Heart Elf Calming Breath Cards

Teach your child how to calm down!

Help your child learn emotional regulation and self-soothing in a playful way with the Heart Elf Calming Breath Cards.

Manage stress more effectively

Breathing exercises help reduce stress, promote relaxation, and support both physical and emotional calm. The exercises can be used anytime and anywhere.

Calm down more easily

The breathing techniques on the cards provide an effective tool for soothing difficult emotions. With the help of their breath, children can better handle situations that feel challenging to them.

Develop self-control

With regular practice, children learn to recognize and regulate their physical responses, supporting the development of self-discipline and patience.

Focus more easily

During learning or play, proper breathing techniques help improve concentration and maintain attention.

Sleep more peacefully

Relaxation breathing exercises included in the bedtime routine can improve sleep quality and support deeper rest.

Strengthen their creativity

Playful breathing exercises, such as blowing an imaginary balloon or imitating a buzzing bee, help foster creativity and stimulate children’s imagination.

Did you know that year after year, the mental health of children and adolescents is steadily declining?

• Depression, anxiety, and behavioral disorders are now among the leading causes of illness in teenagers.
• And these mental health challenges don’t just disappear with age – they often carry over into adulthood, affecting a person’s entire life.
• Emotional and behavioral problems are often rooted in poor emotion regulation skills.

How many times do we tell children to “calm down”? But what does calming down actually mean? How do you do that?

The truth is, even as adults, we often don’t know. We may manage our emotions reasonably well in day-to-day life, but when we hit a difficult period or are suddenly overwhelmed by strong emotions, it can feel like the ground is being pulled out from under us.

If we struggle with this ourselves, how can we expect our children to learn emotional control?

And for them, it’s even harder because:

• they don’t always know how to identify or name their feelings
• and many situations are unfamiliar to them, which can trigger even more intense reactions.

Poor emotional regulation can lead to behavior problems as early as toddlerhood. By preschool age, these become more frequent, and by the time a child starts school, many already struggle with performance anxiety, fear of the unknown, or, later on in adolescence, social anxiety.

Practicing finger-tracing and tension-releasing mindful breathing exercises can be helpful in emotionally charged situations and as a form of prevention. And it’s something that’s important to start practicing as early as in preschool.​

What is mindful breathing?​

Mindful breathing is a simple technique that children can learn easily and use anytime, anywhere. It not only helps them manage current difficulties, but also equips them with a lifelong skill that will support them in handling stress and maintaining a healthy lifestyle as adults.

In their everyday lives, children often encounter stressful situations, and they experience anxiety and fear. Sometimes they become hysterical, irritable, angry, restless, anxious, sad, or overly hyperactive. And in those moments, it’s very hard for them to calm down.

But not because they’re “not trying hard enough” or because they’re “bad” children. Rather, it’s because their emotional skills are still developing. And they won’t just grow out of this behavior on their own. They need us adults to teach them how to manage stress and those big, overwhelming emotions.

Effectively managing emotions is crucial

for academic success,

school readiness,

and mental well-being.

How do the Heart Elf Calming Breath Cards support the development of children’s self-soothing skills?

• The card set includes 40 different exercises to practice with
• Playful techniques: using finger tracing and imagination-based breathing
• 4 ways to play: making learning both fun and focused!

The Heart Elf Calming Breath Card Set includes two types of cards:

Finger-tracing breathing cards provide visual cues (lines and arrows) to help children learn the correct breathing rhythm. By tracing the line on the card with their finger, they follow the phases of inhaling and exhaling, creating a multisensory practice experience.

With these exercises, children trace the lines and arrows on the card with their fingers while breathing in sync with the guided rhythm.

This method helps children to:

• Focus their attention: By concentrating on their breathing and finger movements, they can more easily block out distracting thoughts.
• Calm down: Slow, deep breathing relaxes both the body and the mind.
• Improve coordination: Synchronizing finger movement with breathing enhances fine motor skills.

The Creative Breathing Cards feature imaginative breathing exercises designed to boost their imagination.

These playful breathing techniques offer a variety of tools that children can use in different situations.

These exercises help develop:

• Imagination: Children picture themselves turning into a pinwheel, a superhero, or blowing out the candles on their birthday cake.
• Body awareness: As they practice, children learn to observe their breathing and notice the sensations and changes in their bodies.
• Creativity: Inspired by the cards, children can even invent their own breathing exercises.

Daily playful practice not only helps children manage their attention, emotions, and stress, but also supports parents in learning how to calm themselves using the cards.

You can use the cards in a variety of ways, depending on what goal you want to achieve, or simply based on what interests your child most at the moment.

1. Exploratory play: At first, let your child freely explore the cards, looking at the illustrations, naming the characters and elements. Then, choose one card together and follow the instructions to try the breathing exercise.
2. Structured practice: Use the cards as a transition between two activities or as part of your daily routine. Ask your child to draw a card and do the breathing exercise together.
3. Targeted use: If your child is experiencing a strong emotional state (e.g. restlessness or anxiety), you can intentionally choose a card that helps them calm down and relax.
4. Highlighting favorite exercises: If your child has a favorite card (or exercise), feel free to return to it as often as they like, even multiple times a day. This not only builds familiarity but also reinforces the positive experience.

The best approach is to make the game part of your daily routine and use the cards for a little playtime each day. This way, conscious breathing will more easily become a natural part of your child’s everyday life and personal toolkit, while also helping them process daily stress

What exactly is included in the Heart Elf Calming Breath Card Set?

• 20 finger-tracing breathing cards
• 20 creative breathing cards
• A guide to mindful breathing
• Large, high-quality cards in 13×9 cm format.

About the author

BELLA BAGDI

Psychologist, mindfulness instructor (MBSR, MBCT), Mindful Self-Compassion Teacher (MSC), founder and lead developer of the Happiness Lesson Program. She launched the Happiness Lesson Program in the 2014/2015 school year, and since then, more than 1,500 kindergartens and schools have joined it. More than 100,000 children and young people can now take part in Happiness Lessons, often referred to by students as “emotion classes”.

Bella’s mission is to use science-based methods to promote mental health and thereby contribute to a happier, healthier, and more compassionate society. Her best-known publications are the Happiness Lesson book series and the Positivity development games.

Awards:

• Forbes Makers Hungary Award 2025.
• HundrED’s Global Collection of the most impactful and scalable innovations for 2025.
• HundrED’s Spotlight of the most effective Wellbeing in Schools programmes, 2025.
• Happiness Lesson OTP Fáy Educational Innovation Award - lower primary school category, 2024.

HundrED, an organization that promotes science-based education programs, has selected the Happiness Lesson Program as one of the 100 most impactful school innovation programs in the world. The Happiness Lesson Program is now included in the HundrED Global Collection 2025 and has also been recognized as one of the 15 most impactful school well-being programs globally.