The Best Way to Introduce phearnik!® to Kids

Helping Kids Overcome Anxiety

If you’ve been following the phearnik!® Campaign, you know it’s about helping fearful children overcome their fears. You’re intrigued by the little plush. You’ve seen the “How To” steps and know how it works. You’d like to introduce phearnik!® to your child. But you’d like to have some help. You want something like a book that helps kids with anxiety.

A picture of the phearnik! plush, a small rag doll with a lavender body, a navy blue jumpsuit and a wild head of yarn for hair. It has big black eyes and a squiggly mouth. Funny, cute and a little bit ugly. The toy helps reduce child anxiety.

A Picture Book to Help Kids Overcome Fears

Phoebe and phearnik!® Fight BIG Fears is just the thing! It’s a children’s book that helps kids with anxiety. In it, a little girl, Phoebe, experiences a lot of irrational fears. In particular, she’s afraid of the dark and going in the water as well as other similar kid fears. These fears keep her from doing things she really wants to do like playing with other kids and having fun.

In the book, Phoebe’s mom tells her,

“It’s okay to have a little fear. It helps you pay attention and keeps you safe. But your fear is too big. It keeps you from doing what you want to do. You need to make your fear small.”

A Toy that Helps with Anxiety

After this, Phoebe takes the reader on an amusing journey. Trying to “make her big fears small,” she finds nothing works. That is until she creates a “phearnik!®,” her “Little Fear.”  The toy helps Phoebe reduce her anxiety. She takes  phearnik!® with her everywhere to remind her to keep her fears small. In this way, Phoebe shows fearful kids it’s okay to have a little fear. Like her mother says, it helps her to pay attention to being safe. And, when you don’t let it get big, you have more fun playing with others.

A picture of a little girl holding her phearnik!

An Easy Way to Help Kids with Anxiety

A picture of an adult most likely a parent reading reading a book to a child. The picture helps illustrate how the "Phoebe and phearnik!® Fight BIG Fears" children’s book provides parents, teachers and counselors with an easy way to help a kid with their fear.

The Phoebe and phearnik!® Fight BIG Fears children’s book provides parents, teachers and counselors with an easy way to help a kid with fear and anxiety. The colorful paper collage illustrations readily engage both boys and girls in Phoebe’s story.  Additionally, the even reading pace clearly tells the story of how a kid solves the problem of making their “big” irrational fears small.

An illustration from the The "Phoebe and phearnik!® Fight BIG Fears"children’s book that helps kids overcome their fears.
Illustrations from “Phoebe and phearnik!® Fight BIG Fears.” See a trailer of the book here.
An illustration from the "Phoebe and phearnik!® Fight BIG Fears"children’s book that helps kids overcome their fears.
A picture of a collage from the aws Studios.art picture book when Phoebe gives a phearnik! to her dad.

A Children’s Book About Mental Health

At the end of Phoebe and phearnik!® Fight BIG Fears, there’s a letter for adult readers. The letter explains  how Phoebe teaches herself a mental health skill. It explains the type of skill Phoebe learns and how it works to reduce a child’s anxiety. Furthermore, the letter says, even though Phoebe’s too young to understand the brain science, she’s learned a way to calm her fear or “keep it small.” This helps her do the things she really wants to do.

A picture showing the letter to readers at the end of Phoebe and phearnik!® Fight BIG Fears providing adults with more information about how the book helps children with anxiety.

One Of The Best Anxiety Books For Kids

Here’s what people are saying about phearnik!® and the book:

Alis Wintle Sefick has freshly written and illustrated a lovely children’s storybook which highlights strategies to combat anxiety in children. This interesting story, told from the voice of a school-age child, offers a tool to address current emotional stresses, which are affecting kids, in higher numbers these days.  I highly recommend this gem of a book. Laura Dolan Jacobsen FNP-BC, Child Development

My now grown daughter could definitely have used a phearnik doll. She was very fearful of new things to the point that it affected her social connections with other kids her age. At the time there was no product like phearnik on  the market. We relied on tiny “worry dolls“ to help her manage her fears. I definitely would have invested in phearnik had  it been available at the time. I think it would’ve been a big help to her then. Rebecca Passanante, Retired Pre-school Educator

How to Get the Book

The Phoebe and phearnik!® Fight BIG Fears picture book will be available through the phearnik!® Campaign. Sign up and be the first to know when you can get the book!

What about you? What books have you used with kids to help them with their anxiety? Let us know in the Comments.

Give this post a “Like” if you’re inclined. Share this post with others. You never know when you could be helping a parent with a child in need.

phearnik!® is No Stella Al Fresco

Who is Stella Al Fresco

I made a doll and it is not like Stella Al Fresco.

Sunday morning in the NYTimes, I saw an article about how Megan, The Dutchess of Sussex, promoted a doll on her new show “With Love, Megan.” Commonly known Stella Al Fresco, Megan’s daughter’s doll is sold with “a little baguette and a little cheese.” The dolls’ creators claim the dolls and their accessories help kids mimic adult behavior. Says  Acorn Store owner  Heather Hamilton where the dolls are sold, “Kids really like imitating life, and if this is what they’re seeing on their parents’ patio, then they just pretend play.”

A picture of the doll commonly called Stella Al Fresco. It helps to show the difference between it and the aws Studios.art phearnik! plush and how it is different , has a different purpose and is not like Stella Al Fresco.
The doll commonly known as Stella Al Fresco
A picture of the phearnik! plush, a small rag doll with a lavender body, a navy blue jumpsuit and a wild head of yarn for hair. It has big black eyes and a squiggly mouth. Funny, cute and a little bit scary.
The phearnik! plush

Which makes me think that my little phearnik!® has a long, uphill slog to the market. How does my slightly scary looking doll/plush that is not like Stella Al Fresco compete with the sweet, cute and Cabbage Patch-like doll? And how does my aws Studios.art doll stack up against a doll promoted by Megan?

phearnik!® is no Stella Al Fresco

A Little Scary Looking

Yes, phearnik!® is not a sweet looking doll like Stella. phearnik!® actually looks a little scary. It’s supposed to look scary. I made phearnik!® to look a little scary because the plush represents a “little fear.”

The idea behind the phearnik!® doll was to make an object that represents fear.  I would take the “little fear” with me to remind me to keep my fears small. When I keep my fears small, they don’t get big and take control of things I want or need to do. More about where I got this idea here (hint: it’s from Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Big Magic: Creative living beyond fear).

A picture of one of the original versions of the phearnik! plush prototype. A small rag doll with a lavender body, a navy-blue jumpsuit, googlie eyes, a crooked mouth and wild hair kids love.
One of the original versions of the phearnik! plush

Sharing the phearnik!® Idea

Initially, I created phearnik!® to help me with my fear of the blank canvas. Then one day my granddaughter spied the doll on my dresser. She wanted one too. (How couldn’t she? With its quirky face and wild hair, I thought!)

A picture of the cover of the original book about phearnik! titled "Adventures with phearnik!." The book has been revised and is now "Phoebe and phearnik! Fight BIG Fears"
The original picture book about phearnik!. Now revised as “Phoebe and phearnik! Fight Big Fears”

While making my granddaughter a phearnik!®, I came up with the idea to tell her its story in a book. Hence, I created the picture book Adventures with phearnik!® and gave her both the book and plush as a birthday present.

A picture of a little girl holding her phearnik! The plush helps her overcome her fears so she can join in and have fun.
Guess who with her phearnik!

The phearnik!® Campaign

Since then, I wanted to share the book and the plush with others. phearnik!® definitely helped me. Every day it’s there to remind me not to be fearful of things that are new to me like a blank canvas. More importantly, it helps me with becoming an entrepreneur to promote the phearnik!® idea to others. I believe phearnik!® can help others who, like me, are held back by irrational and debilitating fears.

phearnik!® has helped me do everything I have needed to do to get to this point of launching the phearnik!® Campaign. The campaign seeks to raise funds to support mental health making the plush available to others, both kids and adults, dealing with irrational fears.

A picture of a bookmark that says "Support Mental Health, Join the phearnik! Campaign" with a QR code to sign up.

Yes, phearnik!® is no Stella Al Fresco but That’s Okay

A picture of  the doll Stella Al Fresco holding a phearnik! plush symbolizing how the plush reminds kids to keep their fears small.
Stella and phearnik! as friends

phearnik!® is not like Stella Al Fresco. But I like to think that even Stella would like to have a phearnik!® It would remind her to keep her fears small so she can live a more fearless life. Ah, yes, what a vision. Instead  of competing with each other, Stella and phearnik!® could be  friends!

Do you agree? What do you think? Have you ever had a doll like Stella? Or phearnik!®? Tell us about it in the Comments.

Find out more about phearnik!® and get a free “How to Use phearnik!®” pdf here.

Coming soon: the many faces of phearnik!®

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