A free picture book for mums of anxious, neurodivergent and emotionally intense kids
The book we needed when our kids were small, and couldn't find.
The Emotion Potion: Four Friends Explore Big Feelings
A story that shows children what to do with big feelings, not just what to call them. Read it together tonight.
Get the free bookYou've tried the reward charts, the calm down corners, the "use your words".
Maybe the therapy, the assessments, the diagnosis too. Things shift, a bit, sometimes. But when the big feeling hits, your child can't reach any of it.
Here's the biology. When a big feeling fires, your child's body switches into protection mode and the thinking brain goes offline. No amount of reasoning reaches it in that state. What does reach it is the body: breath, movement, tapping. And the calm of the adult right next to them.
What's inside
Big feelings are biology, not bad behaviour.
Bear, Owl, Rabbit and Fox show children that feelings are messages from the body. Signals to notice, move and release, not push down or get told off for.
Tools small hands can actually use.
Tapping, breathing, movement, connection and noticing where a feeling lives. Each one works straight on the body's stress response, and is simple enough to use in the middle of a meltdown.
Co-regulation: it works on you too.
Every tool in the book is for grown ups as well as children. Tap, breathe and move together, and you settle too. Your child reads your biology before they hear a word you say. We help you understand why that matters so much, and how your child is reading yours.
Emma and Laura, sisters and founders of The Emotions Lab
I'm Laura. My daughter entered burnout at 12.
School refusal. Panic attacks. And me tiptoeing around her, terrified I was going to make it worse. I wasn't new to this. I'd trained as an ADHD coach, studied psychotherapy, read everything. Nothing worked, because all of it focused on changing her.
What finally shifted things was the biology. Her body needed to feel safe before her mind could do anything. And mine needed to feel safe first.
Emma and I wrote The Emotion Potion because we couldn't find a book that taught this to children. One that didn't just name feelings, but showed them what to do with them.
My sister Emma and I run The Emotions Lab together. We're certified health coaches and Associate Members of the Royal Society of Medicine, trained in neuroscience, EFT, IFS, somatic regulation and lifestyle medicine. But everything we teach is grounded in something no qualification gives you: living this inside our own families.
Lead your child out of anxiety by leading yourself out of yours.
Read it tonight, together.
Pop your details below and you'll go straight to the book. Free to read online, beautifully illustrated, ready for bedtime.
