Series:

Helping Children with Feelings

36 total works

Cover of The Frog Who Longed for the Moon to Smile
The Frog Who Longed for the Moon to Smile is a story for children who yearn for someone they love. Frog is very much in love with the moon because she once smiled at him. So now he spends all his time dreaming about her. He waits and waits for her to smile at him again. One day a wise and friendly crow helps frog to see how he is wasting his life away. All the time he has been facing the place of very little, he's had his back to the place of plenty.

Cover of Helping Children with Fear
A guidebook to help children who: worry a lot or exhibit signs of ongoing anxiety; experience the world as an unsafe place; suffer from phobias, obsessions or nightmares; are scared to tell someone that they are scared; know a terrible loneliness; feel insignificant in a world of adult giants; feel defeated by life or need help in being assertive; and feel so impotent that their only way to feel any potency is to be mute.

Cover of Helping Children Who Bottle Up Their Feelings
A guidebook to help children who: are trying to manage their too painful feelings by themselves; do not let themselves cry, protest or say that they are scared; are living with too many unresolved painful emotions from the past; have had disturbing, overwhelming or confusing experiences, which they have been unable to think through or feel through properly; are full of unexpressed feelings because expressing them feels far too dangerous; and are full of unmourned grief.

Cover of Helping Children Who Yearn for Someone They Love
This is a guidebook to help children who: "are missing someone too much or suffer from separation anxiety"; are obsessed with their absent parent "yearn for a parent who: has died; seems unreachable, although she is right there; or is loving one minute and indifferent, cold or abusive the next". They yearn because they have been taken into care, fostered or adopted.

Cover of Teenager Story: Bottle Up

Cover of Monica Plum's Horrid Problem
This is a story for children with troubled parents. Monica has a horrid problem. It gets everywhere: into her schoolwork, her dreams, and her ability to make friends. People keep telling her to cheer up. She can't. She feels as if she is carrying around some very heavy luggage. Then one day, a helpful teacher sees how miserable Monica is, and tells her about the knights in the world, who are posing as people. In a whispering wood, Monica finds some of these knights. They teach her how to make her problem far less horrid. In particular they show her how to cope when other people's problems weigh you down and make you feel miserable. Most importantly they show her how to do life well. Monica leaves whispering wood feeling empowered and ready to face what she could not face before.

Cover of Helping Children Pursue their Hopes and Dreams & A Pea Called Mildred

This practical guidebook, with a beautifully-illustrated storybook, enables teachers, parents and professionals to help children aged 4-12 connect with unresolved feelings affecting their behaviour.

This is a guidebook to help children who:

  • have been given too little encouragement to follow their hopes and dreams
  • are too despondent or defeated to go after their hopes or their dreams
  • are too busy surviving, so hopes and dreams are a luxury they cannot afford
  • think that hopes and dreams are just for other people
  • do not follow their dreams because they are too afraid of failing
  • are following somebody else's star"; and "only dream small dreams for themselves, from a fear of being big".

A Pea Called Mildred is a story to help children pursue their hopes and dreams. Mildred is a pea with dreams. She has great plans for her pea life. However, people are always telling her that dreams are pointless as she is just another ordinary pea. Eventually, with the help of a kind person along the way, Mildred ends up doing exactly what she has always dreamed of doing.

Cover of The Day the Sea Went Out and Never Came Back
This is a story for children who have lost someone they love. Eric is a sand dragon who loves the sea very much. Each day, he watches it going out and coming back. His sea is beautiful indeed to him. But one day, the sea goes out and does not come back. Eric waits and waits, but it does not come back. So he falls on the sand in terrible pain. It feels to him as if he has lost everything. After many bleak days, Eric sees a little wild flower. It is dying. Eric knows he must save it. He finds water. More and more flowers appear and so Eric starts to make a beautiful rock pool garden. And as he does, he finds the courage to feel the full pain of his loss, instead of closing his heart. He realises that his memories of his precious sea are like a special kind of treasure in his mind, a treasure he will never lose. The titles in this extraordinary series are a vital resource. Nine practical guidebooks, each with an accompanying beautifully illustrated storybook, have been written to help children (aged 4-12) think about and connect with their feelings. These guides and stories enable teachers, parents and professionals to recognise the unresolved feelings behind a child's behaviour and to respond correctly to help. The Day the Sea Went Out and Never Came Back is a story for children who have lost someone they love: Eric is a sand dragon who loves the sea very much. Each day, he watches it going out and coming back. His sea is beautiful indeed to him. But one day, the sea goes out and does not come back. Eric waits and waits, but it does not come back. So he falls on the sand in terrible pain. It feels to him as if he has lost everything. After many bleak days, Eric sees a little wild flower. It is dying. Eric knows he must save it. He finds water. More and more flowers appear and so Eric starts to make a beautiful rock pool garden. And as he does, he finds the courage to feel the full pain of his loss, instead of closing his heart. He realises that his memories of his precious sea are like a special kind of treasure in his mind, a treasure he will never lose.

Cover of A Pea Called Mildred
A story to help children pursue their hopes and dreams. Mildred is a pea with dreams. She has great plans for her pea life. However, people are always telling her that dreams are pointless as she is just another ordinary pea. Eventually, with the help of a kind person along the way, Mildred ends up doing exactly what she has always dreamed of doing.

Cover of Willy and the Wobbly House

Willy and the Wobbly House

by Margot Sunderland

Published 17 January 2001
This is a story for children who are anxious or obsessional. Willy is an anxious boy who experiences the world as a very unsafe, wobbly place where anything awful might happen at any time. Joe, the boy next door, is too ordered and tidy to be able to ever really enjoy life. Follow their adventures with the Puddle People who help them break out of their fixed patterns and find far richer ways of living in the world.

Cover of How Hattie Hated Kindness

How Hattie Hated Kindness is a story for children locked in rage or hate. Hattie lives by herself on an island. She likes sharks, and crabs and stinging centipedes. She likes anything hard and spiky. Lots of people try to bring kindness to Hattie on her island, but each time she is very horrid to them, smashing and spoiling everything they try to do for her. So after a while they all stop coming to the island. Hattie is very alone. So she sits by the water's edge and tries to figure out why she hates love and loves hate.

She thinks it must be because she is a very bad girl indeed. But the lapping water-over-her-toes helps Hattie to understand that because she'd been a very sad and frightened little girl in a too hard world, she had become hard too, so that the awful fear and the awful pain would go away. The lapping-water-over-her-toes helps Hattie to move from cruel to kind. In the end, Hattie builds a bridge to the warm and cosy world across the water.

Cover of Helping Children Locked in Rage or Hate & How Hattie Hated Kindness

This practical guidebook, with a beautifully-illustrated storybook, enables teachers, parents and professionals to help children aged 4-12 connect with unresolved feelings affecting their behaviour.

This is a guidebook to help children who:

  • hurt, hit, bite, smash, kick, shout, scream or who are out of control, hyperaroused or hyperactive
  • can only discharge their angry feelings in verbal or physical attacks, rather than being able to think about and reflect on what they feel are angry because it is easier than feeling hurt or sad
  • are locked in anger or rage because of sibling rivalry
  • are controlling and punitive
  • regularly defy authority or are diagnosed with a conduct disorder
  • commit cold acts of cruelty, hurt animals or do not cry any more
  • spoil, damage or destroy what others do or make
  • create fear in others because they have locked away their own fears
  • do not want to please people, cannot trust, have stopped looking for love or approval or truly believe they do not need anyone do not really know how to 'like' someone, and definitely do not know how to love someone or are affectionate only if they want something.

How Hattie Hated Kindness is a story for children locked in rage or hate. Hattie lives by herself on an island. Lots of people try to bring kindness to Hattie, but each time she is very horrid to them, smashing and spoiling everything they try to do for her. So after a while they all stop trying and Hattie is very alone. With the help of the lapping water-over-her-toes, Hattie understands that because she'd been a very sad and frightened little girl in a too hard world, she had become hard too, so that the awful fear and the awful pain would go away.

Cover of Helping Children Locked in Rage or Hate

This is a guidebook to help children who:

  • hurt, hit, bite, smash, kick, shout, scream or who are out of control, hyperaroused or hyperactive
  • can only discharge their angry feelings in verbal or physical attacks, rather than being able to think about and reflect on what they feel
  • are angry because it is easier than feeling hurt or sad
  • are locked in anger or rage because of sibling rivalry
  • are controlling and punitive
  • regularly defy authority or are diagnosed with a conduct disorder
  • commit cold acts of cruelty, hurt animals or do not cry any more; spoil, damage or destroy what others do or make
  • create fear in others because they have locked away their own fears
  • do not want to please people, cannot trust, have stopped looking for love or approval or truly believe they do not need anyone
  • do not really know how to 'like' someone; and, definitely do not know how to love someone or are affectionate only if they want something.

Cover of Helping Children with Fear & Teenie Weenie in a Too Big World

This practical guidebook, with a beautifully-illustrated storybook, enables teachers, parents and professionals to help children aged 4-12 connect with unresolved feelings affecting their behaviour.

This is a guidebook to help children who:

  • worry a lot or exhibit signs of ongoing anxiety
  • experience the world as an unsafe place
  • suffer from phobias, obsessions or nightmares
  • are scared to tell someone that they are scared
  • know a terrible loneliness
  • feel insignificant in a world of adult giants
  • feel defeated by life or need help in being assertive
  • feel so impotent that their only way to feel any potency is to be mute.

Teenie Weenie in a Too Big World tells a story for fearful children. One day Teenie Weenie finds himself in a screechy, scary place. The worse it gets, the smaller Teenie Weenie feels. Teenie Weenie feels terrified and desperately alone. But after a while, with a Wip Wop bird and his friend Hoggie, Teenie Weenie learns about the power of together. He comes to know how very different things look when it's an us not just a me. And so, whenever Teenie Weenie finds himself struggling alone with something too difficult or too frightening, he finds some together.

Cover of Helping Children with Loss & The Day the Sea Went Out and Never Came Back

This practical guidebook, with a beautifully-illustrated storybook, enables teachers, parents and professionals to help children aged 4-12 connect with unresolved feelings affecting their behaviour.

This is a guidebook to help children who:

  • are suffering from the pain of loss or separation from someone or something they love deeply
  • have had a parent, relative or important friend leave or die
  • are obsessed with their absent parent
  • have lost someone they love, but have never really mourned
  • are trying to manage all their painful feelings of loss by themselves
  • feel that they have lost the love of someone they love deeply
  • are suffering from separation anxiety
  • and are adopted or fostered children who miss their birth parent terribly.

The Day the Sea Went Out and Never Came Back is a story for children who have lost someone they love. Eric is a sand dragon who loves the sea very much. Each day, he watches it going out and coming back. But one day, the sea goes out and does not come back. Eric falls on the sand in terrible pain. It feels to him as if he has lost everything. After a while, Eric saves a wild flower by giving it some water. He starts to make a beautiful rock pool garden and, as he does, he finds the courage to feel the full pain of his loss, instead of closing his heart.

Cover of Using Story Telling as a Therapeutic Tool with Children
This practical handbook begins with the philosophy and psychology underpinning the therapeutic value of story telling. It shows how to use story telling as a therapeutic tool with children and how to make an effective response when a child tells a story to you. It is an essential accompaniment to the "Helping Children with Feelings" series and covers issues such as: Why story telling is such a good way of helping children with their feelings? What resources you may need in a story-telling session? How to construct your own therapeutic story for a child? What to do when children tell stories to you? Things to do and say when working with a child's story.

Cover of Helping Children Who are Anxious or Obsessional
This is a guidebook to help children who: are insecure or worry too much; suffer from phobias or nightmares; find it difficult to concentrate to let go and have fun; have suffered a trauma; are worryingly good or seem like little adults; use order and routine as a way of coping with 'messy' feelings; retreat into dullness as a way of managing their being in the world; and, develop obsessive-compulsive behaviour in order to ward off their too-powerful feelings.

Cover of Smasher

Smasher

by Margot Sunderland

Published 31 March 2008
This allegorical story offers vital life-affirming psychological messages to any teenager who is struggling with identity issues, self-esteem, peer pressure, feelings of failure, inadequacy, or problems with rage and hate. Unlike many other books for teenagers, the book is fully illustrated to help the reader enter the imaginings of the central character - a depressed and angry adolescent who has lost all hope for himself and his world. The story is also suitable for teenagers who find reading difficult. It is suitable to be read with the guidebook "Helping Children Locked in Rage or Hate".

Cover of Teenager Story: Self Esteem

Cover of Teenager Story: Anxious/Obsessional