Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Nine months ago our 3 kids moved in with us (now ages 4, 6, and 8) and we finalized the adoption a couple months ago. They have been through immense trauma and have made incredible progress, but we still sometimes struggle with helping them to calm down from anxiety, fear, anger, and manic episodes. We have tried so many techniques but this seems to be the one that consistently works and here is why I think that's the case: 1. Each meditation is bite-sized. The brevity makes it seem more do-able to my kids even when they are extremely dysregulated. 2. The illustrations are engaging, inviting, pleasant to look at, colorful. 3. The imagery in each meditation makes it easy for kids to focus on their senses - for example, holding a candle or a cup of hot chocolate. 4. There are enough meditations to choose from that the kids can easily find one they feel like doing in any given moment without it being the same thing every time. 5. Even though I'm the one reading it to them and making them do it, it helps that the instructions are coming from a third party (the book) so that it's not just Boring Mom and Dad telling them what to do. We have mainly used this book in two ways. One is as a transition from our bedtime routine into getting in bed. We have them turn on their flashlights and sit in bed and we turn off the overhead light. Then we read one or two of the meditations for relaxing and we all do it together. After that we are able to turn off their flashlights and have them lay down for reading time. It sets the tone for bedtime and the kids really love it. The other way we have used the book is when one of the kids is really dysregulated. Our 8yo gets into manic episodes where she laughs hysterically, pushes her sisters, breaks every rule, etc and for the life of me I could not figure out a way to get her out of this mode. The other day when she was in one of these modes, I pulled her aside and had her do a few "be calm" meditations from the book with me and like magic she was a functioning child again. We also used it with our 6yo when she got into a spiraling tantrum where she just got herself into more and more and more trouble and couldn't stop. I told her she could earn back the privileges she had lost if she did a few meditations with me, and she just kept wanting to do more of them even after she had earned it back already. It really helped calm her and turn things around. I'm sure there are a ton of ways to use this that we haven't taken advantage of yet. But so far just in these two different use cases it's been extremely helpful.