Heart Bubbles: Exploring Compassion With

Heart Bubbles: Exploring compassion with kids is a guidebook to compassion for young children. It teaches kids that compassion is a natural human response to others who are in distress. More than that, it teaches about self-compassion. Compassion for others is rooted in compassion for oneself.

Self-compassion involves self-kindness, mindful awareness, and a sense of connection to others. While these abilities come instinctively to kids, they tend to unlearn self-compassion as they age. Cultivating self-compassion helps children maintain these skills as they grow and see their own value and place in connection with the greater world. Mindful self-compassion teaches heartfulness--a kind connected presence--which leads to genuine care for self as well as others and supports emotional well being and resilience.

Dr. Krantz's previous book Mind Bubbles: Exploring mindfulness with kids used bubble imagery to explain mindfulness. Heart Bubbles uses bubble imagery once again to explain compassion and offers practices that can elicit a felt sense of self-compassion. Additionally, a guided heartfulness practice is offered at the end of the book, which can enhance feelings of compassion for self and others. If children can learn these practices when young, they can practice them for a lifetime.

Heather Krantz, M.D. is an integrative medicine physician and mindfulness teacher. She is the author of Mind Bubbles: Exploring mindfulness with kids. She trained as an obstetrician/gynecologist and completed a fellowship in integrative medicine. She now teaches Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Mindful Self-Compassion, and mindfulness workshops and practices mind-body medicine in Bend, Oregon. Find her at HeatherKrantzMD.com and InSightMindfulnessCenter.com.

Lisa May is a medical illustrator in Sisters, Oregon. She has a Masters of Science in Medical Illustration from the Medical College of Georgia. She has worked for nearly three decades illustrating and designing books, and she has a passion for children's books and reading with kids. She is the illustrator of Mind Bubbles: Exploring mindfulness with kids. Find her at LisaMayStudio.com.