Review on 🧘 Calm-Down Time (Toddler Tools): Promoting Serenity and Emotional Well-being for Little Ones by Brad Lovro

This is one of several books I have recently purchased to help our son who is 5 years old with special needs to get the idea that this is self soothing is what he can do when he is depressed or upset. My main reason for deducting a star is that children's facial expressions that are sad or angry are drawn very thinly. For a lot of kids, that's not a big deal, but for our son, who is considered to be low functioning on the autism spectrum, it really is. He needs to see clearer facial expressions related to emotions in order to be able to piece the pieces of this book together. "readable" emotions on the monkey's face), some calming strategies are useful to him, others are not. I like it as an alternative to hugging, it mentions he can chest squeeze. We're currently offering a push to help him calm down, but I think this is a great way to open the door for him to realize he can do the same for himself. I like that it mentions a quiet place because sometimes it needs to get away from the noise to calm down, and I also like that it mentions rocking back and forth to calm down. If you have a child with an autism spectrum disorder, people are not usually advised to weigh them. But I gotta tell you, rocking is better than mass meltdown and definitely way better than self-harm, so in this house it's not the kind of hill I personally want to die on at this point. But if you have a child with an autism spectrum disorder, consider rolling back and forth on a yoga ball as a substitute for the rocking type, which can have a similarly calming effect. In fact, that's exactly what our little man prefers. Overall, I think it's a well-done book, but I think it would be more effective for children with certain disorders or disabilities if emotions were less subtly portrayed. And many of these toddlers will be the target audience for these types of books, as they often find it harder to control themselves than a normally functioning child of the same age. Personally I'm thinking about using markers and marking the phrases a bit to make them easier to read for him since we've already bought this book. But if you haven't bought one yet and your child has trouble reading emotions, you can start elsewhere.