How to Have More Control Over What Happens to You

An EMOMASTERS® Interactive Workbook for Building Resilience and Brain-Ready Thinking

What if students understood that how they think about challenges changes how they experience them?

How to Have More Control Over What Happens to You introduces young readers to powerful thinking strategies that help them respond to difficult situations with greater confidence, clarity, and emotional strength.

Through engaging illustrations and memorable examples, EMOMASTERS® heroes SereniStar and Calm Knight guide readers in learning how to recognize negative thinking patterns, shift their perspective, and make choices that lead to better outcomes.

Rather than teaching students to ignore problems, this book shows them how to interpret challenges in ways that increase their sense of control, resilience, and possibility.

Teacher Tip:
Many educators use this book as a discussion starter for Brain-Ready Classroom routines, helping students shift from negative thinking to empowered responses before academic learning begins.

This full-color interactive workbook is designed for classroom discussion and reflection, helping students practice the thinking strategies that support emotional regulation, resilience, and Brain-Ready learning.

How This Book Supports Brain-Ready Classrooms

This book aligns with the Brain-Ready Classroom Framework, which recognizes that learning happens best when students feel:

Safe. Connected. Capable.

When students feel overwhelmed or discouraged, their brains often shift into protective modes that make learning harder. The ideas in this book help students develop the mental habits that restore learning readiness by:

• strengthening emotional regulation
• reducing negative thinking loops
• building confidence and resilience
• helping students respond to challenges constructively

As students learn to shift from victim thinking to empowered thinking, they become more prepared to engage, participate, and persist in learning.

Perfect For

• classroom discussions about mindset and resilience
• social-emotional learning lessons
• Brain-Ready Classroom routines
• counseling and small group support
• helping students develop stronger emotional control

Teachers often use this book alongside the EMOMASTERS® Classroom Posters and other Brain-Ready Classroom tools to reinforce the same language and strategies throughout the learning environment.

Because students write directly in the workbook, many teachers order classroom sets so each student can apply the strategies personally.

Product Details

Format: Paperback
Size: 8.5 × 11
Length: ~100 pages
Recommended for: Upper elementary through middle school students

A Message Students Can Carry With Them

Students will walk away with a powerful idea:

While we can’t control everything that happens to us, we can learn to control how we think about it — and that changes everything.

Many teachers pair this book with the EMOMASTERS® Classroom Posters and the Brain-Ready Classroom Framework to reinforce the same language of resilience, emotional regulation, and empowered thinking throughout the learning environment.

This full-color interactive workbook invites students to write, reflect, and apply powerful thinking strategies directly on the pages, turning ideas into real-life skills.