Happy, Healthy Minds: A children's guide to emotional wellbeing

by The School of Life, Alain de Botton (Editor), Lizzy Stewart (Illustrator)

Overview

An essential guide to emotional wellbeing for children, tackling everyday issues to facilitate happier, healthier lives.

Designed to help children become more aware of their emotional needs, Happy, Healthy Minds covers everything from parents and friends to school and overwhelming feelings of self-consciousness. With engaging, interactive prompts, it encourages children to open up, explore their own feelings, and face the dilemmas of growing up.

By mapping out emotions and moods children might have felt but not understood, this book provides them with the ultimate toolkit for happier, healthier, and more emotionally intelligent lives. And it speaks directly TO the child, in topics like: when parents don't seem to understand us; when school feels boring (or difficult); what to do when we're having trouble making friends; and much more.

• AN ESSENTIAL CHILDREN'S GUIDEBOOK TO EMOTIONAL WELLBEING
• CHAPTERS INCLUDE BULLYING, ANXIETY, AND FEELING MISUNDERSTOOD
• ILLUSTRATIONS BY LIZZY STEWART: the award-winning illustrator of There's a Tiger in the Garden.
• THOUGHT PROVOKING PROMPTS: to encourage conversation between adults and kids about emotional wellbeing.
• ACCESSIBLE PRESENTATION OF COMPLEX TOPICS
• IDEAL FOR AGES 9 AND UP

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781912891559
Publisher:	The School of Life
Publication date:	08/20/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	29 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	9 - 15 Years

About the Author

The School of Life is a global organization helping people lead more fulfilled lives. Through our range of books, gifts, and stationery we aim to prompt more thoughtful natures and help everyone to find fulfillment. The School of Life is a resource for exploring self-knowledge, relationships, work, socializing, finding calm, and enjoying culture through content, community, and conversation. You can find us online, in stores, and in welcoming spaces around the world offering classes, events, and one-to-one therapy sessions. The School of Life is a rapidly growing global brand, with over 7 million YouTube subscribers, 389,000 Facebook followers, 174,000 Instagram followers and 166,000 Twitter followers. The School of Life Press brings together the thinking and ideas of the School of Life creative team under the direction of series editor, Alain de Botton. Their books share a coherent, curated message that speaks with one voice: calm, reassuring, and sane.
Lizzy Stewart is an illustrator and artist currently based in London. Lizzy graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2009, and received an MA in Communication Design from Central St Martins in 2013. Lizzy also teaches at Goldsmith's University and in hospitals on behalf of the National Portrait Gallery. She has illustrated three books for children, including Juniper Jupiter and There's a Tiger in the Garden, winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Award for illustrated books and an AOI World Illustration Award for best picture book in 2017.

Read an Excerpt

1. You didn’t get to choose your parents

One of the weirdest things about being human is that our parents are a big deal. We are tiny and helpless for a long time. We need their help and support for twenty years at least, which is a pretty long period in which to be affected, for good and for bad, by their tastes and characters. That is not the case with most other animals. A baby horse (a foal) is up and running about half an hour after it’s born. It’s pretty much fully grown before a human infant can say its first word. Many of the world’s creatures don’t even spend a minute with their parents: the average baby fish is left to its own devices the moment it emerges from its egg. The blue whale, which is the biggest living animal in the world, is fully developed by its fifth birthday.

But a typical human will spend 25,000 hours with its parents by the time she or he is 18. That’s generally fantastic, because your parents love you more than pretty much anyone else, but it does bring a few complications too.

For many years, your parents are in charge of nearly everything about your life. They decide where you live and where you can go on holiday; they tell you what time you have to go to bed and what food you should eat. They decide what to buy and what’s too expensive. You often need them to take you places and when their friends come around, you have no option but to say hello to them.

There are other important ways in which your parents influence you. If you have a dad who is interested in cooking, you might know a lot of different dishes; maybe he talks a lot about the right setting for the oven or he’s shown you how to use a rolling pin. Or, if your mum is really interested in music, maybe you’ve heard a lot of songs other people at school don’t know about. Maybe a parent coached you at tennis or was keen on you playing the trombone or wants you to read you a lot.

Perhaps your parents are always watching the news or maybe they never watch it. Is your house very tidy or pretty messy? That depends on the adults. When you picture yourself having a meal, do you see yourself sitting around the table with lots of people telling interesting stories, or sitting on the sofa while you watch a film together? Both might be nice, but they are very different. If there’s a problem, do the adults react calmly or do they get in a panic? Are they always late or are they focused on always being on time?

You don’t think about all this when you are a baby, but as you grow, you become aware that your parents are particular people. They can be quite different from other people’s parents. What your grown-ups are like makes a huge difference to your life. If you had different parents, your routines would be completely different: maybe you wouldn’t even be very much like you (which is a puzzling idea).

Even though your parents are probably the most important people in your life, crucially, you didn’t get to choose them. There are usually some big gaps between what you could imagine a parent being like and how an actual parent really is:

• Tidies my room when I’m at school.

• Is a really bad goalkeeper.

• Doesn’t buy sweets enough.

• Sometimes has to go away for work.

• Hardly ever makes things with me.

• Keeps wanting to go to museums.

• Moans about me using my phone.

• Pretty bad at magic tricks.

• Wears the wrong clothes.

• Tries to tell me about what’s happening in the news.

• Thinks I need to do my projects on my own (‘otherwise you won’t learn’).

What would be in your thought bubble? Maybe you don’t want to write it down – it's fine just to think it in your head.

But hold on! Here’s another strange thought: your parents didn’t know what you would be like.

Very small children think their parents know everything and can do anything. But as you get a bit older you start to realise that a parent can get things wrong. Maybe they can’t dance, or perhaps they don’t know how to spell a word. Maybe they sleep too much at the weekend or complain a lot about work, or they might try to tell a joke but it’s not very funny. You discover there are lots of ways parents can be ANNOYING.

Table of Contents

Introduction: keeping your mind healthy

1. Parents

2. Screens

3. Bullies

4. How old am I?

5. School

6. Friends

7. Your body

8. Feeling misunderstood

9. Anger

10. Anxiety

11. Confidence

12. Patience

13. Nature

14. The adult world

15. Separation

Editorial Reviews

11/23/2020

This nonfiction guide for preteens and teenagers aims to demystify and verbalize difficult emotions and experiences that many adolescents go through. In 15 chapters covering topics including “screens,” “feeling misunderstood,” and “the adult world,” the book relays scenarios, strategies, interpretations, and activities that aim to help young people understand their surroundings and themselves (“But as we grow up, we start to see something odd: grown-ups aren’t in control of their lives,” reads the book’s explanation for why parents may sometimes act hypocritically). Softly colored, thinly outlined cartoon-style illustrations by Stewart provide a welcome respite from the typically staid fare often found in self-help books. Characters are portrayed inclusively, and have varying skin tones, hair textures, religions, genders, and sexualities. Dialogue bubbles, photographs, and works of European art are also interspersed throughout, ensuring sustained reader attention. Though the book has its limitations (discussions of gender lean heavily on the binary, and some topics, such as sexual orientation, are not addressed at all, despite intersection with the covered topics), it’s still a solid beginning resource for those navigating the emotional terrain of young adulthood. Ages 9–15. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Helping the next generation with their mental well-being seems to be one of the most urgent priorities of all. This book should prove both fun, and most of all, deeply useful." – Alain de Botton

"...a solid beginning resource for those navigating the emotional terrain of young adulthood." – Publishers Weekly

"A book full of gold … Every word in this book applies to all of us." – Chris Evans, Virgin Radio

“A beautiful exploration into children’s emotions … brilliant, insightful and realistic.” – Clemmie Telford, Honestly Podcast

"Love the book! A great resource." – Marla Conn, Readability

"Happy Healthy Minds is an engrossing and effective read for children aged 10-16 and a must have resource for home educators." – School Reading List

"This fantastic book belongs on every child’s bookshelf." – Seattle Book Review

"Cheerful illustrations interspersed amongst sensible matter of fact text go really well together in this title, a guide to emotional well-being for children. Informative without being preachy." – School Libraries Group

"This book is wonderful. My son and I dove right in and it’s compelling and helpful, a real treasure for helping kids understand their emotions. Written with just the right tone." – Netgalley review

"This is a great resource to help children learn how to have a happier and healthier life especially in the way they think. My daughters loved this book. It’s definitely one we’ll return to again and again." – Netgalley review

From the Publisher

08/01/2020

Gr 5–8—This self-help book for young teens covers timely topics, including family issues, modern technology, and humanity's relationship to nature. The advice varies as much as the subjects covered, and some of the terminology will not be familiar to American readers. The section covering technology addiction draws tone-deaf parallels to substance abuse. The author writes, "Nowadays, the most respectable kind of addiction is screen addiction—and what makes you an addict isn't just being on your screen all the time, it is the fact that you are running to a screen because you're running away from something else." This does not seem like an appropriate comparison, as people with substance abuse issues also have deep physical and psychological problems to overcome that are not easily conflated with frequent screen use. Chapters feature pages for readers to record their own observations. While some of the advice is helpful, such as a reminder that everyone experiences anxieties, there are other comprehensive materials available to deal with these types of subjects. The broad range of content could deter those looking for a specific topic, and browsers may find the variety overwhelming. The pastel palette and soft illustrations are appealing. VERDICT It will likely be difficult to find an audience for this extensive guide, and some of the discussions of certain issues may be off-putting to readers. Suggested only as an additional purchase where self-help titles are in high demand.—Ellen Conlin, Naperville P.L., IL

School Library Journal

2020-06-30
A mental health guide for early-adolescent concerns.

While many mental health guides for the age group extol the mind-body connection, emphasizing sleep, a healthy diet, and exercise to ward off anxiety, this book goes beyond these principles to explore ways to reshape negative thoughts into more positive ones. Assembled by a team at the London-based self-help publisher, the conversational text is divided into chapters on kid-relevant topics. The first and lengthiest chapter considers parents, such as why they are annoying and don’t always follow their own rules. Through real-world scenarios, examples from literature, and a scattering of art reproductions (all with White subjects and mostly European in origin), the authors ask readers to see things from a different perspective—in this first chapter, to consider their parents as adults who are fussy out of love and want good lives for their children. Subsequent chapters focus on screen time, bullying, anger, friendship, divorce, body image, the pressures of gender norms, and more related topics. In each chapter, important questions or ideas, such as “Gender doesn’t say what you are supposed to be like,” are highlighted; numerous chapters also include space for self-reflection. Stewart’s friendly, full-color illustrations are consciously diverse in representation of race and family structure. Intermittent Briticisms will not deter readers, but the text does stereotype homeless people in one instance and at the same time persistently uses the term “addiction” instead of “substance-use disorder,” and an anti-perfectionism exercise strews words such as “twits,” “idiots,” and “stupid” about liberally.

Imperfect but potentially helpful. (Nonfiction. 10-12)

Kirkus Reviews