Heart Elf Cards & Captain Moment Bundle

Package contents:

Captain Moment – Emotion Regulation and Attention Control Program

Inside the Handbook:

• 228 pages of valuable insights in the handbook

• 85 playful exercises to practice emotion regulation and mindfulness

• 9 interactive mindfulness stories

• 10 week session plans

• 36 story illustrations
• Exercises suitable for preschool, school, and home use
• Theoretical background for 10 key topics
• Tips and ideas for engaging activities
• A wide range of colorful, eye-catching images and illustrations

Through the adventures of Captain Moment, children can:

• Learn the basics of emotion regulation
• Master techniques to control their attention
• Learn self-soothing techniques to manage stress more easily
• Learn how not to get trapped in negative thoughts
• Learn how to quiet their inner critical voice
• Learn how to be more open and accepting of themselves and others

The Captain Moment program introduces children to the world of mindfulness through interactive stories, playful exercises, and discussions.

The goal of the program is for children to learn how to relate to their feelings and thoughts, and teach them how to bring their attention back to whatever they are currently doing.

Why is it important for children to learn emotion regulation and attention control?

Tantrums, outbursts, fighting, impulsive behavior: why does a child act like this?

Children often become impatient, tense, strike out at other children for no reason, interrupt others, or lack the patience to finish tasks at school or kindergarten. These behaviors are often misunderstood as ‘misbehaving’, but the real reason lies in the child’s inability to regulate their emotions.

Insufficient emotion regulation in childhood can cause various problems, affecting different areas of the child’s development.

• If a child cannot manage their emotions, this might manifest in outbursts of anger or aggression, but they may also act impulsively (e.g. interrupting others, breaking rules, eating too quickly, rushing).
• Lack of emotion regulation can also negatively affect social relationships, as the child may struggle to make friends, frequently get into conflicts with peers, and fail to respond appropriately or understand others’ emotions.
• Children struggling with emotion regulation may also be more prone to anxiety or stress, especially in school settings, which can hinder their learning

Negative emotional reactions point to immature emotional skills, yet managing emotions is crucial for school readiness, academic success and mental health.

Does your child’s attention wander easily?

More and more children struggle with attention disorders, which is a result, in many ways, of today’s modern world, overloaded with artificial stimuli. And not only digital stimuli! Even a simple shopping trip to a hypermarket can overstimulate a developing child’s nervous system, making it hard for them to process the overwhelming amount of input. As a result, they may feel rushed, stressed, tense, frustrated, and unable to focus on tasks or even simple things like reading a story or playing a game they enjoy.

In this book, Bella Bagdi – psychologist, mindfulness teacher (MBSR, MBCT) and mindful self-compassion teacher (MSC) – offers simple and effective methods for preschool and early elementary school children to regulate their emotions and practice attention control.

The Captain Moment Program’s 10 Weekly Themes:

Captain Moment Sets Sail: Introduction to the basics of mindfulness, learning playful mindful breathing techniques.

Captain Moment on the Isle of Five: Discovering and mindfully using the five senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch) with the Magic Hat, which symbolizes mindful presence in the stories.

Captain Moment and Drifty: Attention is like a muscle that can be trained. The ‘puppy’ nature of attention is embodied by Drifty, whom we can learn to call back when he wanders off.

Captain Moment’s Treasure Chest: Discovering the small pleasures of everyday life. Learning to appreciate the good and create feelings such as joy, gratitude, and love.

Captain Moment and the Island of Peace: Developing the ability to self-soothe in stressful situations.

Captain Moment and the Storm of Emotions: Understanding the basic emotions (joy, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust) and playful exercises to manage them.

Captain Moment and the Reef of Thought Clouds: Understanding the nature of thoughts, and exercises on how to break free from the grip of negative thoughts.

Captain Moment and Quieting the Inner Critical Voice: The Grumpy Gremlin embodies the inner critical voice, which children can learn to quiet and discover their inner voice of encouragement.

Captain Moment and Acts of Kindness: Children can discover how kindness can change things. Practicing kindness through attention, words, and deeds.

Mindfulness in Daily Life: Consciously applying the playful mindfulness techniques learned so far in everyday situations.

Heart Elf – Card Game For Emotional Intelligence

The Heart Elf Emotional Intelligence Card Game is an excellent tool for children to learn how to express and manage their emotions while respecting the feelings of others. Using the card game helps children to calm down in difficult emotional situations, such as sadness or anger, and is a playful way to learn healthy coping strategies. This helps them to cope better in challenging circumstances, develop social relationships and form deeper friendships.

Why should you play with Heart Elf cards?

Our emotions form the foundation of how we feel and how we respond to the world around us. Children’s behavior is largely influenced by their emotions, as the frontal lobe, responsible for rational thinking, is not yet fully developed. This is why children often react impulsively or struggle with regulating their emotions—causing them to have breakdowns, become frustrated, experience tantrums, or sulk. In addition, many of the conflicts between children also arise due to insufficient emotion regulation.

What can we do?

First and foremost, we can help them by teaching them to recognize and name their emotions, and showing them how to manage them. As children grow older, their emotional world becomes more complex, so it’s best to start teaching these skills as early as possible. Research from recent decades and findings from positive psychology clearly demonstrate the importance of emotional intelligence and emotion regulation for our mental and emotional well-being.

This card game helps children learn these skills in a playful way. Playing a game with emotions at its center helps children recognize, identify, express, and regulate their emotions. Through conversation while playing, you can help your child explore their feelings, which not only aids in the development of emotional intelligence, but also strengthens the connection between you.

During the game, children open up in a safe environment and can engage with emotions in a way that is most accessible to them, enabling them to understand their feelings on a deeper level.

Plus, the game can be played in various ways — with family, in kindergarten or school groups, during holidays, or even at home, just the two of you.

Why is developing emotional intelligence important in childhood?

Emotional Intelligence (EI, also known as EQ) involves the ability to recognize, understand, and manage emotions, as well as the skills of empathy, social relationships, and emotional self-regulation. Here are a few reasons why developing children’s emotional intelligence is especially important:

Better Emotional Regulation

Children with emotional intelligence are better able to manage their emotions, whether it’s stress, anxiety, anger, or sadness. This helps them respond to everyday challenges in a more calm and balanced manner.

Positive Social Relationships

Developing EI helps children build better relationships with peers. Through empathy, communication skills, and conflict resolution abilities, they can form and maintain friendships more easily.

Better Learning Outcomes

Research shows that emotional intelligence can contribute to better academic performance. Children who manage their emotions well are able to focus more easily, stay motivated, and handle the stress of tests and homework more effectively.

Self-Confidence

Children with higher emotional intelligence are better at understanding and accepting their emotions, which boosts their self-confidence. This, in turn, contributes to their mental health in the long run.

Conflict Management

Emotional intelligence helps children effectively handle conflicts. They learn to communicate their feelings and needs without harming others, and they gain the ability to reach compromises.

Life Skills for the Future

Developing emotional intelligence provides essential life skills that help children in adulthood, whether in their career, relationships, or family life.

Emotional intelligence not only improves children’s current quality of life, but also has a long-term positive effect on their happiness and success. Parents and educators play a key role in this process, as they provide the support and learning opportunities that help children acquire these vital skills.

With the Heart Elf Cards, learning becomes more engaging and varied, making it exciting and enjoyable for both preschool and school-age children.

Why is the playful method the best for developing emotional intelligence?

Play is a child’s most natural way of learning, which is why playful methods are highly effective for developing emotional intelligence. While traditional learning can sometimes feel dull for children, and many parents find it hard to talk about emotions—often because they haven’t learned how to themselves—a card game like Heart Elf makes it easier for both children and adults to open up.

The game gives children an opportunity to express their emotions freely, whether positive or negative. It helps them understand and manage their feelings. Through playing together, children learn social skills like how to cooperate, share, take turns, and handle conflicts––all of which are important elements of emotional intelligence.

Play-based activities create a safe and supportive space where children can experiment and learn from their mistakes without fear of harsh judgment. During play, children also get the chance to experience others’ emotions, which supports the development of empathy. They learn how others feel, and how to respond appropriately.

While playing, children also learn to control their impulses, follow rules, and think ahead — all of which are essential for emotional self-regulation. Positive feedback during play strengthens their self-confidence and self-esteem, encouraging them to continue developing emotional skills. Creative games and challenges also support the development of problem-solving abilities and creative thinking, both of which are important aspects of emotional intelligence.

Heart Elf Calming Breath Cards

Children’s breathing exercises for releasing tension with finger tracing

The Heart Elf Calming Breath Cards help us to support the development of emotion regulation skills in our child.

• It is important to start learning emotion regulation and emotion management from preschool onwards.
• Many children enter school with performance anxiety and fear of the unknown, or start adoles- cence with anxiety about social situations.

These mindful breathing exercises for tension release with the aid of finger tracing can be useful both in emotionally stressful situations and as a preventa- tive measure. The pack includes 40 practice options for doing this. Managing emotions properly is key to ensuring they are ready for school, can achieve aca- demic success and can maintain their mental health.

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.

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.

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.