With everyone home together even more often than usual this past year, we have all struggled to manage our feelings. Fittingly, I’ve tuned this year’s homeschool health curriculum to focus on emotional regulation.

We’ve read a number of books this year, but these two were the most helpful and had the warmest reception from the kids.

1.Learning to Feel Good and Stay Cool: Emotional Regulation Tools for Kids with AD/HD, by Judith M. Glasser, PhD, and Kathleen Nadeau, PhD, ill. by Charles Beyl

None of the kids has a diagnosis of ADHD. That doesn’t matter, because the book is great for all kids. Whenever ADHD was mentioned, I used a more inclusive word instead. I didn’t want anyone to have an excuse for thinking the book didn’t apply to them.

What I liked about Learning to Feel Good is it clearly describes different emotions, what they may feel like, and included ideas for how to deal with each type of feeling. The book teaches kids to recognize the things that tend to set them off: being tired, hungry, or stressed, for example. Recognizing the presence of stressors can help kids be ready to deal with negative feelings when they happen.

The solutions weren’t wild new ideas, just common sense connections like, Feel sad? Try this. Some solutions involved grown ups, but a lot of the ideas were things kids can do on their own to help them find their way back to center.

This book earned points for not being weird or trying too hard. It was just practical and matter of fact.

There’s a brief section in the back just for parents. It has specific tips for how to help your kid implement an emotional regulation plan, ways to nonjudgmentally spend time with your kids, and phrases you can use for encouragement. As a parent who has to consciously work not to impose my own perfectionist standards on my kids, these types of prompts were helpful.

2. Forgiving Is Smart for Your Heart, by Carol Ann Morrow, ill. by R.W. Alley

It’s a parenting moment many of us have experienced: You’re standing behind a child, still upset, shoulders stiffly hunched. In front of you is another child, angry and hurt. And you’re coaxing them to apologize to each other.

It doesn’t feel right. But if you don’t deal with it in the moment, the reconciliation may never take place. Come to think of it, what’s happening doesn’t feel like reconciliation, either. So what’s a parent to do?

Morrow’s book explains why forgiveness is important, what it looks like, and how to do it. Illustrated with elves, the book teaches a gentle lesson for humans in a way that brings your guard down.

You may never know why other people made the choices they did. They may never say they are sorry. Either way, you are free – free of the pinched feeling that hurt and anger bring to your heart. – Carol Ann Murrow

Here’s another post about emotional regulation. Here’s a post about emotional regulation for adults. And you can find my book picks and thoughts about sex ed here.