“I believe that everyone, especially a child, deserves to know how their brains are shaped by environment, to then understand their capacity for building proactive protective factors. We all deserve to be super heroes as we do the best we can to consciously live life well. ” - Teri Barila

The superheroes we learn about in comics, movies, and TV shows swoop in to save the world with their incredible powers, to shield people from harm. But in our world, no matter how much we wish to protect our children, they sometimes get hurt. Life happens beyond our control. And even when we are being the best parents, teachers, and loved ones we can be, children have experiences they may not understand.

CRI’s newest book- written by Teri Barila and illustrated by Andrea Medina- is designed to help children rise to their own superpowers in the face of challenge. They are their own real-life heroes. And the adults in their life are teaching and helping them. 

Our Super Heroes: Children Living Their Lives as Real Heroes builds off of brain science, labeling our feelings, and the importance of safety and connection with caring adults. It incorporates the 42 Resilience Strategies, but in child’s language, giving children the opportunity to choose with strategies to apply to each story. This further allows children to reflect on the skills they already have and explore which new skills they wish to learn. Even as adults, this reflection can build our own confidence to model for the children in our lives.

Our book also introduces 10 negative experiences; each of our superheroes is experiencing one. We are not alone in our difficulties. The more resilience we bring to our lives, the stronger we become.

“Today I had something happen that triggered a memory from my childhood, living an experience with ACEs. Seeing the drawings today in this Storybook made a difference to me. Although the trauma I experienced was many years ago, there was some sort of recognition I connected with tin these stories. I felt that I mattered. It somehow soothed me that somehow took the time to attend to the vulnerability of a child in pain and that is done in a very tender way. I would have loved to have this book read to me when I was a child. I would have made those kids my invisible friends to ease my loneliness.” - Maria Merino

Ultimately, we don’t learn resilience on our own. We learn it by seeing how caring adults and friends in our families, schools, and neighborhoods help and look out for each other. Resilience is about love, trust, and safety. We can all build more resilience skills, and this book shows us some ideas. We hope that you love it as much as we do.

Visit https://criresilient.org/product/heroesstorybook/ to purchase our newest Resilience-Building product!

Our Super Heroes book introduces ten very special children, facing challenging life experiences such as homelessness and bullying. Beautiful child-friendly graphics show why it is important to understand how our brains respond to stress, and how we can learn to manage our responses by building a toolkit of strategies. This is an interactive book, encouraging use of the 42 resilience strategies from the child-focused deck of cards, from a child’s perspective. Coming soon in Spanish!