This innovative, Brain-Based Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Curriculum is for kids 8-12 years old*. This is an interactive, hands-on curriculum with a parent and teacher guide. Children learn 3 secret strategies that will help them with identifying and regulating their emotions. They also play 3 games to reinforce all concepts and terms learned: Amygdala Hijack! card game, Heads Up! Emotions, and Social Edge! Taboo. In addition, there is a parents and teachers guide with many different extension activities (e.g., creating a mind jar, guided visualizations). In this program students will develop self-awareness, identify and manage emotions, and they will learn to be self-motivated. This program has been piloted with different groups of students through city programs and at an elementary school. Parents and teachers have noticed a significant improvement with kids being able to identify and regulate their emotions. This program will empower your children to learn more about their brain, and why their minds and bodies react in particular ways during times of conflict or stress. It will also provide them with concrete strategies that they can use to help regulate their emotions. This pack includes: -Understanding the Brain: Prefrontal Cortex, Amygdala, and Hippocampus -Understanding an Amygdala Hijack! -Mind/Body Connection during an Amygdala Hijack! -Differences between real and perceived threats -Understanding fight-or-flight responses in their lives -Understanding how Anger is a secondary emotion (and how to figure out the primary emotion felt) -Feelings chart (with over 200 feeling words, many that kids don't know!) -Emotions chart to sort feelings (Positive, Negative, In-between, and Emotions I don't Know) -Weekly Logs (to journal feelings and train their prefrontal cortex to step in before an Amygdala Hijack!) -Understanding Mind Bubbles (mindfulness related activity) -The Strategy STOP -Conscious vs. Subconscious Mind (Limiting beliefs) -Worry Bullies (addressing anxiety and worries) -The Power of Positive Affirmations & Simple Yoga Poses -Failed Successes (Michael Jordan, Katy Perry, Walt Disney) -The Power of Vision Boards (template to create a vision board) -Amygdala Hijack! Card Game (with real-life scenarios kids have encountered) -Heads Up! Emotions Game (reinforcing all the emotion words they learned) -Social Edge! Taboo Game (reinforcing all key concepts learned) The 5 lessons can be broken up in the following way: 1. Your Brain worksheets (Play Amygdala Hijack! card game) 2. Secret Strategy #1 worksheets (Play Heads up! game) 3. Secret Strategy #2 worksheets (Create a Mind Jar, Participate in a Guided Visualization) 4. Secret Strategy #3 worksheets (Create a Vision Board) 5. Culminating Activity! Review what children didn't understand & Reinforce New Vocabulary (Play Social Edge! Taboo game) Having good social and emotional skills will help children be successful in their personal and professional lives. Research shows thats employers hire for EQ and train for IQ. Depression is the fastest growing disease, currently effecting 300M people (WHO). The late childhood years (just before the transitional period of puberty) is a time when there is significant growth in the prefrontal cortex and sets the stage for advances in the executive functioning, how they will organize, sequence, and regulate behavior (Giedd, 2008). Late childhood and upper elementary school is a time period when the child’s personalities, behaviors, and competencies come together to shape who they will become in adolescence and as adults (Collins, 1984). Providing enrichment activities that support healthy forms of self-regulation and reflection and prosocial dispositions could ameliorate or even prevent some of the mental health and school-linked problems that often arise as they transition to puberty (Best & Miller, 2010; M.C. Davidson, Amso, Anderson & Diamond, 2006). *This curriculum was developed by Dr. Amita Roy Shah based on her education and expertise. She has an Ed.D. in Curriculum and Teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University. She was a former teacher for Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). She is currently a Professor in the Child and Adolescent Development at San Jose State University.