Funny And Beautiful Mindfulness Yarn For Kiwi Kids

With an education background in primary teaching, Marlborough mother-of-five Sarah O’Sullivan has drawn on her many years’ experience working with and raising children to create a funny, beautiful mindfulness yarn for Kiwi kids.

Calm the Farm tells the engaging and relatable story of a cross and cranky rooster who creates a lot of kerfuffle and upset for the other animals on the farm. In response, they use emotional regulation steps to acknowledge and address their difficult feelings, taking themselves for a mindful walk, eat mindfully and breathe mindfully to give themselves ‘just what they need’. Rooster redeems himself when he remembers to use mindful self-compassion to settle and soothe his own ‘red zone’ feelings. His body and mind are safe, and he feels ‘a whole lot better’.

After a challenging life circumstance, O’Sullivan decided she needed to learn about mindfulness to help her cope with feelings of grief.

“At the time when there weren’t many mindfulness classes available,” O’Sullivan says. “This led to a life-changing online course with Grant Rix from Pause Breathe Smile (PBS), a New Zealand organisation. At that time PBS was seeking external facilitators to deliver their eight-week programme in New Zealand schools and I taught the programme in several Marlborough schools during which time the idea for Calm the Farm came to me.”

O’Sullivan wove components of mindful self-compassion into the story based on her training with the US-based Centre for Mindful Self-Compassion, which runs a well-researched programme shown to greatly enhance mental, emotional and physical wellbeing, boost happiness, reduce anxiety and depression, decrease burnout and physical pain.

O’Sullivan’s intention with the book is to share the wellbeing concepts that helped her to be more resilient, with children and families in a simple, fun way.

“I would love the book to be a valued addition to classrooms and homes to help children – and the adults who read to them – understand the basics of the two physiological states we can be in, sympathetic and parasympathetic (red zone and green zone) and that, through mindfulness and emotional regulation, there are things we can do so we’re not stuck feeling awful, sad, worried or hurt. With practice – there is a QR code linked to guided audio practices in the book – these mindfulness concepts may become second nature to children as they mature into teens and adults.”

A total bookworm as a child and with five children of her own aged between 22 and six who embraced an evening reading ritual, O’Sullivan has read thousands of children’s books. “This love of books continues with weekly library visits for my youngest, George.”

For a debut author, O’Sullivan writes with the confidence of knowing her material and audience well. The story’s gentle repetition teaches children valuable steps to manage their own emotions while offering parents and educators a fun and engaging way to introduce these skills.

Like others, O’Sullivan is acutely aware of escalating mental health concerns and anxiety among young New Zealanders.

“It would be wonderful if this book could help families understand some of the things they can do to assist their children when their brains are at a prime growth stage to create healthy neural pathways in response to stress and suffering. Once this is learned, it can have a lifelong impact on coping with stress, relationships, contentment, and emotional, physical and mental health.”

O’Sullivan ran a crowdfunding campaign to pay for the book’s illustration, design and printing. Two backers gifted additional funds to enable her to donate a copy of the book to every primary school and kindergarten in the Marlborough region which she was delighted to do as soon as copies of the book arrived in early March.

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