For Families · Parents, grandparents and caregivers
Big feelings arrive before the words do. The Krewelings give your child a name to reach for.
Twenty animal characters, one for each feeling — a Krewe out of New Orleans. They show up the same way at home and at school, so your child hears the same name for the same feeling from every grown-up in their life. Name it, understand it, find a way through it — and grow a little empathy along the way.
For parents, grandparents, foster families, and every grown-up who does bedtime.
The hard part isn’t the feeling. It’s seven o’clock at night.
Most feelings tools live at school. Most big feelings happen at home — in the car line, at the kitchen table, in the three minutes before lights out. The Krewelings were built to be in both places, with the same names, so whatever your child practiced at circle time is right there when it actually counts.
Every feeling is welcome. What we do with the big ones is something you get to learn together — naming a feeling isn’t the finish line; it’s the first step toward handling it well.
What your child gets
Every card starts “When I feel ___, I can…” and gives three things to try right now, in a child’s own words.
Cubby, worried: “hold calm in my hands and breathe until I feel my heart glow.”
What you get
Flip it over. The grown-up side carries three tips written for parents and three for teachers — on that one side, so you can see what school is saying too.
Cubby, for the parent: “Borrow calm — stay steady and soft-spoken; your calm helps them find theirs.”
Both lines are printed on the Cubby card, word for word.
How to use the Krewe at home
You don’t need a perfect moment, a special supply list, or extra time you don’t have. The Krewelings work in the small spaces of a real day — in the car line, on the couch, in the three minutes before lights out, or the first five minutes of a classroom morning. Pick what feels natural, use it when it fits, and let the rest go. Even one of these, now and then, makes a difference.
- Use the names. When something’s off, try “are you feeling a little like Hux today?” A character is often easier for a child to reach for than a feeling is — and you may be surprised what opens up.
- Name it before you fix it. Before the correction, before the consequence: “I can see you’re really feeling like Hux right now.” Naming the feeling first lands better than almost anything else you could say in that moment.
- Don’t rush the hard ones — and celebrate the good ones too. “Tell me more about that” is enough when a feeling is big. And “you seem like Gumbo today — what happened?” teaches a child that good feelings are worth naming, not just hard ones.
- Let them be the expert. Ask which Krewe member is their favorite, and why. Kids love being the one who knows.
- Keep the Krewe where you’ll see it. The fridge, the car visor, the classroom wall — the more familiar the characters are, the easier they are to reach for when things get hard.
- There’s no wrong way to do this. Once a week is plenty; every day is wonderful. Meet your child where they are — that’s the whole idea.
Two things families start with
The same twenty characters, for the kitchen table and the bedroom wall. Both work on their own; the posters and the Teacher’s Workbook are the classroom side of the same Krewe.
Emotion Card Deck
45 cards · 90 sides · 3.5″ × 5.5″ · all 20 characters
$29.99
One side for the child: three things they can do right now, in their own words. Flip it, and there are six more — three for parents, three for teachers. Around 360 coping tips in one deck.
Coloring & Activity Book
20 pictures to color · 20 feelings activities · 8.5″ × 11″ · printed one side only
$11.99
A big, bold coloring page for every Kreweling, followed by an activity built around that feeling — and a different coping poster on every single page.
A pediatrician’s read
For every parent, caregiver, or teacher who has struggled with children “melting down” as their words fail and emotions overwhelm them, The Krewelings is a fun way to teach kids how to recognize what’s happening inside their bodies and give them tools to regain control. What a wonderful gift for anyone who cares for young children!
— L.A. Dandrea, MD, FAAP (ret.) · Retired Pediatric Emergency Medicine Physician
A friend who reviewed The Krewelings independently — received no compensation or product.
Start with the feeling your child has today.
The quiz takes two minutes and points you to the right Kreweling. Teaching a classroom instead? There’s a page for that too.