Eric is a sand dragon who loves the sea very much. Each day, he watches it go out, knowing that it will return. But one day, Eric waits and waits, but it does not come back. He falls on the sand, feeling as if he has lost everything. Eric wants to shut himself off from his feelings, but eventually spots a little wildflower growing, and another, and another. He builds a rock pool garden, in memory of the sea that he loves, and learns that it is much better to feel the full pain of his loss, instead of closing his heart. The Day the Sea Went Out and Never Came Back is a story for children who have lost someone they love. The beautiful illustrations and sensitively written story offer a wealth of opportunities to begin a conversation about the difficult emotions that can follow a loss, helping children to acknowledge and express their emotions. The story shows them that it is brave to feel sad, that they are surrounded by support, and that memories of a loved one are a special treasure that can never be lost.Ideal for starting conversations about grief and sadness, this is an essential resource for anybody supporting children aged 4-12 who have experienced loss.

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.

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.

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.

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.

At this challenging developmental stage, when teenagers are finding things difficult, this book can really help. It is full of tools and techniques of what to say and how to be, enabling teenagers to move from unhappiness, poor functioning or learning blocks, to a place of self-awareness, self esteem and the ability to thrive. The first part of the book offers a key assessment tool, namely 'The Teenager Well-Being Profile'. This is designed for people to easily assess just how well the teenager is doing in their life emotionally and relationally. If the teenager is messing up in some areas, the Well-Being Profile will show clearly which life skill he or she has not yet mastered. The accompanying, empowering worksheets address key feelings, issues and concerns common to teenagers. The worksheets enable adults to be with the teenager in a confident, non-embarrassing and effective way so that the conversation flows. This book provides a real opportunity for transformational conversations that will really make a difference.

This book is designed to enable practitioners to help children whose emotional wellbeing is being adversely affected by troubled parents. These are children who live with the burden of having to navigate their parent's troubled emotional states, often leaving them with a mass of painful feelings about a chaotic and disturbing world. They can feel alarmed by their parent rather than experiencing them as 'home', and a place of safety and solace. The author explores the fact that when parents are preoccupied with their own troubles, they are often unable to effectively address their child's core relational needs, e.g. soothing, validating, attunement, co-adventure, interactive play. As a result, children are left self-helping, which all too often means drugs, drink, self-harm, depression, anxiety, eating disorders or problems with anger in the teenage years. This guidebook offers readers a wealth of vital theory and effective interventions for working with these children and, specifically, the key feelings such children need help with. Particular focus is given to the effects on children of: family breakdown, separation and divorce, witnessing parents fighting, and parents who suffer from depression or anxiety, mental or physical ill-health, alcohol or drug addiction. Readers will learn: the complexity of children's feelings about their troubled parents how to enable children to address their unspoken hurt, fear, grief, rage, and resentment about their troubled parent in order to move forward in their lives how to empower children to find their voice when they have been left in the role of impotent bystander effective parent-child intervention when parental troubles are adversely affecting the child and how to help a parent and child 'find' each other again.

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.

A Nifflenoo Called Nevermind is story for children who bottle up their feelings. Nevermind always carries on whatever happens! Each time something horrible happens to him he just tucks his feelings away and carries on with life. Find out what happens to Nevermind and how he begins to understand that his feelings do matter, how he learns to express them and stand up for himself.

Now in a fully updated second edition, this professional guidebook has been created to help adults provide emotional support for children who have experienced the loss of somebody they know, or something they loved. Written in an accessible style and with a sensitive tone, Helping Children with Loss provides adults with a rich vocabulary for mental states and painful emotions, paving the way for meaningful and healing conversations with children who are struggling with difficult feelings. Practical activities provide opportunities for conversation and will empower the child to find creative and imaginative ways of expressing themselves when words fail. Key features of this resource include: Targeted advice for children who defend against feeling their painful feelings by dissociating from grief Tools and strategies for helping children cope with loss, including engaging activities to help children explore their feelings in a non-threatening way Photocopiable and downloadable resources to help facilitate support Written by a leading child psychotherapist with over thirty years' experience, this book will support children to develop emotional literacy and connect with unresolved feelings affecting their behaviour. It is an essential resource for anybody supporting children aged 4-12 who have experienced loss.

One day Teenie Weenie finds himself in a scrumbly screechy place. It is full of noises and crashes and things that swoop and scratch. The worse it gets, the smaller Teenie Weenie feels. After a while, he feels so small that the tiniest insect tries to eat him up. Teenie Weenie feels terrified and desperately alone. But after a while along strolls a Wip-Wop bird who invites Teenie Weenie to come and have a chocolate muffin in his tree house. With the Wip Wop bird and his friend Hoggie, Teenie Weenie learns for the first time in his life all 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 after that, whenever Teenie Weenie finds himself struggling alone with something too difficult or too frightening, he goes off and finds some TOGETHER.

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.

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.

Draw on Your Relationships is a bestselling resource to help people of all ages express, communicate and deal more effectively with their emotions through drawing. Built around five key themes, each section contains a simple picture exercise with clear objectives, instructions and suggestions for development. The picture activities have been carefully designed to help ease the process of both talking about feelings and exploring life choices, by trying out alternatives safely on paper. This will help to create clarity and new perspectives as a step towards positive action. Offering a broad range of exercises which can be adapted for any ability or age from middle childhood onwards, this unique book explores a range of emotions surrounding a person's important life experiences, key memories, relationships, best times, worst times and who they are as a person. This is an essential resource for therapists, educators, counsellors and anyone who engages other people in conversations that matter about their relationship to self, others and life in general. This revised and updated second edition also contains a new section on how to use the superbly emotive The Relationship Cards (ISBN 9781138071018) to facilitate deeper therapeutic conversations.

Draw on Your Emotions is a bestselling resource to help people of all ages express, communicate and deal more effectively with their emotions through drawing. Built around five key themes, each section contains a simple picture exercise with clear objectives, instructions and suggestions for development. The picture activities have been carefully designed to help ease the process of both talking about feelings and exploring life choices, by trying out alternatives safely on paper. This will help to create clarity and new perspectives as a step towards positive action. Offering a broad range of exercises which can be adapted for any ability or age from middle childhood onwards, this unique book explores a range of emotions surrounding a person(1)s important life experiences, key memories, relationships, best times, worst times and who they are as a person. This is an essential resource for therapists, educators, counsellors and anyone who engages other people in conversations that matter about their relationship to self, others and life in general. This revised and updated second edition also contains a new section on how to use the superbly emotive The Emotion Cards (9781138070981) to facilitate deeper therapeutic conversations.

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.

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.

This is a guidebook to help children who: bully or take revenge on others for the pain they have felt themselves have become very defensive because something too painful has happened to them have hardened their hearts because they have: been too hurt in love; met with too much harshness; witnessed parental violence; been repeatedly hit; been shamed or humiliated had too many experiences of not being responded to think they have lost their parent's love to someone else and have hardened their heart.

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 is right there is loving one minute and indifferent, cold or abusive the next They yearn because they have been taken into care, fostered or adopted.

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.

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 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.

The Relationship Cards are 48 emotive and artistic images designed to help people to review the key relationships in their lives in a meaningful and often transformative way. The cards provide an engaging way for people to talk about and clarify their feelings, while reflecting on what they value in their relationships and what they might want to change. Spanning both positive and negative states in relationships, the cards show themes such as trust, resentment, fear of abandonment, drifting apart, encouragement and feeling supported. The accompanying booklet explains how to use the cards with participants in a supportive and safe way to facilitate deeper conversations about relationships with people in their lives, past and present. Accompanying translations are provided in German, French, Swedish, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Japanese. This beautiful resource can be used by educators, therapists or anyone wishing to open a dialogue about relationships. It is also a perfect supplement to Draw on Your Relationships, Margot Sunderland's bestselling book. The second edition of Draw on Your Relationships contains a new section that explains how to get the most out of combining the activities in the book with these cards to encourage meaningful conversations and take steps towards positive action. Intended for use in educational settings and/or therapy contexts under the supervision of an adult. This is not a toy.

Ruby hates herself so much that she often feels more like a piece of rubbish than a little girl. Children at school bully her. Sometimes Ruby feels so miserable that she wants to sleep and sleep and never wake up again. Then one day, Ruby meets Dot the lunchtime lady, When Ruby feels Dot's kindness and understanding, something warm happens in Ruby's tummy. Over time, Dot helps Ruby to move from self-hate to self-respect. In fact Dot's smile makes Ruby feel like a princess. After a very important dream, and help from Dot, Ruby decides enough is enough. She finds her voice and her anger, and stands up to the bullies. She makes new friends and knows what it's like to feel happy for the first time in her life.

Understand key stages in your child's development and discover effective parenting strategies from experts in education and neuroscience. What Every Parent Needs to Know delves into the latest research on child brain development and applies it to real-life scenarios that all parents face. This isn't one person's opinion or experience of parenting. Director of Education at the Centre for Child Mental Health, Margot Sunderland, together with research from Professor Jaak Panksepp, who has studied the emotional brain for over 30 years, presents evidence-based strategies for parents looking for trusted information and guidance on how best to raise their family. Alongside detailed information on how the child's brain works, anatomical illustrations present the science while case studies and Q and As apply the science to everyday situations. Parenting strategies span from sleep training your newborn right through to soothing your 12-year-old, addressing separation, anxiety, social development and more. This book not only focuses on your child's needs but also on yours as a parent with advice on looking after yourself too. New material on child mental health completes this new edition making it the ultimate parenting tome.