Psychoeducation

Knowledge is power! Psychoeducation is the provision of psychologically-relevant factual information (e.g., many people with depression feel more tired than usual, even if they get a full night’s sleep). Psychoeducation can correct misconceptions children have about themselves or others, help children know what to expect, and reduce the unknowns of a situation.

Age range: Kindergarten through 4th grade.

Recommended for: Written by a pediatrician, this book is excellent for a child who experiences regular bed-wetting and who is feeling embarrassed or ashamed of this. It very effectively destigmatizes nocturnal enuresis (i.e., nighttime bed-wetting) with its cool kid detective protagonist who shares that he wet the bed until he was 11-years-old, and it provides a few tips for reducing frequency of bed-wetting.

Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation

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Age range: 1st through 3rd grade, or perhaps even 4th grade.

Recommended for: This book is exclusively for a child who has recently been diagnosed with OCD and is starting treatment with a therapist who is trained in Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) . The book reassures children that they aren’t “crazy” or the only ones with OCD, and it teaches about ERP and the strategy of externalizing and talking back to OCD (the boy in this book calls his OCD thoughts “Mr. Worry”). It provides children with an analogy of medication being a child’s running shoes, the therapist being the coach, and the child being the runner (ERP is the “running strategy”). The book is a bit outdated but it’s still one of the best picture book introductions to ERP that I’ve been able to find.

Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation, Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), Cognitive Restructuring, Medication

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Age range: Kindergarten through 5th grade.

Recommended for: I highly recommend this workbook for parents and children to work through together over many weeks or even months. It’s ideal for a child who would like to feel less anxious and who is ready to learn some strategies for getting their anxiety more under control. This workbook is based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and is a comprehensive collection of evidence-based practices for childhood anxiety. Therapists may also be interested in using this book in session with clients as a way of structuring their treatment or as between-session “homework” for children and their caregivers as a means of reinforcing in-session content.

Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation, Cognitive Restructuring, Exposure, Diaphragmatic Breathing, Progressive Muscle Relaxation, Mindfulness

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Age range: Preschool through 1st grade.

Recommended for: Exclusively for young children with parents or caregivers with Bipolar I Disorder who have been hospitalized or will likely need to be hospitalized. This book isn’t perfect. The mother has “happy” days and “sad” days, which isn’t an accurate representation of manic or depressive episodes for most people, and it’s just not a particularly engaging story. But it does introduce the idea of a parent having up and down moods and needing to be hospitalized. Its primary message is that no matter what, the child is loved by their parent with bipolar disorder, and they will be taken care of even if their parent with bipolar disorder is not always able to take care of them.

Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation

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Age range: Preschool through 1st grade.

Recommended for: This book provides a developmentally appropriate explanation of what divorce is and how it might impact a child. The book is fairly dry but useful; parents may even choose to read this on their own and borrow the language when talking with their children.

Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation, Emotional Literacy

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Age range: Preschool through 3rd grade. It has a story that younger kids will understand and enjoy, but there’s enough complexity that older kids will connect with it too.

Recommended for: This book is great for any child at all interested in fantasy or fairy tales who is experiencing their own version of the fog (i.e., depressive symptoms). This book could be used to start conversations about mood, therapy, behavioral activation , and/or medication .

Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation, Behavioral activation, Medication

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Age range: Best for older kids–3rd or 4th grade through middle school.

Recommended for: This book is great for an older child who has recently been diagnosed with a depressive disorder or who a parent or provider suspects may be holding onto heavy feelings without sharing them. It vividly puts words to the experience of depression without sugarcoating the pain, and it provides hope that sharing about this experience with a loved one and getting help will lead to a child “learning to see through the darkness.”

Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation, Medication

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Age range: 1st grade through 3rd grade.

Recommended for: This book destigmatizes the “wiggle fidgets” (recognizable as ADHD, but no diagnostic labels are used in the story), celebrates kids’ creativity, and empowers kids to brainstorm accommodations that might help them to better manage their symptoms. It’s a great read prior to a conversation with a child about school accommodations such as movement breaks and using a fidget toy.

Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation

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Age range: Preschool through 1st grade.

Recommended for: This book helps to destigmatize Selective Mutism (SM) and to provide hope that it won’t last forever. Could be a good read for caregivers and their child with SM, or to read to a classroom to help other students understand and accept a child who isn’t speaking yet (but maybe leave out the page where a classmate pinches Maya because they know she won’t tell the teacher). This book is best for a child who won’t be turned off by Maya’s traditionally feminine interests (pink, princesses, playing house) and the description of her voice as “sweet.”

Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation

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Age range: Preschool through 2nd grade.

Recommended for: Young children who have a parent with Bipolar I Disorder who need reassurance that they are not alone in their experience. The book is probably more reassuring to parents reading it than the children intended to be the audience, but it can be used to open conversations about how a child feels when a parent acts erratically, is unavailable, or is in the hospital, as well as conversations about emergency planning (e.g., who they can contact if they’re worried about their parent or themselves and who will take care of them if a parent is unable to). It’s not a great book, but there’s not much better out there.

Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation

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Age range: Preschool through 1st grade.

Recommended for: This book is a calm, normalizing introduction to divorce and separation, and it provides recommendations for coping with upcoming changes. The illustrations include families of color and queer parents, so it is particularly well-suited for families looking for a book with representation beyond White, heterosexual parents. No specific custody arrangements are mentioned in the book.

Evidence-Based Practices: Emotional Literacy, Psychoeducation

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Age range: Best for 1st through 5th grade. It’s a bit long and wordy for younger kids.

Recommended for: A child who has recently been diagnosed with OCD and/or who is exhibiting OCD symptoms and is about to start treatment with a therapist trained in Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) . A therapist could read it with a child in an early therapy session, or parents could read it with their child prior to starting therapy.

Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation, Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)

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Age range: 1st grade through 3rd grade.

Recommended for: This book is a great story, which happens to be co-written by California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, about a boy with dyslexia who loves baseball (loosely based on Newsom’s own experience as a child with dyslexia). It is also a story about having more in common with others than we realize and about never giving up. It’s a wonderful book for kids who think they are the only ones struggling to read (there’s a surprise twist in the story that disproves this), and it celebrates kids’ strengths. The publisher states that the book was written in a font specifically designed to be easier to read for people with dyslexia.

Evidence-Based Practices: Diaphragmatic Breathing, Psychoeducation

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Age range: Preschool through 2nd grade.

Recommended for: This book is a great read for children who do not feel confident in their ability to interact safely with dogs. It teaches kids how dogs like to be approached and what to do if a dog is feeling threatened or scared in order to prevent unsafe interactions. This book might be extra useful for kids to read with caregivers who are also a little wary of dogs.

Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation

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Age range: Best for 1st grade through 3rd grade, but adequately applicable to kindergarteners through 4th grade.

Recommended for: Children with parents (or other caregivers) who have mood disorders will benefit from the developmentally appropriate explanations and reassurances this book provides. It’s part workbook, with opportunities for a child to draw and write about their feelings, questions, and experiences related to having a parent with depression. Great for family members, therapists, and/or school counselors to complete with a child whose parent is struggling with depression. Includes a section on hospitalization.

Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation, Emotional processing

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Age range: Preschool through 3rd grade.

Recommended for: This book is a relatively fun way to introduce the idea of increasing a child’s sensory input throughout the day to meet their sensory needs. This can be a helpful intervention for some children with autism, ADHD, anxiety, and body-focused repetitive behaviors (e.g., skin-picking and hair-pulling). It introduces the concept of sensory seeking and provides many concrete examples a child can try out (e.g., jumping on a trampoline, eating something crunchy, playing with a fidget toy). School psychologists and counselors, as well as OTs, may particularly find this book useful when discussing interventions for kids to try out.

Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation

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Age range: Preschool through 3rd grade.

Recommended for: This adorable story is great for young children to read with a parent or caregiver who is struggling with their mood. This book is reassuring for both children and their parents–it teaches children that their parent’s depression isn’t the child’s fault, that their parent still loves them, and that there’s help to be had; it reminds parents that depression isn’t their fault either and that their child will continue loving them.

Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation

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Age range: 1st grade through 4th grade.

Recommended for: This book is great for kids with dyslexia who have lost sight of their strengths and need a reminder that they, too, are brilliant (“bright and radiant…the opposite of dull”). This story celebrates teachers who see students’ strengths, and it highlights the importance of accommodations (in this book, a tape recorder) to help kids become “who [they] are meant to be.” The text is written in a dyslexia-friendly font (EasyReading).

Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation

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Age range: Kindergarten through 3rd grade.

Recommended for: This book is well-suited for a child whose parent or loved one is experiencing a depressive episode and is beginning or going through treatment. It describes the emotions that often accompany having a parent with a mood disorder, and it provides hope that a parent’s treatment will help the color return to their world. Includes hospitalization as a component of the father’s treatment.

Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation

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Age range: 2nd through 5th, or even 6th grade.

Recommended for: This book is best for a more mature, verbal child who has some insight into their thoughts and feelings. It takes seriously the intensity of children’s feelings of shame and helps kids to recognize and name the feeling, as well as to share about what is causing them to feel shame. This book is appropriate for a child who has experienced trauma or abuse and is subsequently feeling shame, as well as a child who struggles more generally with feelings of inadequacy or negative self-talk. (It makes a nod to shame sometimes being the result of “something we did or didn’t do,” as well as “something done to us.”)

Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation, Emotional processing, Cognitive restructuring

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