Tiny Humans, Big Emotions: How to Navigate Tantrums, Meltdowns, and Defiance to Raise Emotionally Intelligent Children

New York Times Bestseller

The Future is Emotionally Intelligent

From two early childhood experts, an essential guidebook that empowers parents to help their little ones navigate their big feelings—including tantrums, outbursts, and separation anxiety—while laying the groundwork for a lifetime of emotional intelligence.

We’re in the midst of a parenting revolution that is radically changing the way we raise our kids. Gone are the days of minimizing emotions: Don’t Cry. You’re Fine. Don’t Make a Scene. As our understanding of developing brains has increased, today’s parents are looking for a new way to help their children understand their feelings and learn to process them.

Emotional development experts Alyssa Blask Campbell, M.Ed. and Lauren Stauble M.S. are at the forefront of a movement to foster little ones’ emotional intelligence. Their revolutionary Collaborative Emotion Processing (CEP) method has been a game changer for parents and educators, and now they are sharing it with readers in this indispensable guide.

Tiny Humans, Big Emotions provides the tools to tackle every sort of stressful child-rearing situation, including:

• What to do when your child throws a tantrum (it's not what you think!)

• Helpful scripts to handle any challenging moment like school refusal and bedtime resistance

• How to react when your child hits, punches, or bites

• Easy tips that help regulate your child’s nervous system

• How to anticipate and end meltdowns before they even begin

Designed for all humans—tiny and big—this book shows caregivers of children how to handle their children’s outbursts while empowering them to recognize and manage difficult feelings like anger, sadness, and shame, along with anxiety. All caregivers will find valuable insights and guidance in this book, especially those caring for children from infancy to age eight. Tiny Humans, Big Emotions equips adults with tools for emotional intelligence so they can respond with intention. This innovative, research-based approach teaches children self-regulation and empathy, even as it strengthens the parent-child relationship, setting the groundwork for a lifetime of emotional resilience and wellbeing.

This book is an essential, empathetic guide that will teach parents to notice their own habits and hold space for their tiny human's big emotions.

Alyssa Blask Campbell has a master’s degree in early childhood education; is coauthor of Tiny Humans, Big, Emotions; the CEO of Seed and Sew; and an established podcaster and influencer. A mom of two, she has also been featured as an emotional development expert in numerous national publications. She lives in Burlington, VT.

Lauren Stauble is partner of Engage: feel.think.connect. and a professor of early childhood education. She taught and cared for young children for 16 years before moving into administration and higher education where she is currently on faculty at Bunker Hill Community College. She lives in Holyoke, MA.