B E B R A V E S T O R Y B O O K K I T
For my undergraduate thesis, I created a storybook kit that would act as a tool for Filipino parents to build confidence and resilience in their children (ages 6 to 8) who are afraid of being on their own. The storybook kit includes a parenting guide, a storybook, activity sheets, discussion cards, a song card, and a sticker sheet.
This was my approach in response to a common practice among Filipino parents that involves using their children’s fears to discipline them or make them behave. Since this practice reinforces their children’s fears and can lead to negative effects on a child’s development and learning, I wanted to create a tool that could help educate parents about this and recommend healthier approaches. The kit also hopes to bring about open parent-child communication on the topic of fears, and encourage parents to take an active role in their child’s journey towards overcoming their fears, focusing on the fear of being alone.
I designed the box with the intention of making the exterior a dark color to represent fear and how it can seem scary. While the interior a bright happy color to represent how opening up about our fears is good and can help us to overcome it.
The parenting guide is like a little manual that contains information that parents need to know before using the kit, such as the effects of fear in children, the practices to avoid, how to build confidence and resilience, and approaches to help their child overcome their fear.
"When I Am Alone" is a storybook that narrates a conversation between Kyla and her parents, with Kyla voicing her different worries and fears in situations when she is alone, then her parents comforting her through their words and actions. Through this, Kyla is able to overcome her fear and be brave.
The activity sheets, discussion cards, song card, and sticker sheet were all designed to help create an engaging and interesting learning experience for the child and to further help build confidence and resilience in them.
In the end, the goal of this project was not to completely remove fears from children, but to teach them that it’s okay to be afraid and to show them how they can manage their fears in a healthy way and be brave.
Research methods for this thesis project include a survey with parent respondents, interviews with local psychologists, interviews with teachers, and interviews with parents. All research, writing, direction, illustrations, and design are by me.
