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Animea: My Emotional Support Animal Deck
An intro paragraph about our Frequently Asked Questions for our Animea Emotional Support Animal Card Deck.
Animea means “My Animal” in Latin. It is the name for our series of premium resources for kids that were developed by Helping Hands Creations Inc.
A set of cards featuring animal characters and exercises designed to help children regulate emotions and build coping skills.
Primarily young children between the ages 2-9. Adults (parents, teachers, therapists) use the cards to guide and support them.
Most exercises will not need any extra supplies; however, a few will.
Here is a list of possible items the exercises will instruct you to provide:
Yes, we also provide a log to help track a child’s progress. The log has a reference guide for all the cards available. We highly recommend keeping track of the specific cards being used to ensure teachers, therapists, and support staff understand the skills being worked on with your child.
No. All emotions are important. The deck helps children recognize and respond to emotions, not avoid them. The goal is to give children the tools to redirect their actions to appropriate ones. As they build skills for regulation, the cards will move from concrete skills to developing a problem-solving mindset and lean towards increasing autonomy and independence.
Consider the child’s needs:
All skills are important for emotional regulation. We aim to support the needs of the child and meet them at the skillset they are currently in the process of mastering.
Tags identify the skill focus of each card (e.g., Deep Pressure, Self-Soothing, Advocacy).
There are 21 different tags under 5 different categories.
Awareness & Focus:
Thinking & Flexibility:
Motivation & Self-Reflection:
Emotional Regulation:
Sensory & Physical Tools:
It provides supportive phrases adults can use to guide children during exercises.
Each type of phrase will require a tone of voice change to match the theme of the phrase.
Use the Progress Log to record dates, ratings, skills targeted, and notes. This helps monitor growth and reuse of skills.
Coming soon!
No, in fact once you master a card, we recommend using it in your day-to-day language. “I am upset so I am going to take deep Whale Breaths.”
Layering exercises together is encouraged. You can pair multiple cards whether it’s the same tier level or different tier levels.
For example, our breathing card Whale Breaths (base tier level, blue category) pairs well with other cards such as a fellow base level card, like our advocacy and deep pressure card Bear Hug (base tier, blue category) or with a higher tier card, such as Yummy Climb, our gentle stretching exercise (brave tier, blue category).
Use the color based on what the child is feeling.
Then, pick which tier level of the exercises based on their level of support
We recommend first thinking of the tier level that is appropriate for your child: base, build or brave.
Then, pick 1-2 cards from each color zone from that same tier.
You should have a total of 4-8 cards to work with. If the cards are a good fit for the child, master this group before replacing the cards with new ones.
You can always go back to a card if the skill needs refreshing.
If a child is struggling with a card, try a different card, and see about returning to it after a break.
If a child has a sensory-related trigger, for example: deep pressure; try other exercises that do not contain that tag. You want to give your child repeated positive and memorable experiences. As their skills develop, the more your child will be willing to explore. But triggering your child purposefully will more likely cause regression in skills and disinterest in similar activities.
If you are pre-emptively teaching the skills, choose cards from the same tier that you find appropriate for your group and review the skills from either 1-4 cards from each color zone. The younger the age group, we recommend introducing fewer cards at a time.
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