It’s Okay to Have Feelings: A Peyton’s Palace Adventure

Runner Up Southern California Book Festival A Mindfulness Building Children’s Picture Book Series Peyton gets so mad that sometimes she throws a fit and gets into trouble with Mom and Dad. And sometimes, she gets too afraid to raise her hand in school. She needs help with her feelings. So, she visits a magical castle and teams up with her friend, Freddy Feelings. Together, they explore castle rooms while learning how to keep BIG feelings from causing BIG problems. It’s Okay to Have Feelings: A Peyton’s Palace Adventure is a mental health therapeutic picture book series, aimed at providing successful emotion regulation tools which build upon one another progressively. While enthralled in a magical castle adventure, Peyton and her friend, Freddy Feelings, encourage healthier perspectives regarding emotions and teach helpful skills, based upon Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, designed by Marsha Linehan. These tools, once practiced on a regular basis, have been supported by numerous research studies as leading to significant symptom reduction, improvement in cognitive executive functions, and social-emotional wellness. Too often children go through life emotionally and socially unprepared to manage stressors and challenges life can bring. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 20% of children have some sort of mental health issue. Many clinicians would argue that percentage to be low, considering the rise in need of mental health services for children and adolescents as well as the increased suicide rates nationwide. Children need our help. So, let’s give them the right tools for healthy social and emotional wellness. This is Patricia’s first children’s book. She is an award-winning novelist and her awards include a Next Generation Indie Book Award.