Children of all ages worry about things whether we, parents and caregivers, think they are rational or irrational. They worry about their loved ones, their environments, their performance, physical appearance, and well being. Pandemic and lockdowns in the past 11 months made a negative impact on all of our mental states including children and teens.
We, as parents, might not be able to approach our children’s feelings of worry and anxiety from a constructive perspective. Simply telling them “not to worry” invalidates their feelings. Imposing adult logic confuses them even further. I admit, I never know how to properly communicate in these types of situations to help my kids calm down and become less worried. For help, I always turn to the most dependable instruments I know to deal with my children’s feelings, social skills or milestones.
Children’s Books
Children’s books enable kids to learn abstract concepts such as feelings through stories. Kids can relate to the characters. These books also help initiate a conversation.
Children’s books that help kids with anxiety, not only help them identify their feelings such as worry, stress, and fear but also recognize the physical signs as well. They provide coping strategies and talk about ways to overcome the debilitating impact of worry.
💡Always review the content before reading it with your child
One thing I am cautious about children’s books about anxiety or anger or negativity is that they might give kids negative ideas more than they already bear. As an example, your young child might have separation anxiety and the book you read might mention monsters hiding in the dark in the bedroom. An older child might be worried about school or relationships with friends and books might mention other types of worries such as self-image or issues like self-harm. If you are not careful, suddenly these additional factors of anxiety might start to preoccupy your child. So please read the books by yourself before reading it with your child or if it’s a workbook for tweens or teens, carefully guide them through the book.
Here is a list of books to help kids deal with and overcome anxiety, fear, and worry. We read and worked with some of these books. There is also a bonus toy at the end of this list that really helped my children relax and worry less.
♥ Children’s Picture Books
Worrysaurus by Rachel Bright
Recommended Ages: 2-5
A wonderful picture book for young ones with beautiful illustrations and a cute story about an anxious little dinosaur. Its language is simple and rhymes make it soothing to listen to. It provides suggestions and strategies to overcome his worries.
A Little Spot of Anxiety by Diane Alber
Recommended Ages: 2-6
A lovely book with clever illustrations to introduce your kids to helpful vocabulary to identify their feelings such as worry, sadness, anger, anxiety, and anger. It uses visualization techniques with colors and sizes to identify the level of worry. The author explains that it’s ok to have a little gray spot of anxiety in a variety of situations and also provides calming exercises for little ones to prevent the gray spot to get bigger.
The Huge Bag of Worries by Virginia Ironside
Recommended Ages: 2-6
A picture book of the story about a girl who carries her worries in a huge bag. Her bag gets bigger as she worries about more and more things and people around her eventually becoming too heavy for her to carry around. The story is a good conversation starter about the importance of sharing what makes us worry and anxious with others instead of keeping them to ourselves. It gives visual guidance about the different types of worries and simple methods to deal with them.
The Don’t Worry Book by Todd Parr
Recommended Ages: 3-6
A picture book with brightly colored illustrations that not only explains emotions and things that might cause worry but also offers comfort and easy enough solutions for young kids to understand. The author explains various scenarios causing worry but as in the title of the book, doesn’t dismiss these feelings. It encourages the reader to talk to a loved one about those feelings to feel better.
Ruby Finds a Worry by Tom Percival
Recommended Ages: 3-6
Much like A Little Spot of Anxiety, “worry” is visualized as a character in Ruby Finds a Worry. One day, Ruby finds a worry and it starts to get bigger and bigger. In comparison to similar books, Ruby doesn’t overcome her worries by herself. Adults don’t help her either. She meets a friend with his own worries and their worries get smaller as they share them with each other.
How Big Are Your Worries Little Bear? by Jayneen Sanders
Recommended Ages: 3-9
Little bear in this picture book worries about everything. There are many examples to relate to for little kids who worry. At the end of the book, there are discussion questions and a guide for parents, caregivers, and educators to initiate a conversation with children and reassure them.
Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes
Recommended Ages: 4-8
Some children’s books’ stories are about worry and anxiety in general providing a variety of examples whereas this picture book is focused on back-to-school anxiety. The reassuring story of Wemberly is told through simple enough language to talk about feelings and adorable illustrations.
A Boy and a Turtle by Lori Lite
Recommended Ages: 4-9
We read this book with my kids to help them calm down and relax when they were worried or upset. It guides children to get into a state of calm through visualization and breathing. We have another book by Lori Lite and her illustrations and guided calming techniques worked magic with my kids. Parents and caregivers need to guide younger kids through this book but even if your child is old enough to read I encourage you to read this with them and guide them.
The Goodnight Caterpillar by Lori Lite
Recommended Ages: 4-9
A wonderful bedtime book for kids to help them relax and unwind. The author guides its readers to relax physically and mentally through visualizations and breathing techniques. The methods in this book once taught to children at bedtime, can be used to relax when worry and anxiety take over.
When Worry Takes Hold by Liz Haske
Recommended Ages: 4-8
Kids with anxiety will relate to Maya’s story who has a growing worry and fear and learn that while all feelings are valid, it takes “courage” to face them and not let them take control. The story guides the reader to use breathing and mindfulness to muster up that courage when worry takes hold.
Hey Warrior by Karen Young
Recommended Ages: 5-12
Hey Warrior does a great job describing big feelings like worrying, anxiety, and fear to younger kids. It explains the physical signs and the certain ways the body feels when one feels anxious in easy-to-understand language and engaging illustrations. It also provides coping strategies to help kids manage their anxiety.
Wilma Jean – The Worry Machine by Julia Cook
Recommended Ages: 7-11
This is a picture book for elementary school-age kids. The story is focused on anxiety about life at school. The kids with anxiety will find the story of Wilma which is told through detailed and fun illustrations and rhymes relatable. It includes tips for parents and educators to help children with anxiety.
♥ Non-fiction Books, Activity and Workbooks for kids
The Invisible String Workbook: Creative Activities to Comfort, Calm, and Connect by Patrice Karst
Recommended Ages: 4+
This workbook which provides more than 50 art, crafts, and writing-based activities is a companion book for Patrice Karst’s picture book with the same name, The Invisible String, which tells about separation anxiety, loss, and grief. Activities listed in the book encourages children to express their emotions, engage in healing conversations, and build stronger connections.
When My Worries Get Too Big! by Kari Dunn Buron
Recommended Ages: 6-9
It is an interactive book to help children with anxiety to identify their feelings, learn how to manage their emotions, and relax. It has a wonderful story and lovely illustrations. It encourages children to develop their own personalized relaxation methods in addition to providing readily available tips and tricks.
CBT Workbook for Kids: 40+ Fun Exercises and Activities to Help Children Overcome Anxiety & Face Their Fears at Home, at School, and Out in the World by Heather Davidson
Recommended Ages: 6-10
This is a workbook for children with more than 40 cognitive behavioral therapy based activities and exercises to learn to express and articulating feelings, managing anxiety and worry. It provides practical strategies such as creating routines, planning, and asking for help to reduce anxiety. The book has also relatable stories about children experiencing anxiety.
The Worry (Less) Book: Feel Strong, Find Calm and Tame Your Anxiety by Rachel Brian
Recommended Ages: 6-10
This is a short, illustrated non-fiction book. It follows a logical order of dealing with anxiety. First, it explains how to read the symptoms and identify the emotion which might appear in different ways. Second, it encourages facing and accepting the emotion. Third, it provides effective tools to manage anxiety and worry, including but not limited to breathing, mindfulness, and journaling. It’s brief but to the point. We really liked this book.
The Anxiety Workbook for Kids: Take Charge of Fears and Worries Using the Gift of Imagination by Robin Alter
Recommended Ages: 5-11
This book is one of the Instant Help Workbook series for kids. It has fun, engaging, and age-appropriate activities to create personalized tools and strategies to manage anxiety. The first section provides a description of worry, fear, and anxiety and helps start a conversation. The accompanying exercises help kids use their imagination and understanding to control their thoughts and emotions.
The Worry Workbook for Kids: Helping Children to Overcome Anxiety and the Fear of Uncertainty by Muniya S. Khanna
Recommended Ages: 5-11
Another one of the Instant Help Workbook series for kids. It has fun, engaging, and age-appropriate activities to overcome worrying and build confidence and resilience. The first section focuses on understanding worry. Second section deals with reading one’s own signs and symptoms to identify worry. The accompanying exercises and activities help kids use to focus on their thinking and new habits to break out of the worry cycle.
What to Do When You Worry Too Much: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Anxiety by Dawn Huebner
Recommended Ages: 6-12
We read and used this workbook along with other subjects such as grumpiness and anger from this “What-to-do Guides” series. The text is very simple and uses analogies, examples, and illustrations instead of technical descriptions so that children can effortlessly relate. It also equips children with the basic terminology children can use to describe their feelings. The interactive book provides numerous easy-to-follow exercises of writing and drawing to help define worries and relaxation methods to cope with them.
No Worries by Lily Murray
Recommended Ages: 7+
This book is a part of the Mindful Kids series by Lily Murray. No worries is a fun, interactive workbook filled with colorful illustrations where children can write, color, doodle, and draw to complete the activities. Activities and exercises help kids identify and understand their worries, reduce anxiety and teach tools for relaxation.
A Smart Girl’s Guide: Worry: How to Feel Less Stressed and Have More Fun by Nancy Holyoke
Recommended Ages: 9-12
We love “A Smart Girl’s Guide” series by American Girl. As with the rest of the series, this book is beautifully illustrated and includes fun quizzes and activities to help the readers find more about themselves and what worries them as well as personal stories from other girls. It teaches kids strategies and tactics to deal with stressful situations and proven techniques to build confidence.
Outsmarting Worry (An Older Kid’s Guide to Managing Anxiety) by Dawn Huebner
Recommended Ages: 9-13
Another workbook for anxiety and worry by Dawn Huebner, this time for older kids. This book takes a rather entertaining take at outsmarting worry. It explains how worrying works by clearly breaking down fight-or-flight responses, false alarms, and circular thinking. The strategies provided in this book are explained in humorous and reassuring language and supported with evidence.
Anxiety . . . I’m So Done with You: A Teen’s Guide to Ditching Toxic Stress and Hardwiring Your Brain for Happiness by Jodi Aman
Recommended Ages: 12-18
An engaging workbook for teens dealing with anxiety, filled with relatable real-life examples. While teens can utilize the questionnaires, worksheets, and illustrations to build skills so that they can manage their emotions and thoughts, parents, caregivers, and educators can use this book to guide their teens and students as well.
The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Teen Anxiety: Activities to Help You Overcome Fears and Worries Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy by Sheri L Turrell PhD
Recommended Ages: 12-18
This book is a part of the “Instant Help for Teens” series which we’ve used books for other issues. It’s a workbook where teens can answer questionnaires and writing prompts to discover their own anxiety, learn to express feelings, and accept their emotions. Book provides effective strategies such as mindfulness exercises to control thoughts and feelings to help cope with anxiety, build resilience, and stop avoidance.
The Anxiety Workbook for Teens: Activities to Help You Deal with Anxiety and Worry by Lisa M Schab
Recommended Ages: 1-5
Teens will work with questionnaires, writing prompts and exercises to understand and define their anxiety. The book teaches multiple coping strategies such as breathing, visualization, meditation, and relaxation to reduce anxiety and keeping calm in real-life day-to-day situations.
♥ Graphic Novels
Graphic novels are my kids’ and my favorite type of books when it comes to personal stories.
Guts by Reina Telgemeier
Recommended Ages: 8-12
As with most of Reina Telgemeier’s books we all love, this graphic novel is also a personal memoir of her being diagnosed with a chronic disease while growing up. She deals with worries about food, school, and her friendships and eventually gets a helping hand from a therapist.
Real Friends by Shannon Hale
Recommended Ages: 8-12
This graphic novel is a memoir of the author’s elementary school years. It tackles childhood anxiety within the context of making friends and managing complex relationships.
New Kid by Jerry Craft
Recommended Ages: 8-12
This graphic novel is about fitting in as “the new kid” in a new environment with a lack of diversity. Even though the book might not appear to be focused on mainly anxiety, it deals with many anxieties and worry-inducing issues and tensions in middle school including, bias, microaggressions, and racial injustice.
♥ Chapter books
Sidetracked by Diana Asher
Recommended Ages: 8-12
A charming and humor-filled story about a boy with learning struggles trying to find his stride in middle school. As he is having a hard time making friends and dealing with a bully, one of his teachers encourages him to join the school track team. A newfound interest, running, and a new friend at the team help him start turning things around.
Stanley Will Probably Be Fine by Sally J. Pla
Recommended Ages: 8-12
Stanley is a seventh-grader with sensory disorder and anxieties trying to navigate through family issues and life at middle school. Kids will not only have fun but will be able to relate to what Stanley is going through and how he copes with his fears and worries in this warm and humorous story.
Bonus Toy
In addition to these 30 books above, I wanted to end this post by sharing this toy friend that we’ve used, tested, and approved to cope with anxiety.
In addition to the books we read, we used a similar worry eater toy to this one for my kids, and it was quite helpful especially at bedtime. I would tell them to draw or write their worries on a piece of notepaper and put it inside the zipped mouth of their worry eater. That would help them fall asleep easier.
Funny enough, when I was decluttering I found our worry eater and checked the zipped pouch for the fun of it and found some old notes they’ve written. I showed them the notes and we had a good laugh about how trivial and small those worries seemed now compared to how they felt back then. That sparked a good conversation about perspective on our worries and fears.
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