5 of the Best Kids’ Books for Taming Big Emotions

Let's talk about emotional intelligence in kids. I was surprised to learn recently that this is a controversial topic, which to me feels like saying that ears are controversial. Ears, emotions, we all have 'em, right?

When kids suppress their emotions, life can get harder for them — and for everyone who lives with them! The more that we can get kids capable of labeling and understanding their own feelings, the more they're able to engage in calm, constructive conversations. We all know that the world needs a little bit more of that right now, so I wanted to share some helpful resources for guiding kids through those big emotions. With a little encouragement, you can nudge children towards developing emotional intelligence as a solid life foundation.

Whether you are finding yourself facing toddler tantrums or have started riding the emotional rollercoaster alongside a hormonal teen, you can find help in books! These are the top five books that I absolutely love and recommend for helping increase your child's ability to label and cope with their emotions.

All About Feelings starts with establishing that everyone has feelings, a common ground that will validate your child’s experience and help them feel comfortable in their own skin.

One of my favorite parts about this book is that it shows the body language that is related to various feelings. If your child is struggling with social awareness, this section in particular can go a long way to encouraging emotional intelligence. Body language awareness helps children understand how to identify emotions in others, how to identify what they’re feeling themselves, and to determine what to do with those feelings as well.

Once your child has a foundation for understanding their feelings, Worries Big and Small can be a great home library addition for helping children walk through what to do when they're experiencing some worrisome situations. For example: what if I need to go to the doctor and get a checkup? What if my teacher's mad at me? What if I make a mistake in front of the whole class? Not only does the introduce some coping skills, it also will gently guide them toward talking to an adult, when that's appropriate.

For kids who are ready to explore emotions independently, the Mindful Kids series is amazing. The series includes eight engaging activity books designed to help kids build their emotion coping skills and overall emotional intelligence. For example, Be Brave focuses on helping kids who are experiencing frequent fears or phobias. The other workbooks in this series focus on sadness, bullying, anxiety, stress, self confidence, anger, grief, overcoming adversity, and even trouble sleeping. Each one is an activity book packed full of creative prompts, along with doodling space that helps kids work through their feelings in a safe place.

If you have younger kids, Red Red Red is a great choice for toddler tantrums and preschool emotions. In this picture book, a young child gets very frustrated and is starting to feel like every single thing is going wrong — we’ve all been there! The child’s mother recognizes the start of the tantrum and coaches them to count their way back to being calm. It’s a great book for helping kids understand that not only are those feelings normal, they don’t have to be scary! When we feel those big feelings, there are things that we can do to get back to a place where we can actually think and problem solve and move forward. I highly recommend this book to toddler and preschool parents who frequently find themselves needing to tame tantrums.

Another great emotional intelligence book for younger kids is I Can Be Calm Now. The reason I love this book in particular is because calm is not just the opposite of being mad, like when we’re trying to overcome a tantrum — sometimes it's simply the opposite of joyful energy! In this board book, a friend has come over to play and the children are having a great time. Everything's very energetic and loud and playful, but now it is time to calm down. The book shows them that we can experience a range of emotions with our friends, including calmer moments. It also includes a soothing exercise for kids to try to calm down on their own, along with a fun wheel that kids can spin to drum up some ideas for additional places and activities that can help them find their calm.

Whether kids are big or small, emotions come in all sizes, too, and I hope this helps with taming tantrums and introducing emotional coping skills to kids, no matter their age. From just accepting that it’s normal to have emotions, to learning how to recognize and define their feelings, to navigating their way through high-emotion moments, kids who spend time with books that have a positive relationship with feelings will engage with their own emotions more readily. Strong emotional intelligence helps our children navigate conflict, advocate for their needs more easily, and build positive relationships.

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