The Self-Compassion Workbook for Kids: Fun Mindfulness Activities to Build Emotional Strength and Make Kindness Your Superpower

Fun, engaging, hands-on activities to help kids ages 5-9 be kind to themselves and others, and build the emotional strength and resilience needed to thrive!

Children today face many challenges; and if you are a parent, teacher, or a professional working with kids, you may be seeking answers on how to help children thrive in a world filled with uncertainty, adversity, and the detrimental effects of social media and screen time overload. There are tools you can use to help kids build confidence and resilience, and cope effectively with difficult situations. This workbook is packed with a variety of hands-on practices to help children thrive—with kindness toward themselves and others.

In this fun and engaging workbook, the cofounder of the Mindful Self-Compassion for Teens (MSC-T) program offers essential self-compassion and mindfulness skills to help kids build emotional strength and resilience. Kids will find simple, age-appropriate practices based in loving-kindness and gratitude to self-soothe, reduce stress, and respond to their own emotional needs. They’ll also learn to make kindness their “superpower,” quiet their inner bully, and protect and befriend themselves.

Activities in the book are designed to facilitate experiential learning, and include:

• Mindfulness meditations
• Reflective journaling
• Hands-on mindful movement activities
• Arts and crafts activities

Self-compassion and emotional resilience are cornerstones of mental health, and research shows that teaching these skills to children when they are young can have lasting, positive effects—well into adulthood. With this workbook as a guide, kids will learn to be a better friend to themselves and others, and thrive in a stress-filled world.

Lorraine M. Hobbs, MA, is founding director of the family and education programs at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Center for Mindfulness. Hobbs is cocreator of the mindful self-compassion for teens (MSC-T) program, and codeveloper of the MSC-T teacher training pathway. She is a certified teacher of mindful self-compassion (MSC), compassion cultivation training (CCT), and mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). Hobbs is an MBSR mentor at the UCSD Mindfulness-Based Professional Training Institute. She is also codeveloper of A Friend in Me: Self-Compassion for Kids and Parents; and the Compassion in Parenting Program (CiP), adapted for parents of kids with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other neurodiverse challenges. Hobbs is coauthor of the book, Teaching Self-Compassion to Teens.

Amy C. Balentine, PhD, has practiced for more than twenty years as a clinical psychologist specializing in children and teens. She is founder and director of the Memphis Center for Mindful Living, LLC. She is also a qualified teacher of MBSR; and serves as a mindfulness teacher at the University of California, San Diego Center for Mindfulness; and also leads mindfulness classes and retreats for schools, nonprofits, and other organizations. Balentine is codeveloper of A Friend in Me: Self-Compassion for Kids and Parents.

Foreword writer Kristin Neff, PhD, is a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, conducting the first empirical studies on self-compassion more than fifteen years ago. In addition to writing numerous academic articles and book chapters on the topic, she is author of Self-Compassion. In conjunction with her colleague, Christopher Germer, she developed an empirically supported, eight-week training program called Mindful Self-Compassion, and offers workshops on self-compassion worldwide.