10 wellness books that help toddlers deal with big emotions

Teach your toddlers mindfulness with this brightly colored book featuring ten different emotions, each one followed by an exercise and an affirmation. Encourages toddlers to recognize emotional responses in their bodies and teaches affirmations for calmness, bravery, and more. 

An early guide to self-soothing, the book demonstrates how to work through common anxious situations by pairing adorable illustrations of baby animals with simple coping suggestions. The little rhymes become mantras for you and the kids to repeat when situations come up in real life.

Told with humor and cute ninja illustrations, this book teaches children that having anxiety is normal and shows clever ways to cope with feeling anxious. All the books in Mary Nhin’s creative Ninja Life Hacks series tackle common issues young children face and teach positive coping skills.

A soothing board book that teaches critical social-emotional skills to help children learn to calm themselves down in anxious situations. Brooke Backsen is a pediatric occupational therapist and yoga instructor, so her suggestions are practical and easy for kids to follow. 

The board book version of this popular book for kids teaches toddlers how to control their breath, just like the sweet little bear in the book, and use breath control to soothe themselves to sleep, calm anxiety, and gain control of their bodies when emotions are running high, no matter where they are.

Part of DK’s First Emotions series aimed at normalizing emotions; this one stars a relatable little cloud character. Babies and toddlers learn that sadness is an emotion everyone feels. It gives toddler-specific examples of situations that can make us feel sad (a broken toy, a friend is leaving) and suggestions for helping to cheer yourself up. 

Instead of following the familiar caterpillar on his trek from egg to beautiful butterfly, kids will follow him on a mindfulness journey, learning how to use breathing techniques to regain focus as they process confusing emotions and big feelings.

Based on the popular Sesame Street Monster Meditation video made in collaboration with Headspace, a mindfulness app, this board book shows kids how to stop and take big belly breaths when things get overwhelming. The first of six books in the Monster Meditation series focuses on patience: Cookie Monster learns a calming game to help him wait patiently for his cookies to finish baking.

A sweet board book that shows very young children that everyone makes mistakes. It teaches compassion and kindness when making decisions and encourages children to act with empathy for themselves and others to make good choices.

Todd Parr’s board books have become staples in every toddler-parent bookshelf for almost twenty years, thanks to his ability to illustrate realistic situations with a combination of quirk and compassion. The sweet humor and simple text stay with kids as they face those situations in the real world. In this one, he helps kids and their parents discuss the gamut of emotions we all feel.