The Magical Yet: I really love how this book shows how darn frustrating it can be when we can’t initially figure out how to do something! The illustration of how angry the child in Yet looks as she pushes her bike home felt really relatable to me. This book made me think about how getting frustrated when trying new skills actually reflects being excited about gaining a new skill or ability. That’s actually a really cool thing!

One thing to clarify about The Magical Yet: The balanced thinking skill shown in Magical Yet is very subtle! The book never directly says the lesson taught by the Magical Yet. After reading the book, it might help some kids to talk directly about the book’s message: When we can’t do something now, it just means that we can’t do it yet.

Buy The Magical Yet or listen online for free

We think The Magical Yet would be a great addition to any child’s library. We’d love to hear your reactions to this review and your questions about coping with unhelpful or hurtful thoughts — we’ll highlight some answers in next week’s post. Reply to this email, or join our community to leave a comment!

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FYI: The links above for buying The Magical Yet are affiliate links (see this page for more information).

Last week, we recommended Tummy Ride, which highlights the concept of belly breathing — the idea that taking deep and slow breaths low in the diaphragm can help us make big emotions smaller and help us feel safer when we are stressed (read that post here). This week, we share some resources to try belly breathing with your kiddo at home, and answer your real-life questions about calming down big emotions.

Buy Tummy Ride or listen online for free

How to Talk About Belly Breathing with Your Child
We want to make practicing belly breathing feel as approachable as possible. Here are some ideas of how you can talk to your child about belly breathing. We’ve included some comments to help you understand why we recommend these steps.

We can practice belly breathing when emotions are high, but we wouldn’t want to teach it for the first time when the kid is activated. We recommend introducing belly breathing first to your child when you’re both relaxed — and doing a short practice daily as a family to help the skill become muscle memory!

Questions From Our Community About Belly Breathing

Q: What can I do if my kid doesn’t want to practice belly breathing? How do I get them to use it when they are getting upset or frustrated?

A: What an excellent question! One of our go-to parenting skills for helping encourage kids to practice any behavior more is specific praise. To encourage belly breathing (especially when your child is stressed or frustrated), you can gently prompt:
“Now might be a good time to practice some belly breathing. Let’s try taking a deep breath together, low and slow in our bellies.”

As soon as they start, heap on the praise! The key to shaping kids’ behaviors through specific praise is to name the specific behavior you want to see more of:

• “Excellent job, you’re taking such a deep breath.”

• “Great work! I love that you’re slowing down and taking a belly breath.”

• “Awesome job belly breathing, let’s take another one together.”

Specific praise works well because kids care a LOT about your attention. Giving your child specific, positive attention for a behavior you want to encourage — like belly breathing — reinforces the behavior. The more you praise the behavior, the more they’ll be encouraged to keep doing it. So, try to “catch” them each time you see them belly breathing and offer specific praise right away. Check out our post and how-to guide on specific praise for more examples!

Another powerful tool is modeling. This might look like co-regulation (you calming your body to help them calm theirs), or simply showing your child what you do when you feel stressed: “I am feeling stressed — I need to take a deep breath,” or “It looks like Daddy is going to pause and do some belly breathing.” Kids are always watching and learning, so your modeling helps reinforce belly breathing as a great skill to use when feelings get big.

Go deeper on the science and practice of belly breathing:

1. We reviewed a bunch of different belly breathing videos, and our favorite one is this one from Nemours Health. We like that it shows how to use belly breathing in close-up detail with a real teen — the close-up camera shots let you watch the belly expand during an in breath and contract during an out breath. We think this is the best video for parents to watch to learn how to teach belly breathing!

2. … but if you want to get your kiddo excited about belly breathing, we think this video from Sesame Street is the most fun option.

3. This “breathing balloon” online activity can help kids learn to do belly breathing as they watch a balloon inflate and deflate.

4. This article from the Raising Children Network has some nice ideas on using belly breathing with kids with developmental disabilities.

5. If you want to go even deeper on the science behind belly breathing — and how breathing can affect the parasympathetic nervous system — check out this Scientific American article.

Do you notice your child experiencing big emotions or signs of body activation? Have you considered trying belly breathing with them? Share your experiences or questions about belly breathing in the comments!

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FYI: The links above for buying Tummy Ride are affiliate links (see this page for more information).

Tummy Ride: A board book about belly breathing for toddlers (age 1+)

Each week, we recommend one kids book that teaches a mental health concept. Today, we’re sharing a book that tackles a favorite coping skill for helping kids manage big feelings: Tummy Ride, written by Whitney Stewart and illustrated by Rocío Alejandro. This book highlights the concept of belly breathing — the idea that taking deep and slow breaths low in the belly can help us make big emotions smaller and help us cope when we are stressed. Read on to learn why we recommend Tummy Ride to the parents we know, the science behind belly breathing, and how you can think about practicing it with your child.

About the Book
Tummy Ride is an adorable board book featuring kids practicing belly breathing in all sorts of places — on the floor, on the beach, in the pool! The book shows kids using body cues — like resting hands or a toy on the tummy — to ensure their belly expands during inhales and contracts during exhales. We love how Tummy Ride represents a diversity of kids and families and features fun illustrations (like a kid and her dog practicing belly breathing together and kids wearing mermaid costumes).

Buy Tummy Ride or listen online for free

What Science Tells Us about Belly Breathing
When we’re experiencing big emotions, it can often be hard to think straight. This is because when we feel big emotions like fear or anger, they often trigger the fight-or-flight response. This means that our body activates its system in charge of protecting us from danger, the sympathetic nervous system. During these moments, the sympathetic nervous system sends signals to many different parts of the body, like telling our heart to beat fast and our muscles to tense up. It also tells our breathing system to speed up and breathe faster — the theory is this helps get more oxygen to the body, which is needed to fight or flee. When we have big emotions or feel stressed, these body changes often happen without us realizing, but they can make us feel uncomfortable, like feeling lightheaded or numb or having tingling sensations. This can create a vicious cycle: We feel anxious, our sympathetic nervous system activates, we start breathing faster, this causes unpleasant sensations in our body, our anxiety increases, we breathe even faster — and the loop keeps reinforcing itself.

Belly breathing (also called diaphragmatic breathing) is a tool we can use to disrupt this cycle, make big emotions smaller, and help our bodies and brains realize we are safe. By purposefully taking deep and slow breaths low in the diaphragm (the muscle that divides our chest from our belly and helps us breathe), we can disrupt the fight-or-flight reaction. Meta-analytic research (which combines the results of multiple studies) has found that belly breathing activates our parasympathetic nervous system, which helps us “rest and digest.” Specifically, belly breathing led to higher heart rate variability (the way the timing between participants’ heartbeats changed over time), which is a sign of being calm and relaxed. Another study randomized over 300 kids — around age 7 — to either watch a 1-minute video teaching belly breathing or a control video. Kids who watched the belly breathing video had slower heart rates and greater heart rate variability, indicating that belly breathing can directly calm down kids’ nervous systems.

Parents can help their kiddos learn belly breathing as a coping skill for when feelings get big or their bodies feel keyed up or stressed out. This is a great skill to use when a kid’s anger or fear gets so big they don’t know what to do. We like this skill because we have so few ways to talk directly to our bodies or change how we feel physically, but belly breathing lets us tell our bodies “you’re safe” when our brains mistakenly think we’re in danger.

Since we typically can’t think straight when we’re having big emotions, we recommend first trying out belly breathing when you and your child are relaxed. To help this skill become muscle memory, we recommend practicing daily for 1 minute as a family. Your family can learn belly breathing with these steps:

1. Breathe in slowly through your nose for a few seconds, letting your stomach expand until it feels full of air (like a bubble or a balloon, round and full).

2. Hold the air for a few seconds.

3. Then breathe out slowly, contracting your belly until all the air is gone (like you have let all the air out of the balloon, and it is now flat and empty).

4. Repeat again from step one until you feel yourself relax. If you have time, try to do at least 10 breaths!

These steps can be done either sitting or lying down on the ground and relaxing your muscles, like this:

We recommend using one of these body cues to help kids (and adults) learn the sensation of belly breathing:

• Fill the ballon. From a sitting position, put your hand on your belly and pretend your belly is a balloon. Breathe in and feel the balloon expand, then breathe out and feel the balloon shrink.

• Push the book. From sitting, hold a book flat across your belly. Watch the book move forward as you breathe in, and backwards (towards your body) as you breathe out.

• Send your stuffed animal on a ride. Lay on your back, put a stuffed animal on your stomach and watch it rise up as you breathe in and fall down as you breathe out. See how high you can make it go!

What Betsy likes about Tummy Ride: We vetted ten different books about belly breathing, and this was one of the only ones we found that actually teaches this skill correctly! The key is that your belly gets bigger and pushes out when you’re inhaling, and gets smaller and sucks in when you’re exhaling. Oftentimes, when we feel anxious, our bodies naturally breathe faster and higher up in our chests. With belly breathing, we do the opposite — keep our breath slow and low in our bellies. We love how this book shows correct examples of belly breathing on every single page!

What Marin likes about Tummy Ride: I absolutely fell in love with this book because it does such a great job of teaching belly breathing, including using one of my favorite body cues. When I am teaching this skill to kiddos in therapy, I love having them pick a favorite toy to ride on their bellies as they breathe in, just like it shows in the book. Giving a stuffed animal a ride up to the sky is such an easy way for you and your kids to know if they have got this skill down. I’m also so excited that they wrote this board book for toddlers. Belly breathing is a skill anyone of any age can benefit from!

One thing we don’t love about Tummy Ride: Tummy Ride doesn’t tell a story — it’s really just about teaching the correct technique for belly breathing in a fun and silly way. The words are a bit repetitive. When we read this book, we like to get creative, reading the parts we like (like “your wave lifts your hands up high/your wave brings your hands down low”) and pointing out the cute illustrations to highlight all the ways to practice belly breathing (“Look at this kiddo laying in the pool - he has a rubber duck on his tummy!”).

Buy Tummy Ride or listen online for free

We think Tummy Ride would be a great addition to any child’s library. We’d love to hear your reactions to this review and your questions about belly breathing — we’ll highlight some answers in next week’s post. Reply to this email, or join our community to leave a comment!

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FYI: The links above for buying Tummy Ride are affiliate links (see this page for more information).

I Can Be Safe: A picture book about safety for kids (age 5+)

Last week, we recommended I Can Be Safe, which highlights the concept of safety skills — the idea that actively practicing skills for handling risky or dangerous situations empowers kids and helps them avoid harm (read that post here). This week, we share some resources to help you help your child develop safety skills, and answer your real-life questions about safety and empowering kids.

Buy I Can Be Safe or listen online for free

How to Talk About Safety with Your Child
We want to make developing safety skills feel as approachable as possible. Here are some ideas of how you can talk to your child about less safe situations. We’ve included some comments to help you understand why we recommend these steps.

This discussion is just the beginning, and would need to be followed by rehearsing in real life, feedback, and regular practice of the skill. A great version of follow-up practice would be the parent taking the child to their school and standing in the pick-up zone and saying, “Let’s practice what you would do if a person you didn’t know tries to pick you up at school. I’ll pretend to be that unknown person…”

Questions From Our Community About Safety Skills

Q: How do you balance letting your kids take risks with keeping them safe?

A: This is one of the most common questions about safety for child psychologists! We like to encourage parents to trust their child’s instincts about which skills and activities they’re ready to try. For example, Betsy’s toddler recently looked like he was about to jump off a high platform on the playground's play structure. Through his actions, he was communicating to her that he’s ready to practice taking some big jumps. At this moment, she had concerns about the platform’s height, but we wouldn’t recommend that she only tell him, “Jumping’s not safe - no jumping!” because we don’t want to quash his opportunities to practice this developmental skill.

Instead, we want to encourage parents to trust their instincts about potential safety concerns and work with their child to find a safer way to practice the same skill. When you are in this moment of balancing letting your kid take risks while keeping them safe, try asking yourself: What are the realistic dangers here? Can we find a safer way for them to do the same activity and practice the same skill? Here, Betsy might have asked herself: Is this so high that he could be injured? Would it be safe for him to jump from this height if I were holding his hands? Can we practice big jumps at a lower height, so he can practice this skill? As much as you can, we recommend following your child’s instincts and the skills they’re naturally trying to grow into, but consider whether the context in which they are practicing needs to be modified to be safer at their current developmental level.

Q: What if I don’t know if something is safe or unsafe for my child?

A: This is such a great question, and it is easy for parents to fall into the habit of categorizing situations as safe or unsafe as quick mental shortcuts. But it's important to remember that safety is a spectrum: activities can be more or less safe (i.e., present more or less risk of harm), but nothing is ever perfectly safe or unsafe. When you are unsure how much danger a situation or activity poses for your child, we recommend first checking in with yourself and asking whether you’re worried about this activity because of your own fear or because of realistic safety concerns. Sometimes, as caregivers, we can get stuck on a safety rule we set for one developmental period, but as they grow, that rule is no longer keeping them safe and is now preventing their growth. But letting go of the rule (that has previously done such a great job of keeping them safe!) can feel really scary. This is a great moment to talk it through with a co-parent or ask other parents you know for a second opinion, and to hear how they dealt with transitioning into that activity at your child’s age.

If you are struggling to decide whether an activity is safe for your child because little ones’ abilities are always changing, you can also learn a lot of information by observing other kids in your environment. Look around the playground or schoolyard to see what types of activities kids are doing. If you see a kid around your child’s developmental level doing the same activity, this is a pretty good indication that you could let your child try it out safely.

Go deeper on the science and practice of safety skills:

1. If you are interested in age-by-age guidelines for talking with kids about safety, this Johns Hopkins Medicine website offers practical tips and example language for discussing safety skills with children in different grade ranges.

2. Internet safety is part of everyday safety! This short video by Amaze.org can be an awesome starting point for introducing simple recommendations to help kids stay safer online.

3. This Safety Hand activity is a great way to help kids practice naming several trusted adults so they know who to contact (and how to reach them) if they feel unsafe or need help.

4. This printable booklet covers how to talk with kids about personal safety at home, at school, and in an emergency.

5. If you are interested in learning more about the research behind strategies for firearm prevention for young kids (ages 0-5), check out this recent review article.

Have you talked to your child about how to handle less safe situations? Have you considered rehearsing these skills with your child? Share your experiences or questions about safety and handling risky situations in the comments!

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FYI: The links above for buying I Can Be Safe are affiliate links (see this page for more information).

As a reminder, we’re trying out a new format to create space to answer your questions about each post’s mental health skill before we introduce a new topic. We’re now introducing a new evidence-based skill and accompanying kids’ book every other week, and on the alternate week, we offer examples and answer your questions about using the skill in your real life. We’re hoping this change makes our posts even more digestible for busy parents. We’d love to hear what you think about this new format, or other ideas for how we can improve Minds in Bloom. Tell us what you think in the comments or over email: mindsinbloombooks@gmail.com 🌸

I Can Be Safe: A picture book about safety for kids (age 5+)

Each week, we recommend one kids book that teaches a mental health concept. Today, we’re sharing a book that tackles safety: I Can Be Safe, written by Pat Thomas and illustrated by Lesley Harker. This book highlights the concept of safety skills — the idea that actively practicing skills for handling risky or dangerous situations empowers kids and helps them avoid harm. Read on to learn why we recommend I Can Be Safe to the parents we know, the science behind safety skills, and tips for talking to your kiddo about risk and danger.

About the Book
I Can Be Safe introduces the concept of safety in a kid-friendly way and talks about staying safe across a range of situations, from riding a bike, to crossing the road, to being approached by a stranger. The book empowers kids by teaching them concrete steps they can take to keep themselves safe, both preventative, like learning to swim and knowing their home address and phone number, and reactive, like telling a trusted adult if someone touches their body inappropriately. We like how I Can Be Safe introduces the concepts of danger and safety skills to kids in a frank and simple manner.

Buy I Can Be Safe or listen online for free

What Science Tells Us about Safety Skills
It is scary for parents to think about a child encountering danger. Fortunately, research has shown that we can proactively teach children skills to use for when they encounter something dangerous. By teaching kids safety skills, we can empower them to navigate risky or dangerous situations.

Safety skills involve the following four steps:

1. Identifying the danger

2. Avoiding the danger

3. Escaping the danger

4. Reporting what happened

For example, I Can Be Safe coaches kids on 1) noticing if someone is trying to talk to them or touch them in a way that makes them feel unsafe or afraid (identify), 2) saying no (avoid), 3) shouting or kicking at the person (escape), and 4) telling a trusted grown-up if this happens (report).

How do we know that teaching safety skills works? Because dangerous situations happen relatively rarely, this can make it hard for parents to know if a child really knows how to use a safety skill they’ve been taught. In fact, one study showed that even kids who know how to deal with firearms safely during role plays need additional practice to be able to use these skills in real-life situations. Fortunately, researchers came up with a clever approach called “in situ assessment.” This means creating a realistic but safe situation that the child doesn’t know is a test. For example, a parent might send their child into the kitchen, where researchers have placed an open pill bottle on the counter. The child doesn’t know the pills are fake and that they’re being observed. Researchers then watch to see if the child uses the core safety steps: Noticing the pills (identify), choosing not to touch them (avoid), walking away (escape), and telling a parent (report). This kind of setup has helped researchers learn how children respond to dangerous situations like finding an unattended firearm or something poisonous, or even navigating an attempted kidnapping.

Using this approach, researchers have shown that only active learning helps children learn safety skills. Other approaches, like telling your child how to act in a dangerous situation without having them practice, aren’t enough. It’s crucial that your child has the opportunity to practice safety skills in real-world settings. This process should involve:

• Teaching (describing a dangerous situation and what it would look like for the child to identify, avoid, escape, and report the danger in that situation)

• Modeling (demonstrating those safety skills to your child)

• Rehearsing (asking your child to practice demonstrating the safety skills)

• Feedback (praising your child for correctly using the safety skills, and helping them improve their skill use).

Parents can use I Can Be Safe as a jumping-off point to discuss many different places where kids need safety skills. We especially love the discussion question boxes sprinkled throughout the book to start the “teaching” and “modeling” steps!

Stay tuned for our post next week, where we’ll give you an example of how to practice safety skills with your kid at home.

What Marin likes about I Can Be Safe: When I teach safety skills in therapy, parents often feel confident that their child has the basics covered. But when we ask a child to share a parent’s full name, phone number, or address during session, kids often struggle to remember these basics in real time. I always remind parents that this isn’t anyone’s fault. Most kids often can share this information when it is first taught, but over time, without real-world practice, even important safety skills can fade. I love that all the discussion question boxes in this book remind parents and kids that regular, everyday practice is what makes these skills stick! Simple ideas like letting your child help guide their walk home once a week, typing in phone numbers together to call your co-parent, or spending a whole week calling each other by your full names can make a big difference. This book does a great job of reminding us that regular safety skills practice can be fun and spontaneous, and this kind of practice builds kids’ confidence to use them when it really counts.

What Betsy likes about I Can Be Safe: I really like the page that talks about how fear is an instinct designed to let us know when things are not safe, which aligns with what we talked about the Q&A about fear and anxiety last week. The book encourages kids to notice different body signals that might indicate they are unsafe: Your stomach or your head feeling funny, your heart beating faster, or having a hard time breathing. I love how I Can Be Safe lets kids know that fear can tell them an important message, and it encourages kids to trust their own judgment.

Buy I Can Be Safe or listen online for free

We think I Can Be Safe would be a great addition to any child’s library. We’d love to hear your reactions to this review and your questions about safety skills — we’ll highlight some answers in next week’s post. Reply to this email, or join our community to leave a comment!

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FYI: The links above for buying I Can Be Safe are affiliate links (see this page for more information).

Last week, we recommended Orion and the Dark, which highlights the concept of exposure — the idea that approaching things we’re afraid of makes them less scary and builds confidence (read that post here). This week, we are sharing some resources to help you try exposure with your kiddo at home, and answering your real-life questions about exposure and fear.

Buy Orion and the Dark or listen online for free

How to Talk About Exposure with Your Child
We want to make practicing exposure feel as approachable as possible. Here are some ideas of how you can talk to your child about fear and exposure. We’ve included some comments to help you understand why we recommend these steps.

Remember that kids usually need to practice facing their fears multiple times and working up to harder situations to get the full benefit from exposure. With consistent practice, their scared feeling will start to get smaller, and they will begin to feel more confident about approaching their fears.

Questions From Our Community About Exposure and Fear

Q: What’s the best way to respond when my toddler gets startled by things, like a dog barking or the fridge alarm going off?

A: Great question! Fear is an important human emotion that helps us stay safe, and it’s important that kids learn to trust their fear instinct. On the other hand, we don’t want kids to feel paralyzed by fear — we want to teach them to engage in the world with caution and awareness when they feel scared. Parents can pay attention to what their child is afraid of and use this to guide their response. For situations that do present some amount of danger (realistic fears), the goal is to help kids learn to listen to their fear and respond with safety skills. For situations where the fear is unrealistic or where danger is highly unlikely, the goal is to help the child bravely face their fear. Often, kids are still learning what realistic and unrealistic fears are, so parents play an important role in helping them learn the difference.

Alarms and barking dogs could both be considered realistic fears. They contain potentially important safety information — many alarms exist to help us stay safe, like car horns or fire alarms, and a dog barking can signal that the dog needs space. It’s also very normal for kids to be startled by these types of loud noises. We don’t want to encourage kids to ignore information that could help them stay safe, but we also don’t want to encourage avoidance of a safe situation, like running out of the kitchen every time the fridge alarm goes off.

Situations that contain real signals of potential danger can be a great opportunity to help kiddos practice safety skills. Parents can teach their kids how to check in with a trusted adult about the scary situation to help them distinguish safe from unsafe things, like asking an adult, “Is the fridge ok?” or practice approaching the scary thing together to learn if it is safe or not. Another option is to plan ahead of time how to respond safely to realistic fears, like discussing how to safely retreat from sounds that signal threat. For example, your child probably doesn’t need to check in with you every time your family dog barks at the mail delivery. But if an unfamiliar dog is barking in your yard, you can teach them a clear safety plan: Back up slowly, go inside, and call for a trusted adult.

Either way, the goal is to help the child trust their own fear instincts and learn to stay safe around realistic and likely dangers, while approaching rather than avoiding unrealistic fears. Next week, we will talk more about teaching kids safety skills — stay tuned!

Q: My 4-year-old sometimes says he is afraid of ghosts, so I made a “ghost spray” to use to “scare ghosts away.” Is that helpful or hurtful?

A: This is a great example of a common yet unrealistic fear — we know that ghosts won’t cause kids harm. When kids fear unrealistic things like ghosts or monsters, parents can really lean into using exposure to help their kids overcome these fears.

This reader asked about ghost sprays, and we often see parents trying everything under the sun to help their kids feel better in the face of anxiety. Unfortunately, ghost spray is an example of something that may be inadvertently keeping anxiety alive — it may work in the short-term to temporarily reduce the kiddo’s anxiety, but it doesn’t help the kid overcome the fear in the long term, and could have the added downside of making the kid think they NEED the ghost spray to be okay. This is a good example of what we call avoidance — things kids and adults do to help themselves not have to face their fears. When we do anxiety treatment, we work with families to reduce avoidance behaviors to help the child overcome their fears fully. Approaching the feared situation and testing out whether the fear is likely to happen is the best way to challenge the strength of the unrealistic fear.

What could a parent do instead in this situation? A childhood exposure expert we know would probably say, “You don’t need a ghost spray, you need a ghost summoner!” Rather than trying to keep the ghosts away, an exposure framework would lead us to try and get the ghosts to come towards us (aka approach the fear rather than avoid it). This would involve working with the child to create a list of places and situations where they believe a ghost encounter is most likely to occur (in the closet? in the basement? at nighttime?), and then gradually approaching those situations, from easiest to hardest. Through repeated exposures, the kiddo will have the important experience of learning that 1) the ghosts never come, even when we try to approach them, and 2) if a scary noise (like a house creak) does happen after they “summon” a ghost, that they can handle that scary sound. Even though it might feel really hard to sit with the fear at first, with repeated practice of facing their unrealistic fear in different ways and different places, they will start to learn they are safe, and their anxiety will get smaller over time.

Remember, exposure can be fun, even when it's really hard. Maybe this is a chance to set out the ghost’s favorite toy, to see if he comes to play, or throw a tea party and invite some ghosts to tea. 👻

Go deeper on the science of fear and exposure:

1. We love this handout from Seattle Children’s Hospital on steps parents can take to help kids struggling with fear/anxiety, and this instruction guide from the Mayo Clinic on how to do parent-coached exposures.

2. This article and video from Baylor University go in depth on how avoidance keeps anxiety alive, using the example of being afraid of talking to another person (a social fear).

3. This worksheet from an anxiety-focused non-profit is a great option for helping young kids hop like a bunny “down the worry path” to face their fears one small step at a time.

4. To learn more about the science behind why it is so helpful for parents to help coach their kids through their exposure practice, check out these two recent trials.

5. Also from Baylor, the Learning to Understand and Navigate Anxiety (LUNA) lab offers free online resources for doing exposure therapy with both younger children and teens. This is a great resource for parents who want more structured support for trying out exposure therapy at home.

Do you notice your child having moments of fear or anxiety? Have you considered trying exposure? Share your experiences or questions about fear and anxiety in the comments!

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FYI: The links above for buying Orion and the Dark are affiliate links (see this page for more information).

Orion and the Dark: A picture book about fear for preschoolers (age 3+)

Each week, we recommend one kids book that teaches a mental health concept. Today, we’re sharing a book that tackles fear: Orion and the Dark, written and illustrated by Emma Yarlett. This book highlights the concept of exposure — the idea that approaching things we’re afraid of makes them less scary and builds confidence. Read on to learn why we recommend Orion and the Dark to the parents we know, the science behind exposure, and tips for talking to your kiddo about fear.

About the Book
Orion and the Dark features a little boy named Orion who is afraid of dogs, monsters, spiders, and the ocean, but is most afraid of the dark. One night, Orion gets so fed up that he yells at the dark to go away, and the Dark — embodied in a large, soft creature who looks like the night sky — enters his skylight. The Dark invites Orion on an adventure, and despite his fear, Orion goes along. The two explore dark and shadowy parts of Orion’s house, look for the source of scary sounds in the neighborhood, and even travel up into the scary starry sky. Orion’s willingness to move towards the thing he’s afraid of, like spending time with the Dark and visiting dark places he’s afraid of, showcases the science-backed skill of exposure.

Buy Orion and the Dark or listen online for free

What Science Tells Us about Fear
When we feel afraid, it triggers the fight or flight reaction — our brains, sensing danger, try to find ways to protect us, like telling us to hide or run away (we’ve also talked about how the fight or flight reaction relates to tantrums). In kids, “flight” behaviors aren’t always obvious, and sometimes when kids have developed a fear, they simply start avoiding the thing they’re afraid of altogether, like a child with a fear of dogs refusing to go to the house of a friend with a dog.

Avoidance works in the short term to reduce anxiety, but doesn’t get rid of the fear in the long term — if I’m afraid of dogs, I might feel better when I avoid one, but that doesn’t make me any less scared of dogs the next time I see one. Avoidance can actually even makes your anxiety worse over time — if when I avoid a dog, my brain feels relief, this can mistakenly tell my brain that dogs really must be dangerous. Avoidance also keeps us from having learning opportunities — if I always avoid dogs, my brain never gets a chance to learn that most of the time dogs are safe to be around.

To help kids break this cycle, we use a technique called exposure, a core component of cognitive behavioral therapy. Exposure is one of the most well-established treatments we have in psychology. It involves repeatedly approaching or moving towards the thing we’re afraid of, just like Orion does when he spends time with the Dark. Exposure is different than purposefully trying to scare your child or keeping them in a scary situation when they’re upset. Rather, exposure involves making a plan ahead of time with your child for ways they can start approaching the thing they fear, and then carrying out that plan. Several studies have shown that exposure is effective for treating fear and anxiety in children and adolescents. Research has also shown that exposure is more effective than other skills, like relaxation, which makes sense because relaxation doesn’t target the underlying issue of avoidance. Before fear or anxiety problems develop in kids or teens, parents can help promote a “brave” attitude by noticing things their child seems to be afraid of and helping them move towards it.

Practically, here’s how you can use exposure at home with your own kid.

1. Find a safe situation that they’re afraid of (e.g., dogs, vacuum, the dark, etc.). Help your child identify what they’re afraid will happen (e.g., the dog will bite me, monsters will get me). You don’t need to tell your child these things won’t happen — just talk about their belief with them plainly (e.g., “I see, your brain tells you that if you go near a dog, it will bite you.”).

2. Talk about how avoiding scary yet safe situations actually feeds the fear, and how “being brave” and moving towards these situations can actually help make them less scary.

3. Work with your child to list some steps they could take to approach the situation. You can think of easy steps and harder steps.

4. Try to help your child stay in the situation. For the best effect, staying in the situation for up to 20 minutes can help kids learn that the situation is safe. If they start to feel bored instead of terrified, you are on the right track!

5. Afterwards, ask your child about whether the thing they were afraid of happening actually happened (e.g., “I know your brain was telling the dog would bite you if you went near it. Did the dog bite you?”). This helps your child’s brain start to build new connections between the thing they fear and ideas of safety (sometimes we talk about “recalibrating your brain’s danger meter”).

Stay tuned for our post next week, where we’ll give you an example of how to practice exposure with your kid at home.

What Marin likes about Orion and the Dark: The narration in this book is such a beautiful illustration of how our feeling of fear can become a companion that joins us while we practice being brave, like how The Dark joins Orion. Sometimes we think that exposures should “get rid” of our scared feelings, but in reality, exposures are a practice that focuses on bringing our hard feelings along while we keep trying new things. The dreamy illustrations remind me that there is a vast world for all of us to explore and be curious about, one step at a time. Inviting our feelings of fear along is often the key to taking a step forward.

What Betsy likes about Orion and the Dark: I love how Orion discovers that some of the darkest places — like the closet, under the bed, and in the basement — are actually the most fun! Fear can drown out other emotions, but when we are brave and go towards the things we’re afraid of, it opens us up to new experiences. There’s actually some brand-new research showing that experiencing positive emotions like hope and joy after an exposure is related to exposure therapy working well. Sometimes in therapy we even use humor or make fun of the thing we’re afraid of (“Silly dark, you made goofy noises to try to scare me!”), which can help bring positive emotions to exposure work.

Buy Orion and the Dark or listen online for free

We think Orion and the Dark would be a great addition to any child’s library. We’d love to hear your reactions to this review and your questions about exposure — we’ll highlight some answers in next week’s post. Reply to this email, or join our community to leave a comment!

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FYI: The links above for buying Orion and the Dark are affiliate links (see this page for more information).

Lailah’s Lunchbox: A picture book about help seeking for kids (age 5+)

Each week, we recommend one kids book that teaches a mental health concept. Today, we’re sharing a book that tackles asking for help: Lailah’s Lunchbox: A Ramadan Story, written by Reem Faruqi and illustrated by Lea Lyon. This book highlights the concept of help seeking — the idea that knowing when and how to ask for help boosts kids’ confidence and strengthens their problem-solving abilities. Read on to learn why we recommend Lailah’s Lunchbox to the parents we know, the science behind help seeking, and tips for talking to your kiddo about asking for help without giving up.

About the Book
In Lailah’s Lunchbox, Lailah — who moved from Abu Dhabi to Peachtree City, Georgia when she was young — is excited to be fasting for the first time for the month of Ramadan. But when Lailah’s mom writes a note to her teacher asking her to be excused from lunch, Lailah starts to worry that no one at school will know about Ramadan and avoids passing on the note. Over lunch, when other students think Lailah left her lunch at home and offer her food, Lailah ends up in the library, where she opens up to the librarian about her worries. With the librarian's encouragement, Lailah finds her own way to talk to her teacher about fasting and getting the help she needs.

Buy Lailah’s Lunchbox or listen online for free

What Science Tells Us about Help Seeking
The ability to ask for help is an important part of problem solving across a range of situations — it can help us navigate daily problems, like not being able to reach something, mental health problems, like having worries or fears that won’t go away, or having trouble in school, like not understanding an assignment. But help seeking hasn’t always been seen as a good thing, and in the 20th century, some researchers thought that help seeking indicated dependence (for example, in 1955, Dr. Glen Heathers wrote that one form of dependence is “when a person seeks help in reaching goals”).

Responding to this idea, Dr. Sharon Nelson-Le Gall at the University of Pittsburgh published a paper in 1981 called “Help-seeking: An understudied problem-solving skill in children.” She argued that viewing help seeking as a type of dependence is a misconception. Help seeking requires “a fair amount of sophistication,” she wrote, and shouldn’t be assumed to mean that a child isn’t engaging in independent problem solving:

“Seeking out a competent person for aid or advice may be an independent method of solving a difficult problem.”

Dr. Nelson-Le Gall advocated for thinking about help seeking as a problem-solving skill, and was interested in boosting kids’ ability to ask for help effectively. As more research has been carried out, it has backed up the idea that help seeking is an important skill. Help seeking is related to academic achievement — one study found that kids between 8-17 who sought help after making a mistake had better school performance (measured via GPA) than those who didn’t. Help seeking also seems to be good for mental health: A randomized trial involving 18 schools in Pennsylvania taught some adolescents about help seeking for depression. They found that teens who were taught this skill were more likely to ask for help and get treatment for depression several months later. Dr. Nadia Bounoua, a clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland who researches ADHD and trauma recovery for kids, explained this, noting, “teaching school-age kids help-seeking skills can give them the language and confidence to speak up when something feels confusing, uncomfortable, or misunderstood.” When Dr. Bounoua talks with parents, she often stresses the importance of helping kids identify who they can trust. She uses language like: “A trusted adult is someone who listens, takes your feelings seriously, and helps you figure out what to do next.”

How can parents capitalize on these benefits of help seeking? It can help to conceptualize help seeking as a problem-solving skill that’s supports kids when they’ve reached the edge of their knowledge and are trying to learn something new. Developmental psychologists understand that kids can develop new knowledge or problem-solving abilities by seeking support from an adult or more knowledgeable peer (this is called the “Zone of Proximal Development” and was introduced by the psychologist Vygotsky).

When a child is working on a difficult task or trying something new, try these steps for supporting them, based on Zones of Proximal Development:

• Signal that you believe in their ability to do it! When you give them the message that you’re there to support them, they will feel safe enough to try it on their own without giving up early. This step can be as simple as saying something like, “You can do it! I’m here if you need me.”

• When a kid gets stuck, pause before stepping in. The goal is to not interrupt their thinking and natural problem-solving abilities.

• Encourage kids to practice the skill of asking for help. Avoid “rescuing” your child by offering help or supplying the answer before they request help or have fully tried. This helps your child learn when and how to most effectively ask for help, which is a skill in and of itself! If you see that your child is really struggling and has forgotten to ask for help, feel free to prompt them (“Is there something I can help you with?”).

• Once your child does ask for help, offer support that builds on your kid’s current skills, like a problem-solving suggestion and a question to inspire their thinking.

How to Support Your Child’s Help Seeking
Here’s an example of what scaffolding help-seeking skills can look like when your kiddo is feeling stuck:

What psychologists like about Lailah’s Lunchbox: Dr. Bounoua, the University of Maryland, College Park professor and psychologist, likes how Lailah’s Lunchbox shows how asking for help from the librarian, a trusted adult, helped Lailah move from feeling anxious to feeling empowered. As someone who also celebrates Ramadan, she also appreciates how Lailah’s Lunchbox captures the mix of excitement and nervousness that comes with fasting for the first time — especially at school, where it can feel unfamiliar or hard to explain. We love how this book support both kids celebrating Ramadan, as well as kids who might want to learn more about what fasting is like for their friends and neighbors during this time of year.

Go deeper on the science of help seeking:

1. Check out this Scientific American article, where two developmental psychologists describe their research findings that kids are often scared to ask for help because they’re worried what other people will think.

2. We also like this post about ways to encourage help seeking in kids.

3. Seeking help can make the person helping you happy! This study found that people often underestimate how willing others are to help, and how happy it makes people to be helpful (here is an interview with the author about the study).

4. Interested in learning more about the Zone of Proximal Development? Check out this short article (written for teachers) on how it can relate to teaching and learning!

5. If you want to learn more about what it means to be a “trusted adult” and how warm, positive relationships help kids learn across development, check out this resource from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.

Buy Lailah’s Lunchbox or listen online for free

We think Lailah’s Lunchbox would be a great addition to any child’s library. We’d love to hear your reactions to this review and your questions about help seeking. Reply to this email, or join our community to leave a comment!

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FYI: The links above for buying Lailah’s Lunchbox are affiliate links (see this page for more information).

In My Heart: A Book of Feelings: A picture book about noticing emotions in the body for kids (age 5+)

Each week, we recommend one kids book that teaches a mental health concept. In honor of Valentine’s Day this week, we’re sharing In My Heart: A Book of Feelings, written by Jo Witek and illustrated by Christine Roussey. This book highlights that noticing how our bodies feel can help us identify what emotion we’re experiencing, which can help us manage big emotions. Read on to learn why we recommend In My Heart to the parents we know, the science behind body sensations and emotions, and tips for talking to your child about noticing feelings in their body.

About the Book
In My Heart — which features sweet heart cut-outs throughout the whole book — follows a little girl who talks about all the feelings in her heart. On each page, she describes how different emotions feels in her body — when she’s happy, she feels like she’s blasting off into the sky, when she’s sad, her heart feels heavy like an elephant. We love how this book covers a wide range of possible emotions — from mad, to brave, to sad, to hopeful — and talks vividly about how each emotion can feel in the mind and body.

Buy In My Heart or listen online for free

What Science Tells Us about Noticing Feelings in the Body
One way we experience and recognize emotions is through sensations in the body. This is pretty intuitive — for example, it’s common to hear people talk about how being nervous or anxious can feel like having “butterflies in the stomach.” Researchers have explored the idea of emotions going with body sensations using a clever method called “body mapping.” In a study of over 700 people, researchers showed participants a silhouette of a body and asked them to highlight the parts of their body that felt active, or inactive, as they were experiencing a certain emotion. Using this method, researchers showed that different emotions have distinct “body sensation maps,” which are consistent across cultures. Here’s what these maps look like:

Figure 2 in “Bodily maps of emotions,” published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Nummenmaa et al., 2014). Warm colors represent active areas; cool colors represent inactive areas.

Research using bodily maps of emotions in kids and teens has shown that kids as young as 6 have unique patterns of body sensations for emotions like happiness, fear, and surprise. Researchers also noticed that as kids get older, their emotional body maps become more precise. For example, bodily maps for anger, fear, and sadness all look pretty similar for 6-year-olds, but in older teens, they look much more distinct:

Adapted from Figure 2 in “Bodily maps of emotions across child development,” published in Developmental Science (Hietanen et al., 2016). Warm colors represent active areas; cool colors represent inactive areas.

Why does this matter? Research shows that being aware of emotions and being able to differentiate between emotions are both related to strong mental health. For over two decades, therapists have tried to help kids increase awareness of their emotional experiences using body-mapping activities, which involve creating an artistic representation of one’s own thoughts and experiences on a life-sized paper silhouette.

Research is still exploring the most effective ways to help children connect the sensations in their bodies to their emotions. Methods for doing this are being tested in programs like “I Spy Feelings,” which teaches kids to notice different “body clues” for each feeling and has been shown to help kids cope better with anger.

How to Help Your Child Begin to Notice Feelings in Their Body
Try out these prompts for helping your kiddo notice how their body sensations are connected to their emotions:

What Marin likes about In My Heart: In my clinical work, I have seen how empowering it can be for kids to take the time to understand how their emotions connect to the sensations in their bodies. Suddenly, that really hot, uncomfortable feeling in their face and chest that comes with anger isn’t just a yucky feeling they need to get rid of as soon as possible, but instead it becomes a “clue” to what is happening in their minds. Taking time to explore kids’ physical experiences can also help parents understand what it actually feels like inside a kid’s bodies during a big emotional moment, which can build empathy (from learning that there’s an overwhelming amount of sensation flooding the whole body to learning that the child is feeling very little sensation at all). In My Heart does an awesome job of showing the richness of both literal sensations (her heart beating fast when she is excited) and metaphorical sensations (the feeling of heaviness in her heart when she is sad) that kids struggle with as they learn to link body feelings to emotion words.

What Betsy likes about In My Heart: Since it’s almost Valentine’s Day, I wanted to bring in some cool research on how knowing about emotions (a skill we can build when we practice noticing feelings in the body) can help kids build social connection and relationships. One study found that preschoolers with more emotion knowledge were more accepted by their peers, and another study found that this was because kids with better emotion knowledge have better social skills. Higher social acceptance matters, because it leads to stronger social connections and friendships. I love the idea that reading books like In My Heart could help strengthen kids’ social relationships. Just another reason to make talking about emotions part of your family culture!

Go deeper on the science of noticing feelings in the body:

1. We like this handout from Oxford Health for helping kids explore where they feel different emotions in their bodies, which has a lot in common with the body maps of emotions we talked about above.

2. We like this article from the Kids Mental Health Foundation, which gives parents ideas for how to support their kids as they learn to identify emotions.

3. This mindfulness activity of mentally “scanning” the body from head to toe with the help of the “Stress Bot” can help your kiddo learn to notice how the sensations in their body can change as they practice their coping skills.

4. This short video can be a great starting point for discussing with younger kiddos (3 and under) if an emotion makes their body feel comfortable or uncomfortable.

5. We always love when an adult band starts making kid music, and we especially love this new song by Wild Child called “Feelings” which normalizes having lots of different emotions. It’s from their forthcoming album “Wild Child for Kids” (coming out in April!).

Buy In My Heart or listen online for free

We think In My Heart would be a great addition to any child’s library. We’d love to hear your reactions to this review and your questions about noticing feelings in our bodies. Reply to this email, or join our community to leave a comment!

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FYI: The links above for buying In My Heart are affiliate links (see this page for more information).

The Rabbit Listened: A picture book about reflective listening for preschoolers (age 3+)

Each week, we recommend one kids book that teaches a mental health concept. Today, we’re sharing a book that showcases reflective listening: The Rabbit Listened, written and illustrated by Cori Doerrfeld. This book highlights the concept of reflective listening — the idea that carefully reflecting back your child’s thoughts and emotions can help your child feel understood and build connection. Read on to learn why we recommend The Rabbit Listened to the parents we know, the science behind reflective listening, and tips for using this skill with your child.

About the Book
The Rabbit Listened is about little Taylor, who builds an incredible block tower… only to see it come crashing to the ground. Taylor is so upset! A parade of animals comes through to try to cheer Taylor up — the chicken offers to talk, the bear offers to shout about it, the elephant offers to fix the tower — but none of this helps Taylor. Finally, along comes a rabbit, who sits with Taylor in silence and doesn’t try to problem-solve or change how she’s feeling. With the rabbit’s response (which embodies the parenting skill of reflective listening), Taylor finally begins to talk, express her feelings, and move past her sadness.

Buy The Rabbit Listened or listen online for free

What Science Tells Us about Reflective Listening

Reflective listening (sometimes called “active listening”) involves listening closely to what your child is saying (or yelling or mumbling), summarizing and mirroring their words (“So you’re saying it felt unfair when _____”), and labeling their feelings. This style of responding lets your child know you heard them and understand what they wanted you to know. Reflective listening isn’t an easy task! It often involves using nonverbal cues, such as gentle eye contact and nodding, to signal that you’re listening. It often also involves pausing the busyness of life to carefully watch the child’s body language to help understand what they’re really trying to say. Are they asking a question, making a statement, or trying to communicate something indirectly?

Research shows that reflective listening helps strengthen parent-child relationships. In one study, parents randomly assigned to learn reflective listening were less anxious, more confident, and had more knowledge about how to respond to their child’s distress than parents in a control group. Reflective listening may also improve parent-child conflict-resolution skills, as found in a study of the intervention Parent Effectiveness Training, which involves reflective listening. Research has also shown that reflective listening makes people feel more understood than giving advice does, which means parents can use it to support their child’s emotional development! When parents reflect back the emotion they see their child expressing, they help the child learn to name the emotions they are experiencing and understand their inner worlds better, which likely builds their self-esteem (“My feelings make sense, and my parent gets me”).

Here are some tips for practicing reflective listening:

• Try setting small reminders for yourself and notice what your child does in response when you use reflective listening. You don’t have to reflect everything they say (life is busy), but it helps if reflective listening is a regular part of what you offer them. Practicing with “small stuff” builds the habit, so when something big comes up, your child already thinks, “My parents are good listeners.”

• Many kids show strong feelings before they have the words to describe them. If you think this is true for your child, you can offer a feeling label like, “That sounds disappointing,” or “I wonder if you’re feeling nervous because ____.” This kind of tentative language helps your child learn to name their emotions while creating space for them to correct you if you’re wrong.

• One of the biggest challenges when doing reflective listening is that it can be very hard for parents to sit with their child’s distress. This often leads parents to try to make the child feel better by telling them all the reasons they don’t need to have that hard feeling, which ends up accidentally minimizing the emotion (like, “that was just a little fall, you’re fine!” or “it’s no big deal, you will have another chance next year!”). This can make kids feel like their feelings aren’t logical or valid. Notice when you have an urge to tell your child they shouldn’t feel upset, and see if you can replace this with naming your child’s emotion (“It sounds like you’re really sad that…”) while practicing self-regulation skills to keep your cool when sitting with their distress.

• When listening, avoid asking questions, problem-solving, or trying to teach them something. All of these are valid parenting strategies, but they are often much more effective if reflective listening comes first. Kids are better able to learn the important information their parents are sharing when the intensity of their emotion decreases, which usually happens once they feel heard and understood.

We also want to address some myths about reflective listening. Some parents worry that using this style means they are agreeing with or “co-signing” their child’s interpretation. In reality, reflective listening is about understanding your child’s point of view, and doesn’t require you to agree with that point of view. Parents can focus on validating their child’s emotion and what they’re upset about (“You feel really angry because I took the stick away”) and also summarize their child’s beliefs without necessarily agreeing with them (“You think it’s really unfair that I took the stick away”). Another myth about reflective listening is that it requires agreeing to your child’s requests or not having boundaries. In reality, kids can feel heard even when the answer is “no.” Parents can practice reflective listening to understand their child’s perspective before shifting to maintaining a boundary or establishing a consequence.

How to Use Reflective Listening with Your Child
Here is an example of a listening style to avoid, because it often leads to the child becoming more distressed and then withdrawing from their parent:

Instead, to reduce your child’s distress and deepen your connection while achieving your parenting goals, we recommend trying out these reflective listening prompts:

What Marin likes about The Rabbit Listened: I love how this book illustrates the power and simplicity of one of my favorite parenting skills! I teach reflective listening to almost every parent I work with because so many parents ask, “Why doesn’t my child talk to me when they’re upset? I tell them they can tell me anything!” Often, kids open up more when they feel listened to, not when they’re asked lots of questions or given advice right away. Think about when you’re telling a friend something hard… most people prefer a friend who listens more than they talk, right? But it is easy to forget this when your kid is upset, and all you want is for them to feel better as soon as possible. As the rabbit shows us in this book, saying less often has a much greater impact than we might imagine. I have seen countless parents go from daily fights with their kids or from having their questions constantly ignored to feeling they are finally being let into their kids’ inner worlds just by adopting this simple habit.

What Betsy likes about The Rabbit Listened: I love love love how the rabbit just sits in silence with Taylor. Being with someone in their pain, and not trying to fix or change it, is such a powerful way to support other people when they are suffering. This moment reminded me quite a moment in A Blue Kind of Day — when Coen was feeling sad, his family snuggled close to him and waited (showcasing the skill of observing emotions). This made me think about how observing emotions and reflective listening are related to each other — when we focus on summarizing and mirroring during reflective listening, rather than trying to change or problem-solve tough emotions, we are also observing those difficult emotions and saying that they’re okay and don’t need to be changed. For both Taylor (in Rabbit Listened) and Coen (in Blue Kind of Day), when their parents used these skills, they finally felt seen and supported, which allowed them to open up and move forward.

Go deeper on the science and practice of reflective listening:

1. Check out our Reflective Listening Formula handout to practice using this skill with your own child! 🌸

2. A well-loved parenting book which emphasizes reflective listening is How To Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk (there’s also a little kid version).

3. This is a bit off-the-wall, but this episode of the NYTimes “The Interview” podcast interviewed Chris Voss, a former FBI hostage negotiator, who highlights something he calls “tactical empathy,” which is really just reflective listening! We thought this was a fun example of the wide applicability of reflective listening skills.

4. Parents interested in the study on Parent Effectiveness Training (PET), mentioned above, might enjoy reading this article about the intervention in the Australian Institute of Family Studies Family Matters magazine. We like how table 1 gives real-life examples of parents practicing reflective listening!

5. We also wanted to share an example from a parent about how reflective listening helped her when rushing to get out the door one morning.

Buy The Rabbit Listened or listen online for free

We think The Rabbit Listened would be a great addition to any child’s library. We’d love to hear your reactions to this review and your questions about reflective listening. Reply to this email, or join our community to leave a comment!

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FYI: The links above for buying The Rabbit Listened and other books are affiliate links (see this page for more information).

I Feel… Meh: A picture book about mood-boosting activities for preschoolers (age 3+)

Each week, we recommend one kids book that teaches a mental health concept. Today, we’re sharing a book that talks about what to do when nothing sounds fun or when energy is low: I Feel… Meh, written and illustrated by DJ Corchin. This book highlights the concept of mood-boosting activities — the idea that doing an activity we typically enjoy, especially when energy is low or nothing sounds fun, can actually help boost our mood. Read on to learn why we recommend I Feel… Meh to the parents we know, the science behind mood-boosting activities, and tips for talking to your kiddo about getting unstuck from low moods.

About the Book
I Feel… Meh is about a color-changing shape that just feels ‘meh!’ Nothing sounds fun to this shape, including activities that they usually love doing, like playing or making art. The shape then introduces a strategy it uses when it feels ‘meh’ — it purposefully tries out different activities to help it get out of the slump. We call this strategy choosing “mood-boosting activities,” and it’s a science-backed way to deal with periods of low energy and/or difficulty experiencing enjoyment (the clinical name for this is “anhedonia”). The book ends with an explanation page for parents, which explains more about mood-boosting activities.

Buy I Feel… Meh or listen online for free

What Science Tells Us about Mood-Boosting Activities
Have you ever felt like nothing sounds fun, even things you typically like, and that you just don’t have the energy to try? Or have you ever had trouble feeling happy even when you’re doing something fun or when something good happens? The clinical term for this experience is “anhedonia,” which literally means “difficulty experiencing pleasure.” All humans experience anhedonia at some point or another, but anhedonia is also elevated in some clinical disorders, like depression and PTSD.

Scientists have learned that anhedonia plays a role in keeping depression alive. This is because it creates a negative cycle: When we don’t feel like doing anything, and then skip or avoid activities like hobbies, chores, or socializing, we have fewer chances to have fun, enjoyable, and satisfying experiences, which can keep our mood and motivation (i.e., “energy”) low. When we treat depression in therapy, we break this negative cycle with a skill called “mood-boosting activities” (the scientific term for this is “behavioral activation” or “activity scheduling”). Doing fun or social activities has a proven effect on mood: Research found that both leisure activities and socializing boost the mood of teens and young people, especially those with depression.

At the most basic level, doing mood-boosting activities involves planning and doing activities, especially those that are enjoyable or make us feel accomplished, even on days when we just don’t want to do anything. Instead of waiting to feel better before we get active, we get active in order to feel better. Doing mood-boosting activities has been shown in meta-analyses to be an effective treatment for child and teen depression, both as a standalone treatment and when it’s studied as a part of a broader cognitive behavioral therapy treatment package (mood-boosting activities are the “behavior” part of CBT for depression). It’s also very effective for treating adults and seems to improve anxiety for adults and kids, too!

How can parents use this information to help their kiddos?

• Parents can know that occasionally feeling like “nothing sounds fun” or “I’m too tired to do anything” is a common experience. Parents can talk with kiddos about how everyone feels like this sometimes by reading I Feel… Meh together.

• Parents can also understand the activity-mood cycle — that when we withdraw from activities or avoid them for extended periods of time, it can actually make us feel worse. Using this knowledge, parents can practice finding a balance between observing their child’s sadness and gently asking if they want to try a mood-boosting activity to see how it affects their mood.

• When kids are feeling ‘meh,’ parents can help them brainstorm mood-boosting activities. Try framing this as an experiment: “What if we go for a walk outside together and see how you feel after?” Avoid framing activity suggestions as “You’ll feel better if you go for a walk,” because we don’t know which activities will be the most effective mood-boosters for each person, and it works best when kids discover this on their own!

• After the ‘meh’ feeling passes, parents can help their child reflect on what activities they did that helped shift their mood or boost their energy. Parents can say things like, “It sounds like playing with Ezra and painting helped the ‘meh’ feeling get smaller. Let’s make a list of the things that helped when you were feeling ‘meh’ so we remember that they are good options to try next time.”

How to Talk About Mood-Boosting Activities with Your Child
Try out these prompts for when you notice your kiddo stuck in a mood where nothing feels enjoyable, or they have no energy:

What Marin likes about I Feel… Meh: I really like that this book shows how expansive the feeling of ‘meh’ can be, almost like this grey fog or shadow that can creep across so many different parts of our lives (school and work, time with friends and family, hobbies and simple pleasures). The hardest part about mood-boosting activities for most of my patients is the idea of having to do the most basic activities when all they want to do is sleep, zone out, or shut down. Once they start consistently doing even very small activities (<5 minutes), it can be amazing to see how quickly the fog can lift. Convincing ourselves and our kids to be active is no easy task, though, so I really hope this book reminds us all that getting out of that fog can be full of silliness, even if it doesn’t feel fun at first.

What Betsy likes about I Feel… Meh: I love how I Feel… Meh really shows what anhedonia can feel like: It’s not feeling happy or sad, it’s just feeling kind of… gray. It can be hard to describe this feeling, especially because there’s not necessarily an emotion that goes along with it. A lot of my patients have found it really helpful simply to learn what anhedonia is and that it’s a thing a lot of people experience. Having a name for this experience makes it a lot easier to cope with. I love how I Feel… Meh introduces anhedonia — which doesn’t get talked about enough! — to little kiddos, while highlighting the importance of doing mood-boosting activities to break the ‘meh’ cycle.

One thing we don’t like about I Feel… Meh: Though we love how this book describes anhedonia and mood-boosting activities in a kid-friendly way, we think it oversimplifies the process a bit. The book makes it sound like brainstorming or starting a fun activity when we’re feeling ‘meh’ is easy, when in reality, these are often really hard steps. Oftentimes, when we’re feeling ‘meh,’ it can be really hard to convince our brain to try out a fun activity — our brains come up with reasons why it’s not a good idea, like “I don’t feel good enough to do that.” Because actually starting a mood-boosting activity can be so hard, we recommend framing the process of picking a mood-boosting activity as an “experiment.” This can help depressurize the situation and make the activity easier to try out.

Go deeper on the science of anhedonia and mood-boosting activities:

1. We love this Boston Children’s Hospital video about “Making Time for Fun” (another term for mood-boosting activities) on this page. The video has a great section on common concerns parents have to help them troubleshoot. This matching handout is also great and introduces the idea of tracking your mood before and after doing an activity to see how it impacts your mood.

2. We like this article on behavioral activation for kids and teens by the Child Mind Institute. It talks about the role of values (the things you care about) in planning activity goals.

3. For an adult-focused behavioral activation video, we like this one from the NHS, which does a great job explaining the cycle of low mood and why doing activities can help.

4. Parents who want to try out behavioral activation in their own lives can use this chapter from the University of Michigan, which walks you step-by-step through the process.

5. For parents who want to dive deeper into the science of why doing valued, rewarding activities helps improve youths’ mood, check out this article published by BMC Psychology.

Buy I Feel… Meh or listen online for free

We think I Feel… Meh would be a great addition to any child’s library. We’d love to hear your reactions to this review and your questions about mood-boosting activities. Reply to this email, or join our community to leave a comment!

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FYI: The links above for buying I Feel… Meh are affiliate links (see this page for more information).

Belly Song: A board book about body neutrality for toddlers (age 1+)

Each week, we recommend one kids book that teaches a mental health concept. Today, we’re sharing a book that can help little ones learn to appreciate their bodies before body image issues emerge: Belly Song, written by Mother Moon and illustrated by Leah Giles. This book highlights the concept of body neutrality — the idea that talking about our bodies in plain, non-judgmental language can help us build a healthy relationship with our bodies. Read on to learn why we recommend Belly Song to the parents we know, the science behind body neutrality, and tips for talking to your kiddo about their body and eating.

About the Book
Belly Song is a simple, sweet board book all about bellies. It actually began as a song before it was a book (listen here)! Belly Song shows a bunch of different people with all different kinds of bellies — some with lots of muscle, some with lots of fat, some that wiggle, and some that jiggle. By showcasing many different kinds of bellies and describing them in neutral descriptive language, Belly Song demonstrates the concept of body neutrality (i.e., how describing bodies plainly rather than labeling them as “good” or “bad”) can help us build healthy relationships with our bodies.

Buy Belly Song or listen to the song online (and preview the book) for free

What Science Tells Us about Body Neutrality

Research has repeatedly shown that parents' comments about children’s weight or body shape are harmful to kids’ mental health. First, a meta-analysis (a study that combines other studies) showed that when parents encourage their kids to lose weight or criticize their bodies, kids have poorer body image, diet more, and engage in more behaviors related to eating disorders, like fasting or purging. These patterns were found even in kids younger than 11. Another study of over 300 teen girls also found that when parents talk about weight, teens were more likely to do eating disorder-related behaviors. But wait, it’s not just parents’ comments about kids’ bodies that do harm! Parents’ relationships with their own bodies also matter. In the same study, when parents dieted or talked about their own weight, their daughters did more unhealthy eating behaviors, like fasting, eating very little, and skipping meals. We see this as persuasive evidence that avoiding commenting on children’s (and our own) weight and not encouraging kids to lose weight are critical parenting skills.

So, how can parents talk to their kids about their bodies and help kids develop a healthy body image? One idea is learning to talk about bodies in neutral and nonjudgmental terms, called “body neutrality.” This involves describing our body parts plainly (for example, saying “my belly is white and round”) rather than labeling body parts as good or bad or using judgmental language like “my belly is ugly.” Evidence for body neutrality comes from a treatment called mirror exposure therapy, which teaches people to use nonjudgmental language when talking about their bodies. This intervention increases body satisfaction and reduces feelings of anxiety in college women, adolescents with obesity, and individuals with eating disorders.

Body neutrality is a relatively new concept, and there aren’t yet any conclusive studies showing that using body-neutral language can protect kids from developing body issues. There is active research in this area: One study found that youth who did a 20-minute body neutrality intervention liked their bodies better and had improved mental health after the training (however, this study didn’t have a control group). Even though research on body neutrality is relatively early, we think that body neutrality is a great skill to teach to all kids, especially so that they can develop a strong internal voice to counter harmful, critical body talk, which is very common in society.

How to Model Body Neutrality for Your Child
Try out these prompts for practicing body neutrality with your kiddo:

What Marin likes about Belly Song: Belly Song uses words like “fat,” “round,” and “jiggle” with so much joy and silliness that it helped me continue to reshape my relationship to these words. This lovely book reminds us that we can challenge self-consciousness and shame while celebrating our bodies by practicing with these neutral, simple, and descriptive words.

What Betsy likes about Belly Song: I love how Belly Song shows so many different realistic belly shapes and bodies — with all sorts of folds and rolls and skin tones. It’s so rare to see realistic depictions of bodies in kids books and society in general. Plus, I think toddlers will love noticing the tiny baby balanced on her papa’s big belly on the first page.

Go deeper on the science of body neutrality:

1. We love this article from the Kids Mental Health Foundation with some practical tips about talking to kids about food and bodies.

2. Want to get a sense of what body neutrality is all about? You can try out the brief body neutrality intervention we mentioned above, created by Professor Jessica Schleider at Northwestern (the training is designed for teens, but the same concepts apply to adults).

3. Wondering how body neutrality relates to body positivity? This article from Verywell Mind talks about the difference between them and the value of each one.

4. Parents who want to learn more in-depth about using body neutrality can check out this article on body neutral parenting with kids and teens, published in the journal The Professional Counselor.

5. Want to read about the science behind mirror exposure therapy, discussed above? Check out this Psychology Today article and Dr. Trevor C. Griffen’s National Eating Disorder Information Centre bulletin on the topic (click here to download the bulletin).

Buy Belly Song or listen to the song online (and preview the book) for free

We think Belly Song would be a great addition to any child’s library. We’d love to hear your reactions to this review and your questions about body neutrality. Reply to this email, or join our community to leave a comment!

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FYI: The links above for buying Belly Song are affiliate links (see this page for more information).

We’ve noted which of these are parent skills, which are things primarily for the parent to do, like special time. The other skills all include parent coaching and parent engagement, but are ultimately things we’re trying to help our kids learn to do on their own.

Remember, the project of growing up takes time, so we wouldn’t expect a kiddo to learn these skills in a day, week, or year. Some of these skills might even become the foundations of lifelong skills that they will continue to practice into their adulthood!

General mental health & well-being skills

• Flexible thinking

• Help seeking

• Naming emotions

• Naming others’ emotions

• Noticing feelings in the body

• Reflective listening (parent skill)

• Safety skills

• Self-compassion

Anger

• Belly breathing

• Managing anger

• Co-regulation (parent skill)

Anxiety

• Belly breathing

• Exposure

• Observing worry

Depression

• Balanced thinking

• Observing sadness

• Mood-boosting activities

Bodies & eating

• Body neutrality

Behavioral problems

• Specific praise (parent skill)

• Special time (parent skill)

• Self-regulation

Skills for positive emotions

• Savoring happiness

• Gratitude

If you have specific clinical topics or issues you’re struggling with (i.e., tantrums, not listening, or separation anxiety) or a clinical skill you’d like us to cover (i.e., mindfulness), please tell us! We’d love to tailor our posts to your needs and interests.

Thanks for following along with us! We’re so grateful to have you in the Minds in Bloom community.

Little Siblings, Big Feelings: A picture book about the transition to sibling-hood for toddlers (age 1+)

Each week, we recommend one kids book that teaches a mental health concept. Today, we’re sharing a book that helps kids and parents when their family is growing: Little Siblings, Big Feelings, written by Maya Burr and illustrated by Rachel Castaneda. This book highlights the concept of specific praise — the idea that when parents label and praise behaviors that they want their child to repeat, it can reduce challenging behaviors. Using specific praise can help kids manage the feelings that come with big life transitions (like welcoming a new sibling). Read on to learn why we recommend Little Siblings, Big Feelings to the parents we know, the science behind specific praise, and tips for talking to your kiddo about sibling relationships.

About the Book
Little Siblings, Big Feelings is a book designed to help toddlers as they transition into the role of an older sibling. Little Siblings highlights the big emotions that can come with the arrival of a new sibling, like anger, loneliness, or sadness, and gives toddlers scripts and strategies for managing these emotions. In addition to giving toddlers concrete ideas of things to do (e.g., speaking up when they need space, using a breathing skill), the book also coaches parents through applying the specific praise skill to help shape the behavior they want to see from their older child and reduce challenging behaviors.

Buy Little Siblings, Big Feelings, or listen to the author talk about it here.

What Science Tells Us about Specific Praise

We know that adding a child to a family is both SO exciting and also SO stressful. An empirical review (like a “report card” of real-world studies) that looked at children’s transition to sibling-hood confirmed this, finding that children have more negative emotions and behavior problems after the birth of a younger sibling. In other words, it’s normal to see big emotions and disruptive behaviors after adding a new sibling to a family!

For parents, managing big emotions or difficult behaviors in an older child is often challenging — and even more so when they’re simultaneously caring for a brand new baby and dealing with sleep deprivation! Older siblings’ reactions can take the form of big negative emotions (e.g., anger, sadness, irritation) or disruptive behavior (e.g., tantrums, hitting, yelling, throwing). These can even be directed at the new sibling or parents. This can cause negative cycles: in response to a child’s disruptive behavior, parents may scold or yell, or withdraw positive attention (e.g., spending less special, connected time together). This can, in turn, make some of those big, negative emotions worse or even cause the child to escalate these concerning behaviors to try to regain their parents’ attention.

Fortunately, Little Siblings shows how a skill called specific praise can prevent and break these challenge cycles. Specific praise involves pairing praise language with a description of the older child’s behavior to help the child understand exactly what behavior the parent wants to see more of. For example, imagine a big sibling sits down quietly and gently passes a toy to their new sibling, and a parent says, “Good job!” (general praise). Without specific praise, the child has no idea what they did to get this positive attention (Could it be for the sitting? The sharing? The gentle touching? The finishing their snack after school? Who knows?!). To help the child learn what we want to see more of, we need to be very clear and direct: “Awesome job using gentle hands to touch your brother” (specific praise). This serves as positive reinforcement and creates a cycle that leads to more positive interactions between the parents and child.

Not all types of praise are equally helpful (see our post on specific vs. judgment-based praise), but we know that specific praise improves child behavior from 50 years of research using specific praise in schools. We also know that a treatment involving specific praise, Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), improves behavior. In a meta-analysis, PCIT was shown to a) reduce children’s challenging behaviors, b) improve children’s listening, and c) reduce parent and child stress levels. This is strong evidence that specific labeled praise can improve child behavior and the parent-child relationship.

How to Use Specific Praise with Your Child
Here’s what it can look like to use specific praise with your kiddo:

What Marin likes about Little Siblings, Big Feelings: I have recommended Little Siblings to several friends who are growing their families and colleagues working with child clients. I fell in love with how clearly and simply Little Siblings shows the power of specific praise to help shape positive behaviors for kiddos transitioning into sibling-hood. The examples feel so realistic and yet so simple that I haven’t been able to resist singing its praise (pun intended!). Growing your family can feel overwhelming in so many ways, but this book does a wonderful job of reminding us that each small, consistent piece of praise can add up to a lot of peace and joy!

What Betsy likes about Little Siblings, Big Feelings: I love how Little Siblings identifies some of the specific thoughts and emotions that can come up for older siblings, like showing how older siblings sometimes feel left out and crave attention from the adults in their life. Little Siblings states these things so plainly, and I feel like it really helps normalize these types of reactions (which is good for both kids and parents). I love how this book can help the entire family prepare for the exiting — and scary! — transition of adding a new family member.

Go deeper on the science of specific praise for sibling relationships:

1. To learn more about specific praise and how to start practicing it in your home, check out our how-to guide on specific praise! 🌸

2. We also love this CDC tip sheet on specific praise, and this video showing specific praise in action!

3. Parents can get comfortable with specific praise using this “mixer” which shows a bunch of different examples of doing specific praise.

4. To go deeper, this article offers a step-by-step guide on how families can incorporate specific praise into daily routines at home and provides more details on the science of why it works.

5. If your child is struggling with serious disruptive behaviors, check out this resource which provides guidance for finding a PCIT therapist.

Buy Little Siblings, Big Feelings, or listen to the author talk about it here

We think Little Siblings, Big Feelings would be a great addition to any child’s library. We’d love to hear your reactions to this review and your questions about specific praise. Reply to this email, or join our community to leave a comment!

Leave a comment

FYI: The links above for buying Little Siblings, Big Feelings are affiliate links (see this page for more information).

This guide can be used daily to turn “good job” into meaningful feedback that helps your child actually change their behavior. The goal of specific praise is to “catch” your child doing behaviors you want to see more of and tell them exactly what behaviors you noticed so they know what to do again to get positive attention in the future. This skill can be applied across a wide range of behaviors, such as when they see or hear their child being kind, calm, or brave. This approach strengthens both skills and relationships with one simple step.

Why specific praise doesn’t fuel kids’ anxiety
Some parents worry that praising their child will make them anxious about always having to “be good” or “do it right.” That concern makes sense, but specific praise works differently from judgment-based praise. When you say things like “You’re such a good kid” or “You’re so smart,” children can feel pressure to keep earning approval. In contrast, specific praise focuses on th…

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When I Feel Angry: A book about managing anger for school-aged kids (5+)

Each week, we recommend one kids book that teaches a mental health concept. Today, we’re sharing a book that tackles anger: When I Feel Angry, written by Cornelia Maude Spelman and illustrated by Nancy Cote. This book highlights strategies for managing anger — the idea that parents can help kids choose from a menu of safe activities that can help them manage their anger safely. Read on to learn why we recommend When I Feel Angry to the parents we know, the science behind anger, and tips for helping your kiddo safely manage their anger.

About the Book
When I Feel Angry is a picture book all about anger. The main character is a bunny who tells the reader about situations that make him feel angry, what anger feels like in his body, and things he’s learned to do to cope with his anger. The book does a beautiful job of normalizing anger and highlighting that there’s nothing wrong with feeling angry, while empowering kids to choose anger-releasing activities that keep them and others safe. With kid-friendly examples, practical coping strategies, and lots of cute drawings of grumpy bunnies, this is our go-to book about anger for elementary-school aged kids.

Buy When I Feel Angry or listen online for free.

What Science Tells Us about Managing Anger
It can be scary for both kids and parents to experience anger or see a loved one experiencing anger. But everyone has unpleasant emotions at times, including anger — it’s a part of being human! When we feel angry, there are things we can do to cope and to help make the anger smaller (aka make the anger feel less intense). These are called “anger management” strategies. There is strong research showing that activities that help calm our bodies — like deep breathing, mindfulness (like noticing 5 things near you), or muscle-relaxation exercises — are effective for managing anger. Additionally, research on how engaging our senses can help us regulate emotions provides good reason to think that sensory activities — like squeezing play-dough (touch), listening to music (sound), or running outside (multisensory!) — could help calm anger.

We love using When I Feel Angry to normalize anger and introduce the idea that there are safe activities that can help us cope and calm down from anger. Because being angry makes it hard to think straight, the best time to talk about managing anger is when everyone is calm. Parents can offer kids a “menu” of activities to choose from to help them manage anger (hint: try our expressing anger safely worksheet for this 🌸), and can help kids select one or two skills ahead of time to try when they get angry.

Using anger management skills is not a requirement for kids who are angry, and we encourage parents to hold this skill lightly. When a child gets angry, the parent can gently remind the child of the skill they picked ahead of time. It’s not uncommon for a child to not want to try the skill they pre-selected, or to try the skill, and have it not work terribly well the first time. That’s part of the process! After the fact, parents can help their kids reflect on what skills worked and what didn’t, and can be curious about what was helpful and what the kid might want to try next time. Through repeating this process multiple times, adults can reinforce the ideas that 1) anger is a normal part of being human, 2) we can experiment with strategies to help us cool down when we’re mad, and 3) having a plan ahead of time for things to try when we’re angry can make the experience less scary for both parents and kids.

How to Help Your Child Express Anger
Try out these prompts for helping an angry school-age kid (age +5) express their anger:

If you have a younger toddler (+1) or preschool age kid (+3), remember that they are still learning how to regulate their anger, and they may need more support and guidance when picking alternative safe activities:

What Marin likes about When I Feel Angry: This book reminds us that everyone is responsible for how they act when they have a big feeling. As it says, “feelings can’t hurt anyone or get me in trouble, but doing can.” It highlights the importance of learning to tell the difference between feeling an emotion and acting on it, which is a skill that benefits both kids and adults. Managing anger is a lifelong lesson, and it’s never too early or too late to start. This book reminds us that we are all on the journey together!

What Betsy likes about When I Feel Angry: I like how the book talks about the difference between urges and actions. The bunny feels an urge to yell or hit, but pauses and notices he doesn’t have to follow every urge. This is one of the key points of cognitive behavioral therapy — finding the space between what we want to do and what we actually do. I love how talking about urges openly with kids can normalize those moments when our brains tell us to do things that aren’t safe or kind — while also highlighting that we get to choose what we do with our actions.

Go deeper on the science of managing anger:

1. For preschoolers (3+) and older kids, check out our expressing anger safely worksheet 🌸 — try brainstorming some safe and fun ways to express anger with your kiddo before the next explosion.

2. To help kids recognize and manage anger in healthy ways, Sesame Street offers a short video on expressing big feelings and a guide for parents on responding to mean or aggressive behavior (the video caption talks about trauma, but video is appropriate for all kids).

3. For helping toddlers manage their anger, check out this great handout by Parenting Counts on managing anger during temper tantrums. 🌋

4. We love hearing kids talk about anger in their own words in this 3.5-minute video called “Just Breathe.” These kids describe how they use mindful breathing to regain control when anger takes over, like how glitter in a jar settles to the bottom when you stop shaking the jar. Watch “Just Breathe” with your kiddo and discuss (and consider making your very own “Calming Jar”!).

5. To go deeper on the science of emotion regulation from toddlerhood to adulthood, check out this review, which explains how kids’ ability to manage emotions develops and why strengthening these skills is key to healthy coping across all stages of growth.

Buy When I Feel Angry or listen online for free.

We think When I Feel Angry would be a great addition to any child’s library. We’d love to hear your reactions to this review and your questions about managing anger. Reply to this email, or join our community to leave a comment!

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FYI: The links above for buying When I Feel Angry are affiliate links (see this page for more information).

Just like practicing a fire drill before the fire happens, we recommend working with your child ahead of time (when they are feeling calm and focused) to pick two or three calming tools they want to try next time they feel mad or frustrated. Then when anger hits, you can remind them about the activities they chose or offer to help them try something else on the list. After your child tries a tool out, you can reflect together and see if you want to make any changes for next time. Revisit this tool often to help your kid learn which tools work best for them when managing anger across different settings and situations.

This handout has been built to help preschoolers (+3) and older children practice safely expressing their feelings of anger. To help younger kiddos manage their big feelings, we recommend c…

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Llama Llama Holiday Drama: A picture book about special time for preschoolers (age 3+)

Each week, we recommend one kids book that teaches a mental health concept. Today, we’re sharing a book that tackles building and maintaining the connections between kids and parents during busy seasons: Llama Llama Holiday Drama, written and illustrated by Anna Dewdney. This book highlights a skill called “special time” — the idea that when parents intentionally pay attention to their child’s behavior during one-on-one playtime, it increases the parent-child connection, builds self-esteem, and decreases children’s disruptive behavior. Read on to learn why we recommend Llama Llama Holiday Drama to the parents we know, the science behind building deeper connections through play, and tips for using special time with your kiddo!

About the Book
Llama Llama Holiday Drama follows one young llama navigating the busy holiday season with her mom — from shopping for gifts to putting up holiday decorations to baking holiday cookies. After waiting patiently for many days, the young llama ultimately gets frustrated that she has to wait to open her presents and starts to have a meltdown. When Llama hits her limit, her mama sits down with her and gives her full attention. This simple act — which exemplifies the core aspect of special time — helps the young llama regain her composure and feel connected to her mama again.

Buy Llama Llama Holiday Drama or listen online for free

What Science Tells Us about Special Time

Even though we often think it should feel like the most magical time of the year, the holiday season can be hard for both kids and parents. Families are often running around to lots of different activities (gift shopping! traveling to see family! going to holiday parties!). Many parents are so focused on making sure all of these wonderful experiences go off without a hitch that it leaves little time to give one-on-one attention to their kids. That lack of positive attention can lead kids to do behaviors that are guaranteed to get their parents’ attention. In Llama Llama, we see the little llama having a “holidrama” meltdown.

Fortunately, there’s a skill developed by child psychologists that helps parents give their kids positive, one-on-one attention in a structured way that still fits into busy parents’ daily schedules — and it’s backed by decades of research. It’s called Special Time, and just like we see in Llama Llama, individual, positive attention is a powerful antidote for a child feeling stressed, overstimulated, or frustrated.

Special Time involves these simple steps:

• The child chooses an activity (the kid is ‘in the driver’s seat’)

• The parent sets a timer for 5-15 minutes

• The parent watches the child play and describes out loud what the child is doing

• The parent imitates the child enthusiastically

• The parent goes with the child’s flow without asking questions, giving commands or directions, or criticizing their child or what they are doing

Special Time helps reduce stress and improve behavior by balancing the kind of attention kids receive. Many families fall into patterns where most parent-kid interactions involve instructions, corrections, or reminders, which can leave kids feeling criticized, disconnected, or unsure of how their parent sees them. Most adults have experienced a friend or boss constantly telling us what to do or that we’re doing things wrong — this doesn’t feel good for anyone! Special Time offers an antidote: A predictable dose of positive attention where the child leads and the parent is fully present. Even ten minutes of being ‘in the driver’s seat’ can make kids feel more connected and valued, which in turn increases self-esteem and makes it easier for them to handle daily expectations and cooperate throughout the day.

We know that Special Time is effective from decades of research on parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT), which involves training parents to use special time with their kids. PCIT is a pretty powerful intervention: A meta-analysis found that it reduces child disruptive behavior, improves how much kids follow directions from parents, and reduces both child and parent stress. PCIT is even being studied as a method for preventing child behavioral problems (in these papers, “Special Time” is part of “child-directed interaction” part of PCIT).

How to Use Special Time with Your Child
Here’s what it can look like to use special time with your kiddo:

What Marin likes about Llama Llama Holiday Drama: To me, this book really highlighted all the labor of love that parents put into making holiday magic happen for their kids. We know that special time can be hugely beneficial for kids’ mental health, but this book really reminded me how valuable parents might also find that restorative one-on-one time. Slowing down and being present during all the exciting festive activities is definitely my goal this cozy season!

What Betsy likes about Llama Llama Holiday Drama: I love how this book shows the little llama waiting, and waiting, and waiting as she navigates the holiday season. There are presents under the tree, but we can’t open them yet! We are baking cookies, but we can’t eat them yet! Little llama does a lot of very patient waiting before she melts down! Waiting can be frustrating for little brains, and in that context, big emotions and difficult behavior seem pretty understandable. Seeing how tough these parts of the holidays can be through a child’s eyes made me want to approach this holiday season with a lot more understanding.

One thing we wish was different about Llama Llama Holiday Drama: When the little llama is about to have a meltdown, her mama picks her up and looks her in the eye. At this point, the book’s narrator talks about how waiting and wanting things can take us away from the real purpose of the holidays, and how the true gift we have is each other. While we don’t disagree with this message, it looks a bit like the mama llama is lecturing the kiddo. Instead, we’d like to imagine that the mama is playing with her kiddo while the narrator talks about this holiday message. We want to make sure that parents know that special time doesn’t involve lecturing your child or trying to teach them lessons — in fact, during special time, parents aim to simply describe their child’s actions as they play!

Go deeper on the science and practice of special time:

1. The awesome experts in child psychology at Seattle Children’s Hospital have put together an excellent 5-minute video on how to do special time and why it works.

2. Want to know even more about how to use special time with your kiddo? We love this detailed tipsheet from Nemours Health.

3. Check out this 14-minute NPR podcast about why special time is so effective!

4. If you want to learn more about the science behind how play impacts the development of kids' brains, check out this article by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

5. We also like these activity cards, which have a bunch of ideas for special time activities that kids can pick from. And, if you are looking for holiday-inspired activities to offer during a special time, check out these suggestions from Johns Hopkins University. 🎁

Buy Llama Llama Holiday Drama or listen online for free

We think Llama Llama Holiday Drama would be a great addition to any child’s library. We’d love to hear your reactions to this review and your questions about special time. Reply to this email, or join our community to leave a comment!

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FYI: The links above for buying Llama Llama Holiday Drama are affiliate links (see this page for more information).