Temper tantrums have to be one of the most challenging aspects of raising a child. We have all had those despairing moments, tearing our hair out over yet another outburst, as our toddler screams on the floor!
According to the experts, the key to a calm(er) child is helping them understand their emotions and communicate how they are feeling.
Toddler books about feelings and children’s books about anger can help, so we have put together our list of the best picture books for kids who throw temper tantrums.
Whether you have a toddler in the throes of the terrible twos, a threenager, a child struggling with school or an older child prone to emotional meltdowns, these books help start conversations about feelings and how we can manage them.
This too shall pass!
Georgina Atwell
Toppsta
2021-05-20
2020-07-01
Best Books for Temper Tantrums
Don't Make Me Cross!
I'm a little monster, I am smiley, small and sweet,
With gorgeous little monster eyes and furry monster feet.
There's just one thing that you should know ...
I have to be the boss. And if you don't remember ...
I'll get very VERY CROSS!
It's Little Monster's birthday and his friends are coming to his party. But it's not much fun playing party games with someone who always has to win ... or having birthday tea with someone who wants ALL the food for himself. It's time this grumpy, grouchy Monster learned how to behave!
With funny rhyming text and delightful illustrations, this is the perfect picture book for little monsters everywhere.
When a dragon comes to stay, will she behave herself? Why, of course she will. Obviously she knows she must share her toys, eat daintily and skip happily upstairs at bathtime. Well . . . not quite. Like all toddlers, this little dragon finds good manners a tiny bit tricky. It's lucky she has some friends to help her.
An uplifting story about confronting big emotions from the author of The Night Box , stunningly illustrated by Julia Sarda.
Ed's bad mood begins as something really small, hardly a thing at all. But before long it grows, gathers pace, and spreads through the whole town. Can Ed sweep his troubles away?
A wonderful bedtime story for children aged 3 years and up, perfect for helping children learn to recognise and deal with big emotions.
Shortlisted for the 2018 Waterstones Childrens Book Prize.
A dragon with a short temper is not a good combination, as Fergal's family and friends soon find out. He burns the dinner (literally), reduces the football goal to ashes and absolutely cannot play a nice, quiet board game. It is only when he starts to notice other animals have clever tricks to calm down that Fergal begins to win back his friends, especially when he discovers dragons can cool off in a very handy way.
Longlisted for the BookTrust StoryTime Prize 2020
Most of the time Ravi can control his temper but, one day, he lets out the tiger within ... Being a tiger is great fun at first - tigers can do ANYTHING they want! But who wants to play with a growling, roaring, noisy, wild tiger who won't share or play nicely? Ravi is about to discover something very important about expressing his feelings and making amends.
A clever and engaging book about temper tantrums, dealing with emotions and learning to express and understand your feelings. From Tom Percival's bestselling Big Bright Feelings series, this is the perfect book for helping with bad days and noisy outbursts.
Whenever Emily doesn't get her way, she growls and roars like a tiger. She roars when her mother tries to cut her hair, she roars when she doesn't get picked to be the clown's assistant at a birthday party - what are her mum and dad going to do with their tiger-daughter? Then Grandma comes to stay - and she knows a thing or two about tigers. This work shows children how to manage their own feelings of frustration and anger as they see how Emily develops her personal and social skills. It has multigenerational appeal. It considers the perspectives of Emily, her parents and her grandmother.
Having the WORST DAY EVER? Turn that frown upside down in this wiggling, hooting, roaring adventure from picture book superstar, Sophy Henn!
Arthur is having the WORST DAY EVER. So he runs away - nearly to the end of the garden.
But when it's time to go home, Arthur's journey back is full of surprises and he learns how to turn a stomp into a skip, a huff into a hoot and a roar into a song!
Maybe Arthur's day isn't so bad after all...
Find out in this joyful adventure from the brilliant Sophy Henn. A fantastic and imaginative take on how to get creative during even the most turbulent of tantrums - the perfect book for parents when their little people are having the Worst Day Ever!
