Help your child identify, understand, and take control of their feelings with the kid-friendly cognitive behavioral therapy and self-regulation exercises in this easy-to-use workbook. When children have difficulty self-regulating, it can make it harder for them to get along with peers and family members, hurt their academic achievement, and inhibit their ability to complete activities of daily living. That’s where this book comes in. In this evidence-based workbook, the reader follows the journey of a child just like them—who experiences all kinds of emotions and thoughts and learns how to take control of them. The Self-Regulation Workbook for Kids allows kids to explore and express their feelings, guided by a relatable character and reinforced through interactive worksheets and proven exercises. The CBT-based activities and advice in this workbook will empower children with concrete coping skills and techniques that they can return to each and every time they start to feel upset or stressed.
INTRODUCTION Teaching children how to identify, understand, and be in control of their thinking, mood, and behavior is crucial to their ability to self-regulate. This book introduces these skills in a child-friendly manner through both story and activities. While this workbook is intended for children ages eight through eleven, the tools and skills, especially those related to identifying and challenging unhelpful thoughts, are valuable for people of all ages and may be advanced for children younger than eight. When children struggle with self-regulation, it often leads to behaviors that make them feel even worse and create stressful situations for others. While children typically regret such behavior and don’t want to repeat it, they likely don’t have the skills to be able to react differently when faced with a similar trigger in the future. This workbook helps children to develop the skills to be able to: • Identify, understand, and express their feelings • Learn to calm their body • Identify and challenge unhelpful thoughts • Identify unhelpful behavior and more adaptive choices they can make instead • Identify and prepare for situations that may be tricky for them to navigate These skills are the foundation of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), an evidence-based treatment that helps people to improve their functioning when dealing with a wide range of problems. Through CBT—which has a decades-old canon of nonproprietary clinical terms and techniques that are elaborated upon throughout this book—people can learn how to recognize their triggers, become aware of their Automatic Thoughts and responses to them, and learn more adaptive ways of thinking and reacting. In this workbook, a character named Alex will tell the story of his journey learning and using different tools and techniques to take control of his feelings. There are a number of activities to help your child learn, practice, and internalize the concepts. Read Alex’s story aloud with your child and support them in completing the activities. There are side notes for grown-ups throughout the book, which is applicable to teachers, mentors, and clinicians as well as parents and caregivers to support their work with kids. These are not intended to be read with your child. While none of the information provided in these side notes would be harmful for a child to learn, they are directed toward adults and are likely to be confusing and boring for them. Alex is a fictional and hypothetical character. Any resemblance he may bear toward an actual child or children is purely coincidental. All of the lessons provided in the book work for Alex, whereas each and every tool or technique may not be efficacious for your child. Keep in mind that developing a skill takes time and practice. Be patient and provide your child with the necessary support to be able to use these skills in their everyday environment. This can include verbal reminders, visual reminders, and actually going through the steps of a skill or plan with them. Spelling, grammar, and penmanship don’t count when it comes to exercises to help manage emotions. If these are challenging or triggering for your child, consider allowing them to complete the exercises verbally and then writing their responses. If that is difficult for your child, you can read the text together and make up other ways to process and further explore the content, such as acting it out or telling a story about it with toys. Meet your child where they’re at and adapt the lessons for them. Simply thinking and talking about tricky or unmanageable thoughts, feelings, and behaviors is challenging enough! It is important for you and your child to further discuss the content of the book and find opportunities to connect it to real-life situations, both while reading and as you’re living your lives. Additionally, practice the skills repeatedly to help your child internalize them. This will support your child’s ability to access the tools when they are actually faced with intense emotions that are difficult to manage. Even when a child has made progress, he or she will continue at times to make mistakes and act on their overwhelming emotions—or allow their “feelings to get in control.” These instances can be opportunities to continue learning and growing. Taking control of feelings is a lifelong process. Even I, a grown-up who helps people manage their emotions for a living, have moments when my feelings get in control and I react in ways that I regret later! This is part of being human. Anticipating this can help make these moments more tolerable. It’s stressful for your child when this happens as well. Be sure to instill messages that decrease feelings of shame. When children have difficulty with self-regulation, they often get messages that their behavior is bad, and they develop an underlying belief that they are bad. Help your child understand that even when their behavior is not good at times, they are always a good person who has strengths. Regulating emotions is hard. It’s harder for some people than it is for others, and that’s okay. You will work together to help your child build the skills to be able to regulate emotions better. Chapter 1 will help your child to expand their emotions vocabulary, understand that it is normal to experience a wide range of emotions, think about what triggers these emotions and how they affect their functioning, and view emotions as something that they can do something about. Having a larger emotions vocabulary can help a child more accurately identify and understand both their experiences and the experiences of others. This improves a child’s ability to manage their emotions and develop healthier relationships. Learning that it is normal to experience a wide range of feelings can help children to feel more comfortable acknowledging and addressing their own emotions and to be more empathetic and tolerant when interacting with others. Chapter 2 will teach your child to think about the intensity of their emotions. Increased awareness of the ability to experience both pleasant and unpleasant feelings at different levels of intensity can help your child to work toward having less frequent big reactions to small triggers and to calm down more quickly. Chapter 3 will help your child to differentiate between experiences, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We live in a society that tends to jumble up these things. It is important to realize that our thoughts and feelings are not facts. This will set the foundation for your child to be able to do the work later. Chapter 4 will teach your child to recognize the way that emotions effect their body. Chapter 5 will teach a number of tools that can help your child to relax and take control of those feelings in their body. Calming down automatic physical responses to emotions will help your child to improve their ability to control their reactions. Chapter 6 will teach your child to be able to notice their Automatic Thoughts and recognize when they are unhelpful. Chapter 7 will teach your child how to challenge and reshape their unhelpful thoughts. The ability to identify and challenge unhelpful thinking can allow your child to view stressful situations more clearly and navigate them more effectively. Chapter 8 will help your child increase their awareness of the fact that their actions are choices that they can thoughtfully make. After your child develops an understanding of their ability to have an urge and be in control at the same time. Chapter 9 will introduce them to tools that can support their ability to choose their actions. Chapters 10 and 11 will help your child to connect all of the tools and insights that they developed as they completed the earlier sections of the workbook. In Chapter 10, your child will write a story about a time when their feelings were in control. Through this activity, your child will further process and internalize the connection between a trigger, their Automatic Thoughts about it, emotions, and reactions. In Chapter 11, your child will rewrite that same story by inserting the coping skills learned to manage the same unhelpful automatic thoughts and urges. If your child writes this story about a trigger that is actually challenging for them to deal with, this can help them prepare to deal with a similar trigger when they are faced with it in the future. Writing stories about coping with common triggers in a healthy manner and reviewing these stories can help your child to internalize the insights, tools, and skills that can be helpful in such situations. This will support their ability to recall this information and apply it to real-life situations. Chapter 12 provides your child with a helpful self-statement and image to instill a sense of empowerment in their ability to navigate the stressors that come their way. If your child continues to struggle with self-regulation, seek the support of a trained mental health clinician. Therapy can help you and your child to process and understand their unique, complex thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Additionally, having your child complete a neuropsychological evaluation can help to better understand the lagging skills contributing to their difficulties so that you can get them set up with the appropriate supports.
Emotion regulation difficulties are central to a range of clinical problems, yet many therapies for children and adolescents lack a focus on emotion and related skills. In a flexible modular format, this much-needed book presents cutting-edge strategies for helping children and adolescents understand and manage challenging emotional experiences. Each of the eight treatment modules can be used on its own or in conjunction with other therapies, and includes user-friendly case examples, sample dialogues, and engaging activities and games. Emotion-informed assessment and case conceptualization are also addressed. Reproducible handouts can be downloaded and printed in a convenient 8 1/2" x 11" size.
Stand up to anxiety and feel cool, calm, and confident. Worrying all the time can stop kids from having fun with friends, hobbies, sports, or school. The CBT Workbook for Kids helps them get back to doing the things they love. These ideas and activities for children ages 6-10 use proven, up-to-date cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) strategies to help manage--or even change--worried thoughts and feelings. This CBT workbook is an imaginary toolbox for any anxious child, full of methods to help lower anxiety. First it helps them figure out what's going on in their heads--and then gives them tools to change it. Fun quizzes, drawing challenges, and fill-in-the-blank exercises show them new ways to look at each worry. The CBT Workbook for Kids includes: Helpful skills--Learn techniques for expressing feelings, dealing with anger, staying focused, and making smart decisions. Bright ideas--Discover everyday calming methods, like creating a morning routine, asking for help, and facing fears a tiny bit at a time. You're not alone--Each chapter in this CBT workbook has stories about how other kids might experience anxiety, too. The CBT Workbook for Kids helps kids take a deep breath, face their fears--and win!
The Anger Management Workbook for Kids offers kid-friendly exercises and interactive activities to feel happier, calmer, and take control of anger. Everyone gets angry, but teaching kids how to respond to anger is what really matters. The Anger Management Workbook for Kids offers fun, interactive activities to help kids handle powerful emotions for a lifetime of healthy behavioral choices. From drawing a picture of what anger looks like to building a vocabulary for communicating feelings, the activities in this workbook give kids ages 6-12 the skills to understand and talk about anger habits and triggers. With this foundation, kids will learn positive and proactive strategies to deal with anger through gratitude, friendliness, and self-kindness. At home, school, or with friends, the Anger Management Workbook for Kids equips kids to take control of anger, with: A close look at anger that helps kids and parents identify habits and triggers, and recognize how anger feels to them. Interactive exercises that provide a fun format for learning how to communicate feelings, needs, and wants to take control of angry outbursts. Feel-good habits that help kids develop better responses to anger by cultivating self-kindness, joy, and appreciation. Anger is a regular emotion just like joy, sadness, and fear--but sometimes anger acts bossy. Give your kids to the power to say STOP to anger with the Anger Management Workbook for Kids.
Live more positively with simple exercises based in cognitive behavioral therapy Not every mental health struggle involves a life-altering event or an official diagnosis, but that doesn't mean it can't take a toll on your life and happiness. The CBT Workbook for Mental Health shows you how to cultivate your sense of calm and confidence through the power of cognitive behavioral therapy. With expert advice, you'll learn how to use CBT to bounce back from tough times—no matter how big or small. In this CBT workbook for mental health, you'll find methods to overcome your stress and improve your self-esteem: Specific solutions—Build a range of coping skills with chapters devoted to common issues: relationships and communication, anxiety, anger, stress, guilt, shame, and self-esteem. Simple exercises—The prompts and exercises in this CBT workbook only take between 10 and 30 minutes, so you can find time to practice them even on your busiest days. CBT for everyone—Discover how CBT works and what makes it so popular, with a range of exercises that help improve general emotional wellness. Learn the skills to maintain your inner peace and emotional well-being every day with The CBT Workbook for Mental Health.
Fun and easy skills to help kids bounce back from stress and rebound from adversity. As a parent, you want to protect your child from life’s difficulties. But this isn’t always possible. In order to face the uncertainty and inevitable setbacks of life with confidence, children need the right tools. The good news is that you can give them these tools. Designed for kids ages 7 to 12, this workbook provides actionable techniques to help kids cope with stress, manage powerful emotions, and grow through life’s challenges. The Resilience Workbook for Kids offers engaging activities grounded in evidence-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and positive psychology to help your child recover from difficult experiences. Your child will learn how to “make friends with” their emotions, focus on the things in life that make them happy, and connect with what really matters to them. Finally, your child will discover how helping others can make them feel good about themselves, so they can move beyond feelings like sadness, fear, and anger. Resilience can help kids stay strong and recover from the psychological impact of stress. This workbook will help your child find the tools needed to build resilience in the face of stress, so they can bounce back even better. In these increasingly challenging times, kids and teens need mental health resources more than ever. With more than 1.6 million copies sold worldwide, Instant Help Books are easy to use, proven-effective, and recommended by therapists.
Recently, there has been a growing demand for diversity and inclusion in schools worldwide to ensure effective learning for every student. Efforts have been made to support teachers in promoting diversity in classrooms, but research shows that students with learning disabilities (LD), including autism spectrum disorder, neurodevelopmental disabilities, dyslexia, and executive dysfunction, still struggle to keep up despite having individualized education programs (IEPs). These students are not receiving the necessary support they need to learn effectively in the classroom, leaving them behind and often completely unprepared for their futures. When intersectional statistics are taken into account, students who have a learning disability and are among minority ethnic groups have even lower rates of earning a diploma than their counterparts. Changes in the educational system must be made to close this learning chasm and create a more equitable learning environment. Closing the Educational Achievement Gap for Students With Learning Disabilities increases awareness of the issue of inequalities in education for students with learning disabilities through improved training programs for teachers, recommendations for policy changes, and development of new strategies to close the gap between these students and their classmates. The goal of this book is to educate and empower educators, researchers, and policymakers on how they can help students with learning disabilities thrive academically and emotionally. It examines the barriers that prevent teachers from effectively providing instruction to these students. This book covers topics such as achievement gaps, student-centered approaches, and culturally responsive teaching and is ideal for educators, professionals, researchers, special education professionals, speech and occupational therapists, disability service providers, intervention strategists, psychologists, parents, and local communities.
