May 26, 2025 Child Mind Institute Lists Best Books on Mental Health for Children As part of national Mental Health Awareness Month, the Child Mind Institute has released a list of the best books of 2024 for children that tackle topics relating to mental health. Learn More Clinicians at the Child Mind Institute reviewed more than 60 titles while compiling the list and eventually narrowed it down to 20 books. The books on the list involved storylines or themes that helped children to understand and handle mental health challenges. The list breaks down the books by topics: anxiety, mindfulness, feelings, sadness and depression, OCD, ADHD, autism, eating disorders, and parental addiction. The lists included Anxiety The Worry Monster (Dr. Catherine Cook-Cottone) What to Do When You Worry Too Much (Dawn Huebner, PhD) Invisible Isabel (Sally J. Pla) Unstuck (Barbara Dee) Mindfulness A Tiny Difference (June Tate) Today (Gabi Snyder) Feelings Bea’s Bad Day (Tom Percival) The Hare-Shaped Hole (John Dougherty) My Thoughts Have Wings (Maggie Smith) Cranky (Phuc Tran) A Terrible Place for a Nest (Sara Levine) Sadness and Depression The Cat Who Couldn’t Be Bothered (Jack Kurland) Gray (Laura Dockrill) A Voice in the Storm (Karl James Mountford) OCD The Very Best Me (Marin Canaday) Puzzled (Pan Cooke) ADHD That Always Happens Sometimes (Kiley Frank) Autism Henry and the Something New (Jenn Bailey) Eating Disorders Louder Than Hunger (John Schu) Parental Addiction Breaking Into Sunlight (John Cochran) For the entire list and the descriptions of the books, visit the Child Mind Institute’s website.
September 9, 2020 Feelings Behind the Mask: Building Emotion Vocabulary Are you interested in learning strategies to expand children’s feeling and emotion vocabulary? Join Trying Together on September 30 for our online session, “Connections and Conversations: Feelings Behind the Mask: Building Emotion Vocabulary.” About Connections and Conversations Virtual Check-Ins are biweekly interactive sessions that highlight topics of interest to the field of early childhood education. Participants engage in virtual discussions with child development experts while interacting with early learning practitioners to share questions, experiences, and expertise about the highlighted topic. Sessions offer one hour of PQAS credit. Act 48 credit will not be provided. In this session, participants will learn about strategies to expand children’s feeling vocabulary in order to support their abilities to correctly perceive and respond to feelings in themselves and others. Identifying and expressing emotions are key skills in a child’s development. Children need a large and complex feeling vocabulary to make finer discriminations between feelings, to better communicate with others about their internal affective states, and to engage in discussions about their personal experiences with the world. Session Details Session Date: Wednesday, September 30 | 6 – 7 p.m Instructor: Nancy Loughead CKC: Curriculum and Learning Experiences CDA Subject Area: Social & Emotional Development Registration Deadline: Monday, September 28 Registration To register, visit the course PD Registry page. Space is limited. Participants will receive the course Zoom link via email within 24 hours before the start date for the course. For questions, contact Jasmine Davis at jasmine@tryingtogether.org. Session Rules and Guidelines These virtual discussions are designed to provide educators the opportunity to grow professionally and share knowledge on early childhood topics. During the meeting, participants should follow the guidelines below to ensure a successful virtual meeting for all participants. Please allow all participants a chance to speak. Listen respectfully and actively. Commit to learning about each other, not to debating the topic. Embrace differences of opinion as healthy and support each person’s authentic self-expression. Participants will be muted for the beginning portion of the session. Participants may use the “Raise Hand” feature in Zoom to request an opportunity to comment or ask a question. Individuals will be temporarily unmuted by the moderator. Participants may type a comment or question in the Chat or may send comments or questions directly to the moderator for them to share. To receive PQAS credit, you must complete an evaluation at the end of the session and include your PD Registry number. Have fun, make connections, and engage in the conversations! More Information For questions or more information, please contact Jasmine Davis at jasmine@tryingtogether.org.
