Reviews

A wonderful story to share with students, families and other educators for building resilience, emotional regulation, and finding ways to relieve stress.

My review is good

When I feel stress building up and I have lots of things to think through, I breathe! I breathe out slow, steady, and with an intended force to help let the hard decisions pass and to think more clearly about my next steps. I use breathing the most when many things come up at the same time on my plate or when I have strong feelings that need to be released from my body. I try to take big problems and break them into smaller chunks, often focusing on the bigger and harder decisions first so I can move on to smaller problems that are quicker and usually easier to resolve. I try to also teach my 9 year old son that breathing helps him when he’s mad and it’s harder to think clearly and make good decisions. He usually goes to another room to breathe and calm down (while holding his sled dog stuffed animal he named after the famous sled dog, Togo). When he’s calm and has more self-control we talk about what is on his mind and his feelings/emotions and strategies/tools to try for next time before a big emotion hits that he can use to calm down sooner/better. I teach him it’s okay to have strong emotions, but we have to work through them with self-control and with breathing. My 24 year old daughter uses breathing to work through the tensions of college (working on a Nursing degree), part-time work (coffee hut), being a foster parent and role model to a teenager, and in her stressful job (Captain on 1 of 4 local volunteer firefighting crews). My boyfriend uses breathing to sort through his anxiety especially over financial issues that arise and family differences. We all use breathing in some way to help us all in our family! I loved your book and the breathing techniques embedded in the story! I will

highly recommend this book to teachers, parents, and other caregivers I know! I would love to meet you in person, and/or have you autograph a copy of your book for my son.

If my high school students would have been exposed to these ideas and techniques at a younger age, it would have served them well. Using the areas of Emotional IQ these same ideas and similar techniques have been taught to encourage older students to be their best selves. These concepts are the base of student self-awareness at any age. Strategies may vary, but the core ideas are the same when older students encounter situations of stress that test their resilience, self-control, and confidence. As a speech teacher, I used similar concepts along with breathing techniques so that students could reduce stress to release that energy in positive ways.

I’m a yoga and meditation teacher who has done a lot of work with children recovering from the effects of trauma, and I’m so delighted to have this book. It offers, in such a beautiful and relatable way, some excellent tools for supporting children in working with their emotions. Sharing these tools with children gives them the opportunity to learn self-regulation skills they may carrying throughout their entire lives. Thank you for creating such a beautiful book and sharing with the world. I know the children I share this with will truly love and benefit from it.