Brain Based Educational Story Books - A wellbeing resource for children from 5 to 12 years of age
Written by Maria Ruberto, Robert Rostolis, Josh Gee, Stephen Campbell, Authors Beehive Publications
This series of picture story books is a revolutionary approach for educating young children about ‘brain fitness’ and its positive impact on wellbeing. This series of children’s stories responds to the ever growing need for equipping young people with the necessary skills to build resilience, emotional agility and provides a means for them to begin building an understanding of their brain and how it works.
Prevention is the focus and education is the goal
Prevention is better than cure
Throughout the series mental fitness is taught from a strengths based model. We have intentionally chose not to look at this issue from a deficit model as it is contrary to the entire message of our work. By using characters and story the necessary skills and strategies for mental fitness are normalised and made explicit for young people. Each story sees the introduction of a new character and concept.
The main character, Orlando the Optimistic Octopus teaches Billie and her best friend JB how to practice using optimism, be grateful, how to get a great night’s sleep and many more important strategies for strengthening one’s brain fitness. Through story, Orlando unpacks important neuroscience concepts in ways that are easy to understand and apply for children.
How the stories work
Making neuroscience accessible for everyone
Each story comes complete with an explanation of the neuroscience concept being explored. This has been developed by psychologist Maria Ruberto and is written in a way that makes the content easy to understand. A preface linking important concepts from previous books is also included to help in the development of an ever-growing set of skills and strategies. The final page of the story is an educator’s guide complete with learning intentions, key questions and activities to help parents and teachers alike explore the content in more detail with their child or students.
We have chosen to deliver this message through narrative because this mode of delivery is universally engaging. Stories are also symbolic of how many important lessons are learned throughout our individual lives. A narrative approach also:
1. Lightens the load for teachers, parents and children in building both a knowledge-base and a set of essential skills that are transferable to any age;
2. Allows children as young as 5 to begin practicing and applying these skills to their daily lives.
3. Provides an approach that is adaptable to age and as young people mature the aim is to strengthen and deepen their understandings so they enter their teenage years with an arsenal of strategies to help them flourish into young adults.
Unpacking how we deliver the key message
Making BEES is the underlying theme within our series of books
The acronym BEES, represents the concept of Believing in Positive Expectations and Emotions throughout our stories. This concept teaches the core mental health protective factor of optimism and is directly related to the stories main character Orlando the Optimistic Octopus. Orlando shares his knowledge of ‘making BEES’ and in turn develops the following understandings:
1. BEES make honey (metaphorically). In the language of neuroscience ‘honey’ is used to represent important neurotransmitters which are required to foster wellbeing and brain fitness.
2. When we create BEES we make honey for our brain. Each book presents a new, and most importantly child friendly way of creating BEES.
3. The more BEES we make the more we offer an inoculation against early onset anxiety, depression and other developing mental ill-health disorders in children.
The neuroscience in our stories
How to train your seahorse (hippocampus)
The series of stories we have developed is called ‘How to Feed Your Seahorse’. Seahorse is the Greek word for hippocampus. The hippocampus is an extremely important organelle to nurture as it is commonly known as the resilience modulator of the brain. Orlando introduces the concept of ‘training’ one’s hippocampus and then helps Billie and JB, the stories other two main characters understand that in order to have a strong hippocampus you must train it and feed it. This is where the creation of BEES becomes important because by creating BEES an individual makes honey (neurotransmitters) and this honey is used to ‘feed’ and strengthen their hippocampus. The table below provides an overview of the 10 stories in the series. A deeper look into each story will provide a detailed explanation of each concept and how it is explored.
Title - Description of key concepts
Story 1 – Honey for your Seahorse - Hippocampal strength and believing in positive expectations and emotions.
Story 2 – The ANTS and the BEES - Automatic negative thoughts and how to manage these through believing in positive expectations and emotions.
Story 3 – The Power of ZZZZ - The importance of sleep and its link to hippocampal strength.
Story 4 – Super Honey - The creation of BDNF (Brain derived Neurotropic factor) and its links to wellbeing.
Story 5 – How are you Really Feeling? - The importance of identifying and correctly labelling your emotions.
Story 6 – The Signals - How to help your brain move from survival mode to thriving mode.
Story 7 – Anxious Moments - Resetting your vagal tone through breathing and mindfulness.
Story 8 – Fear of Failure - The language of approximation versus absolute language.
Story 9 – Hop to It - The key role of physical fitness and a balanced diet.
Story 10 – Feeling Fabulous - The culminating book which explores the key learnings in the series.
Making BEES is easy if you give it a try
The creation of these resources stems from a unique and truly wonderful partnership that was formed four years ago. Together we are a dynamic team of educators, and psychologists who aspire to prevent mental illness and low levels of wellbeing in young people.