NowMaps: A Tween’s Guide to Learning About Your Thoughts, Navigating Big Emotions, and Being a Confident Kid

With NowMaps by their side, tweens can go from “I’m so overwhelmed” to “I can handle this!”

Written by world-renowned neuropsychiatrist and co-author of The Whole-Brain Child, Dr. Dan Siegel, and Deena Margolin, LMFT, co-founder of the popular online community Big Little Feelings, NowMaps is a one-of-a-kind adventure that introduces the neuroscience of social-emotional learning in a fun, interactive way!

Using four easy-to-remember tools―a pause button, a focus flashlight, an OK monitor, and a compass―tweens will learn how to create a NowMap, a snapshot of their present-moment experience, so they can navigate all of life’s moments with confidence and kindness. A NowMap shows tweens where they are right now so they can decide where they want to go next.

Packed with over 40 games, exercises, and activities, NowMaps is every tween’s sidekick for:

• Identifying and discerning between thoughts and feelings
• Enhancing interoceptive awareness
• Learning how to respond thoughtfully rather than react automatically
• Handling disappointment when things don’t go as planned
• Developing a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset
• Navigating social conflicts and bumps in relationships
• Learning coping skills when everything feels like “too much”
• And more!

Daniel J. Siegel, MD, is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, the founding co‑director of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center, and the co-founder and executive director of the Mindsight Institute. He is a New York Times best-selling author (Aware, Mind, and Brainstorm) and co-author (The Whole-Brain Child and No-Drama Discipline). He has also co‑written The Yes Brain, The Power of Showing Up, Parenting from the Inside Out, and many others. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, with welcome visits from their adult son and daughter.

Deena Margolin, LMFT, specializes in helping children and families connect with compassion and build skills for resilience. A Los Angeles native, Deena studied psychology at Bucknell University before returning to LA as a research assistant at UCLA, where her work focused on mindfulness, anxiety regulation, and the brain. Deena received her master’s in marriage and family therapy from USC while also working as associate director at the Mindsight Institute under Dr. Dan Siegel and Caroline Welch; she later trained at the Center for Mindful Living. Deena has also worked as a school counselor with Counseling Partners of Los Angeles, facilitated toddler groups at The Play Group, and supported parent-child groups at the Early Childhood Parenting Center. Most recently, Deena co-founded Big Little Feelings (@biglittlefeelings), a community for parents and caregivers of children ages 1–6. Big Little Feelings provides practical, research-based game plans that help adults navigate any tricky toddler situation in the short term, while raising resilient, compassionate humans in the long term.