Books are a fantastic way to facilitate discussion about mental health and the complexity that comes with navigating big emotions. Here are a few of my top favourties which can support your child.
Listening to My Body, By Gabi Garcia
Big emotions can be overwhelming! Children need help to understand and express what they feel.
Listening to My Body is an engaging and interactive book that guides children through the process of naming their emotions and the physical sensations accompanying them. Teaching kids to tune into their bodies and name their feelings is a foundation for emotional regulation.
From wiggly and squirmy to rested and still, Listening to My Body helps children develop a sensations vocabulary to help them express what they are experiencing. It includes kid-friendly “Let’s Practice” activities throughout the book so children can practice what they’re learning.
My Body Sends a Signal, By Natalie Maguire
Like us, adults, kids have a wide range of feelings. They get happy, jealous, disgusted, angry, nervous, sad, proud, worried, and excited. But at a very young age, they simply don’t possess the vocabulary to express their feelings verbally. They express their feelings through tantrums, mimicry, physical movements, and gestures. These expressions are often sweet and funny, but sometimes they just drive us nuts!
This book will help you explain to your kids that emotions, that is signals they get from their bodies, are linked to feelings. These feelings, whether positive or negative, are all perfectly fine, but they can be expressed differently.
This book will also expand your children’s vocabulary by offering them different words to express their feelings with.
My Strong Mind – A strong about developing mental strength, By Niels Van Hove
Do you want to teach your children about Confidence, Resilience and a Growth Mindset? With My Strong Mind your children will be introduced to mental strength and learn about techniques to develop their own strong mind.
The story is about Kate, a sporty and happy girl who uses her strong mind to tackle her daily challenges with a positive attitude.
Kate faces several situations your children will face too. She applies a positive attitude to deal with her challenges. Amongst them are getting ready in time in the morning, doing cartwheels, standing in front of the whole class with show and tell and playing basketball.
Kate applies techniques like goal setting, positive self-talk, accept failure as learning, visualisation of a problem, breathing or mindfulness exercise, gratitude, and controlled distraction. These tips to build a strong mind in children are presented in an easy to read, fun and practical way.
What’s Going on Insight My Head? By, Molly Potter
This book explains to children just how important mental health is to their happiness and well-being. It reveals practical ways that can help children keep their minds in good shape and encourages them to talk positively about themselves, their emotions, relationships and mindfulness in general. These ideas will hopefully help them develop healthy habits and good coping strategies from an early age.
Written in a child-friendly but no-nonsense way, this book will help you start important and timely conversations with children about their mental and emotional health.
I am Stronger than Anger, By, Elizabeth Cole
When children are angry, they can manifest their anger through unhelpful behaviour. They might shout, cry, throw things and roll on the floor or all of these things combined.
This book about little Nick:
- contains lovely illustrations and lightly rhyming storyline
- helps children recognize and cope with their anger in a funny way through communication with zoo animals
- offers a variety of calming techniques and is aimed to improve kids self-regulation skills
- teaches children to admit their mistakes and say “I’m sorry”
- includes a bonus colouring page
Stay tuned for future suggestions.