Totally Chill : My Complete Guide to Staying Cool: A Stress Management Workbook for Kids With Social, Emotional or Sensory Sensitivities

Everyone feels stress adults and children alike. It is part of life. But life can be a lot easier when we learn new skills and ideas to help us handle the stress in our lives.

Totally Chill: The Complete Guide to Staying Cool is a stress management workbook that is meant to be read, completed, and used as much as possible by children themselves. Its fun graphics and interactive style make it ideal for children grades 3 through middle school.

When parenting, teaching and working with children who have social, emotional, and/or sensory sensitivities, we often put the emphasis on learning new skills. Countless hours are spent working on social skills, fine- and gross-motor skills, language skills, and academic skills, but stress management skills are often left unaddressed. This is unfortunate, as stress can create a multitude of challenges for learning and daily living. In other words, it can create barriers to the very things we are trying to teach. Besides, it can cause distress, which can lead to meltdowns and behavioral outbursts. In short, it is crucial that children learn and develop skills to help them to manage their stress as independently as possible.

Dr. Christopher Lynch is a clinical psychologist who specializes in stress and anxiety management for children. He is currently the director of the Pediatric Behavioral Medicine Department at Goryeb Children's Hospital where he developed the aspirations life management program for children on the autism spectrum. Dr. Lynch has over fifteen years of experience in working with children. It is his ambition to continue to develop services and resources that provide children with the skills needed to both cope and thrive.