Published by Good Book Company on May 1, 2023
Genres: Children's, Children's Educational
Goodreads
Teach children a calming activity that focuses their attention on God and helps them manage their emotions.
This beautifully illustrated and empathetically written book walks children through a calming activity that focuses their attention on God and helps them manage their emotions.
Through a combination of slow breathing, prayer, and focusing on five things about God and his good gifts, children will learn to count themselves calm. Children can practise this calming activity while you read them the book and then use it when they feel upset, sad, angry, worried, anxious, or scared.
This resource is a great tool to equip children 4-7 years old to regulate their emotions and calm down.
This emotional awareness picture book is great for Christian families to use together. It guides children in understanding their feelings on a bad day, reassures them that everyone has days like this, and models how kids can use a breath prayer and coping tool to calm down when they feel overwhelmed. Eliza Huie explains in the author’s note that this method is adapted from the 5-4-3-2-1 countdown that many people use while thinking about the senses. In the approach she models in this book, kids instead count down while thinking about the help God brings to their lives through other people, good things that God has made, and God’s character.
Count Yourself Calm: Taking BIG Feelings to a BIG God is appropriate for a wide age range. The book is kid-friendly without feeling overly juvenile, and this is appropriate for use through elementary school. The text is engaging and compassionate, and the illustrations from Mike Henson are bright and colorful, with a different color theme for each stage of the calming activity. These page spreads also include short Bible verses that tie in with the concept. At the end, the last page asks kids how they’re feeling and lets them pick their current emotion off a wheel with words for different emotions. If you still feel terrible afterwards, you can say that, and that doesn’t mean you failed the exercise!
This is a wonderful way for parents to help their children grow in understanding their emotions and coping with challenges. In the author’s note, Huie encourages parents to go through this book with their children at a time when they are at peace so that they can understand and develop these skills before they’re necessary to prevent a meltdown. This book can also be helpful for parental emotions, and it is great for Christian educational contexts and counseling settings in addition to family use.
