What do you think?
Rate this book
A Little SPOT
A Little SPOT of Anxiety: A Story About Calming Your Worries
Anxiety comes from feelings of being worried, scared, or anxious. When these feelings are in small amounts that’s okay because they are there to help protect us, but when they get TOO BIG, they become overwhelming and need to be managed. When a child experiences anxiety it can prevent them from doing what he/she wants and and/or needs to do, which can make anxiety a disability.
This story addresses how anxiety can affect all ages and how it can show up in all different situations. The Gray SPOT in the story creates a visual representation of Anxiety so that a child can see when it's gets too big, and how to shrink it back to a Green PEACEFUL SPOT.
It offers creative strategies for children to help cope with anxiety as well.
From the tip of my finger, to the center of my palm,
I can do this! I can be calm!
This worry grew too big, and cannot stay,
take a deep breath, and blow it away!
The goal of this book is to give children the tools needed to identity what emotion they are feeling and how to properly manage that emotion.
This story addresses how anxiety can affect all ages and how it can show up in all different situations. The Gray SPOT in the story creates a visual representation of Anxiety so that a child can see when it's gets too big, and how to shrink it back to a Green PEACEFUL SPOT.
It offers creative strategies for children to help cope with anxiety as well.
From the tip of my finger, to the center of my palm,
I can do this! I can be calm!
This worry grew too big, and cannot stay,
take a deep breath, and blow it away!
The goal of this book is to give children the tools needed to identity what emotion they are feeling and how to properly manage that emotion.
32 pages, Paperback
Published September 9, 2019
173 people are currently reading
286 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
Read
February 5, 2021Bought/read this book for my 9 y/o to help her cope with stressful situations. It wasn’t a success, maybe because examples are not relatable to her experiences. I have to say though, that the method in the book is simple and maybe works for other kids or even adults.
September 13, 2022
This book covers anxiety and its hurdles in language children can understand. In this book, anxiety is visualized as a little gray spot that can grow or multiply. The anxiety spot is countered by the peaceful spot, and the book gives realistic methods to overcoming anxiety. At the end of the book there is a template for the hand tracing rhyme, plus resources on the author’s website.
I love this book and seriously wish I had it when I was a kid. It makes the concept of anxiety, a more complicated and abstract feeling, understandable for children. It also has a rhyme for children to repeat as needed, plus a hand-tracing grounding technique for managing anxiety. It does not stigmatize anxiety because it is a completely normal emotion.
I am a big supporter of social-emotional learning, so I would read this when doing a mini-segment on worry and anxiety. Children are growing up in a scary world, and we can’t always give them everything they need. But we can give them these tools to help them be emotionally regulated and strong individuals.
I love this book and seriously wish I had it when I was a kid. It makes the concept of anxiety, a more complicated and abstract feeling, understandable for children. It also has a rhyme for children to repeat as needed, plus a hand-tracing grounding technique for managing anxiety. It does not stigmatize anxiety because it is a completely normal emotion.
I am a big supporter of social-emotional learning, so I would read this when doing a mini-segment on worry and anxiety. Children are growing up in a scary world, and we can’t always give them everything they need. But we can give them these tools to help them be emotionally regulated and strong individuals.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 26, 2020
Another great book about anxiety in children.
August 19, 2020
Great book for worrying. Teaches mindfulness strategies
November 4, 2020
A lovely story using words and pictures to help anyone deal with anxiety and other anxious feelings that pop up in stressful situations or places we are unfamiliar with. Plus, there is the dealing with the feelings of not being liked. Imagine a dot and calm your nerves
August 29, 2022
This book is one in a series about teaching little kids how to deal with big emotions in a healthy way. I bought these books for my son to help ensure that he learns different ways to cope with different emotions. This book specifically dealt with anxiety. It starts by telling kids what anxiety is. The main character is the anxiety spot, or gray spot. Having a little anxiety is okay. Normal times to have a little anxiety would include starting school, right before a big game, or before starting really anything unfamiliar, but not dealing with these emotions can cause the gray spot to become too big and become overwhelming. This book is a great way to start teaching kids that it's okay to have big emotions as long as we don't allow them to control us and knowing different techniques to calm those emotions when they do get too big. I love the pictures in this book. It can allow a child to physically see the emotion and give it a color or name. It helps children use words they understand to express the emotion that they're feeling. In this book it teaches about a trick to help with anxiety, it's been a while since I've read this book to my son and he still uses this technique when he gets anxious. I definitely recommend this book to anyone. This book is a little long for younger children, but it is an interactive book so I would recommend this book for Pre-K and above.
February 18, 2024
A Little Spot of Anxiety by Diane Alber should be everyone's cup of tea. Be it adults or little children, we all feel worried, scared, clueless, and fall into the trap of anxiety. While PEACEFUL SPOT gives us happiness and joy. A SPOT of anxiety when overlooked can become too big to handle. However, a little worry helps one to perform well. But too much of it needs immediate care.
So as per the book, we need to imagine that at the tip of all fingers, we have a grey spot and in the center of our palm, there is a green spot which is a 'calm spot'. We need to imagine that our anxiety is slowly steadily reaching a calm spot. Restoring GREEN SPOT, that is CALM Spot. When anxiety gets too big to handle, then we can take a deep breath in and blow away our anxiety. Also, reaching out to loved ones to talk out our anxieties is said to soothe us and widen the green spot of peace.
Also, whenever your anxiety tries to stop you from exercising your complete power, you need to tell yourself that I CAN DO IT, I'VE GOT THIS, I BELIEVE IN MYSELF- that's how you can widen the peaceful and happy spot.
P.S. A Little SPOT of Anxiety is a great read worth imbibing.
So as per the book, we need to imagine that at the tip of all fingers, we have a grey spot and in the center of our palm, there is a green spot which is a 'calm spot'. We need to imagine that our anxiety is slowly steadily reaching a calm spot. Restoring GREEN SPOT, that is CALM Spot. When anxiety gets too big to handle, then we can take a deep breath in and blow away our anxiety. Also, reaching out to loved ones to talk out our anxieties is said to soothe us and widen the green spot of peace.
Also, whenever your anxiety tries to stop you from exercising your complete power, you need to tell yourself that I CAN DO IT, I'VE GOT THIS, I BELIEVE IN MYSELF- that's how you can widen the peaceful and happy spot.
P.S. A Little SPOT of Anxiety is a great read worth imbibing.
Read
May 7, 2020I think this book does a good job of talking about anxiety, which is a topic that isn't often discussed in children's literature. However, children can get anxious too and it is important that they see this reflected in literature and understand that it is normal and that they can learn to manage their anxiety with help. I liked this book because it normalized anxiety and also taught the reader how to stay calm when they get nervous. The lesson for calming down could be applied in any situation and it is easy to remember because it is short and it rhymes, which is good for children. It also has a physical action along with the saying, which helps children that are visual learners. The book did a good job of repeating the lesson multiple times so that the reader can actually learn it. I think this would be a great book to have in the classroom and read out loud in the beginning of the year so that my students will have the skill for the rest of the year.
May 28, 2020
Useful Anxiety Management for Kids
As an adult who has suffered anxiety for a majority of my life, I have learned many techniques to try managing everything from normal anxiety levels to full blown panic attacks. Among those methods, the most effective are those which redirect focus to a concentrated task and control breathing patterns. Luckily, this book provides just such a tactic to teach kids anxiety management - and, in the process, reassures that small amounts of anxiety are important and acceptable.
As an adult who has suffered anxiety for a majority of my life, I have learned many techniques to try managing everything from normal anxiety levels to full blown panic attacks. Among those methods, the most effective are those which redirect focus to a concentrated task and control breathing patterns. Luckily, this book provides just such a tactic to teach kids anxiety management - and, in the process, reassures that small amounts of anxiety are important and acceptable.
November 25, 2025
This is part of a series for kids about managing emotions. This one focuses on anxiety and worry. It talks about how a little bit of worrying can be OK because it will help us get things done or remember to do things, etc but when our worry spot becomes TOO big, then we can't do anything - we might freeze up or break down. This book gives lots of suggestions for things that kids can do to keep their worry spots small before things happen or what to do when they get in a tough situation.
Highly recommend the whole series.
Highly recommend the whole series.
April 10, 2020
This book talks about how our anxiety can get the better of us and how to overcome it. It is a great story with useful examples and a helpful trick to overcome anxiety. With illustrations that my sister and I could relate to, this book is a very inspiring one. I would recommend this book to children of all ages. And timely as well, as most of us around the world are under lockdown, with anxiety just going up every day! 🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡
December 5, 2020
Story is about a green spot which is a peaceful spot, and a grey spot who s an anxiety spot. Well a few anxiety spots actually and they can get bigger. The book is a little long for a child's attention span, but comes up with an imagination game involving the fingers and palms on your hand to help defeat the grey ones. Not real sure this is something will remember much after they finish the book, but if they are a nervous about something, well there would be no harm in trying it.
April 12, 2022
This book was pretty good in my opinion. It talks about and explains anxiety in a way that a child could grasp the complete concept. It gives a visual of an anxiety spot and a calm spot and the different ways that the anxiety spot can overtake the calm spot. It also gives ways to avoid having anxiety about something. I think this is a great book to incorporate into a class because it may benefit certain students who come from a stressful background.
April 26, 2023
Love this little book
Great little book about anxiety. I work with a lot of kids with this issue. This is a cute quick story regarding this issue. Easy to read, but doesn’t feel too “babyish” and then there are a heap of ways to practice it in a session and modify it to the client for their needs. IF they don’t mind drawing on their hands, you can put a “peace” spot right on there with green marker, or draw one on paper, do it with stickers- fun and practical.
Great little book about anxiety. I work with a lot of kids with this issue. This is a cute quick story regarding this issue. Easy to read, but doesn’t feel too “babyish” and then there are a heap of ways to practice it in a session and modify it to the client for their needs. IF they don’t mind drawing on their hands, you can put a “peace” spot right on there with green marker, or draw one on paper, do it with stickers- fun and practical.
March 1, 2024
Assignment Alber #11
Little Spot #3
The Alber journey into emotions continues and there are salient points and interesting moments in this but it sometimes feels like it is managed with you can say this but only this way and with the precondition that this is mentioned in this way and with this approach and with the foreknowledge of this and that and etc - rather than an organic look at the topic it becomes more forced and not as friendly.
Little Spot #3
The Alber journey into emotions continues and there are salient points and interesting moments in this but it sometimes feels like it is managed with you can say this but only this way and with the precondition that this is mentioned in this way and with this approach and with the foreknowledge of this and that and etc - rather than an organic look at the topic it becomes more forced and not as friendly.
September 21, 2020
Love that this book introduces a strategy for dealing with anxiety, but I'm feeling like it's not going to stand up to Covid. Which is to say, definitely not a thing I would teach kids (for public settings anyway) due to Covid. (And even "post Covid", will I still be more aware/sensitive to air germs?) Still, good to also have the examples of when we get anxious...
February 2, 2023
Used this with grades 4-7 in an alternative school setting. The technique and description to explain anxiety to children is a good hands-on one. Our students enjoyed the breathing exercise and colored the posters from the accompanying educators guide to keep on their desks as reminders. Recommend the entire Spot Series to use with SEL lessons.
February 6, 2021
A good starter for an overly anxious child
A good way to help a child identify, confront and overcome anxiety issues and the feeling associated with it. Probably best suited to a child who is already dealing with anxiety, more so than an introduction to it.
A good way to help a child identify, confront and overcome anxiety issues and the feeling associated with it. Probably best suited to a child who is already dealing with anxiety, more so than an introduction to it.
August 4, 2021
The entire "Little Spot" series was recommended to us to help develop language for expressing emotions and it was a hit. This book in particular resonated with our daughter and even now, two years later she asks for it and quotes from it when she's feeling anxious about something.
May 26, 2023
Excellent tool
Great way to help kids understand anxiety and even better strategy to help them practice moving through it. Will continue to read this with my kids and practice the rhyme and method.
Great way to help kids understand anxiety and even better strategy to help them practice moving through it. Will continue to read this with my kids and practice the rhyme and method.
September 16, 2023
Great for kids
My child just started school and has been anxious and scared every day we will use this book to remember it's ok to be nervous, but we will get through it, and we have tools to help.
My child just started school and has been anxious and scared every day we will use this book to remember it's ok to be nervous, but we will get through it, and we have tools to help.
August 31, 2024
5 stars because: calming worries. My favorite part is when the boy is afraid to go to school and his sadness spot is worried that he won’t fit in, and his anxious spot is worried that he won’t come back.
April 12, 2020
A Little SPOT of Anxiety:A Story About Calming Your Worries
I like it because it tells you how to calm your anxiety spot into a peaceful spot like saying a poem.
I like it because it tells you how to calm your anxiety spot into a peaceful spot like saying a poem.
May 13, 2020
Amazing
This had helped my 6 year old that has severe anxiety calm herself. I love it, she loves it, it's a win
This had helped my 6 year old that has severe anxiety calm herself. I love it, she loves it, it's a win
May 15, 2020
We LOVED this book. I read it to my 6 and my 9 yo. I would definitely invest in the rest of the collection and recommend to others. It was very memorable, and even the illustrations were perfect.
June 29, 2020
Nice trick for mindfulness!
Very simple way to teach kids about anxiety and gives a nice tip for management too. Great for kids under 12.
Very simple way to teach kids about anxiety and gives a nice tip for management too. Great for kids under 12.
Read
October 29, 2020Our anxiety can stop us from doing things we might love. Try these simple, kid-friendly mindfulness exercises to turn our anxiety spots into peaceful spots.
November 5, 2020
This was a delightful book about what you can do to help yourself lower your anxiety.
January 2, 2021
I'm looking forward to the rest of the series! This book on anxiety uses a few fantastic visuals to teach children about anxiety and tools to use to get rid of it.
Read
January 6, 2021It wasn't really good but it explained to me how to help your Anxiety to stop growing and how to help it go away.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews