Mental Health Religious Education Resources for Children and Youth

• How To Get Unstuck From the Negative Muck: A Kid's Guide to Getting Rid of Negative Thinking   (For 8 - 12 years old)

By Vanessa Green Allen

Your child can’t make negative thoughts go away completely, but they can learn healthy ways to cope with them. How To Get Unstuck From The Negative Muck will armor your child with skills to take the power away from negative thoughts. They'll learn that thoughts don't have to determine their moods or behaviors. A thought is just a thought! Using kid-friendly text, interactive cartoons, and engaging journal exercises, your child will learn priceless life skills.

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• Special Topics in Being a Human: A Queer and Tender Guide to Things I've Learned the Hard Way About Caring for People, Including Myself

By S. Bear Bergman and illustrated by Saul Freedman-Lawson​

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• Mind Over Monsters - Supporting Youth Mental Health with Compassionate Challenge

By Sarah Rose Cavanaugh​

An investigation into the mental health crisis affecting young adults today, and an impassioned argument for creating learning environments characterized both by compassion and challenge.

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• List of LGBTQIA+ Books for Kids and Youth

By Matt Davis 

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• Anxiety Relief for Teens (For Teens)

By Regine Galanti

Features quizzes and self-assessments to better understand your anxiety and emotions and discover their respective triggers; 30+ CBT-based tools to manage your anxiety along with practical strategies for dealing with challenging emotions such as anger and sadness; and 30+ mindfulness practices to cope with your anxiety in the present moment through visualizations, breathing, meditation, and other exercises.​

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• Mindful Games: Sharing Mindfulness and Meditation with Children, Teens, and Families

By Susan Kaiser Greenland

Susan Kaiser Greenland shares how parents, caregivers, and teachers can bring mindfulness into the classroom or home. She provides 50 entertaining games that develop what she calls the new “A, B, C’s”—Attention, Balance, and Compassion—for your child’s learning, happiness, and success, offering context and guidance throughout. She introduces:

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• Beyond the Spiral - Why you shouldn't believe everything anxiety tells you

By Will Hutcherson & Chinwe Williams, PhD​

Anxiety is a normal human response to stressful circumstances. But sometimes anxiety takes more control over us than we would like, and we find ourselves stuck in a cycle of fear and anxious thoughts. That cycle (sometimes called the spiral of anxiety) can leave us feeling overwhelmed, helpless, and exhausted. Beyond the Spiral seamlessly combines both faith and psychology to give a teen or young adult everything they need to stop believing the lies of anxiety and to thrive instead of just surviving life. Note* from a Christian source so requires some mental translation

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• Seen - Healing Despair and Anxiety in Kids & Teens through the Power of Connection

By Will Hutcherson & Chinwe Williams, PhD​

Whether you're a parent, youth leader, teacher, or caring adult, not knowing how to help those dealing with difficult emotions can leave you feeling intimidated, powerless, and discouraged. It can feel scary.​

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• Numb To This - Memoir of a Mass Shooting

By Kindra Neely​

This searing graphic memoir portrays the impact of gun violence through a fresh lens with urgency, humanity, and a very personal hope. Available at In Spirit Bookstore

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• Becoming:  Spiritual Guide for Navigating Adulthood (For youth and young adults)

By Kayla Parker​

A spiritual companion for young adults and all who live amid transitions and tensions. Dozens of carefully selected readings address themes that are prominent for people in their twenties and early thirties.

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• Rocky Pond Books

Penguin’s newest children’s and Young Adult imprint. It publishes books for ages two through teen, both fiction and nonfiction, with a primary focus on mental health and social-emotional learning.

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• Think Good - Feel Good: A Cognitive Behaviour Therapy Workbook for Children and Young People (Workbook) 

By Paul Stallard

Think Good — Feel Good is an exciting and pioneering new practical resource in print and on the internet for undertaking CBT with children and young people. The materials have been developed by the author and trialed extensively in clinical work with children and young people presenting with a range of psychological problems.

Paul Stallard introduces his resource by covering the basic theory and rationale behind CBT and how the workbook should be used. An attractive and lively workbook follows which covers the core elements used in CBT programs but conveys these ideas to children and young people in an understandable way and uses real life examples familiar to them. The concepts introduced to the children can be applied to their own unique set of problems through the series of practical exercises and worksheets.​