Avril McDonald and her Feel Brave series of books.
Avril McDonald and her Feel Brave series of books.
A panic attack gripped Avril McDonald when she was about 8 years old growing up in Kapiti.
It was an unnerving experience which alarmingly would happen a few more times in the years after.
By the time she was in her teens she felt like she wasn't in her body anymore and would say to her mother that she felt dreamy.
"She took me to doctors but they just drew blanks."
But one day her sister, who was training to be a nurse, came home with some photocopied material about anxiety disorders and said, "This is the stuff you've always talked about."
Avril became interested in books by American life coach Tony Robbins, who adopted neuro linguistic programming and cognitive behaviour therapy.
"I found that some of his strategies could help me immediately."
Then Avril began to wonder why the strategies weren't being taught to children.
"One of the strategies was a gratitude exercise that I used to do walking to work in London and I would be in such a positive state when I arrived.
"When I had kids I thought, 'I want to teach that to my kids.'
"So I made up a poem and when Maggie had her first nightmare when she was about 3, managing that came easily to me because I just used a cognitive behavioural therapy technique called reframing.
"I told her dream to her in a different way and it worked immediately. It was my eureka moment."
About seven years ago Avril, who is London based, started work on a series of children's books aimed at helping small children tackle big emotions.
Her five Feel Brave series of books, aimed at 4 to 7-year-olds, deal with self confidence, anxiety and fears, change, loss and grief, bullying and kindness, worries and calming down.
Avril McDonald's book The Wolf Is Not Invited deals with self confidence.
"Kids love them as stand-alone stories and they don't know they're getting strategies too.
"Parent and teachers love it and clinical psychiatrists rave about them saying, 'You've nailed it.'
"It's based on sound psychological research and it resonates with children."
Since the books' launch over a year ago, Avril has conducted emotional wellbeing workshops in schools in England and Europe, is a guest speaker on innovative pedagogy in emotional health, is an official patron of the Westminster Children's University, won the UK's 2017 People's Book Prize, and is in advanced discussions with one of the biggest global broadcasters to co-produce an animated series.
And now she's doing six-week trip around New Zealand visiting schools, children's and mental health charities and trusts, and educational institutions to share the Feel Brave work and demonstrate innovative pedagogy in emotional health.
"I wanted to bring it to New Zealand now that I've proven the concept."
A key goal was to see wellbeing become a specific subject in schools.
