With playful prose and gentle humor, Squirmy Wormy crawls into hearts, teaching children that everyone belongs in the classroom.
Mental Health Clinician Caryn Whisler from Kissimmee said she hopes her debut book will teach kids in the classroom to be more empathetic to kids like Squirmy Wormy.
“Squirmy is scared, it’s his first day in school, and he can’t sit still,” Whisler said. “All of his emotions are coming so fast to him, and he just wants to make a friend but doesn’t think that he can.”
Whisler said it’s important for kids like Squirmy Wormy to be seen and heard, as the readers can relate to him with attention deficit hyperactive syndrome (ADHD).
“These kids have been labeled the bad kids, the problem kids, and that does a lot to their egos,” Whisler said. “We want these kids to learn to sit in class and be seen for who they are, not their symptoms.” We don’t want a kid walking down the hall and somebody going, ‘That’s the autistic kid,’ or ‘That’s the kid that can’t sit still.’ We want them to identify with who they are and then see beyond what everything is and be a friend to them.”
Whisler said symptoms relate to what the children show us instead of who they are.
“You would have a kid say, ‘Johnny never sits down, he’s ADHD’ or ‘He has anxiety,’ and kids shouldn’t know those terms because they’re never correct,” Whisler said. “We want kids to just see them as, ‘That’s Johnny and we like him because of this.’” Whisler said Squirmy Wormy is the first of a series of books that offers an insight into a specific character and the things that they struggle with, whether it’s depression, anxiety, or ADHD, and Weary Beary helps them with being okay to be themselves and make friends.
“I think we forget sometimes
that, first and foremost, these are children,” Whisler said. “They’re not their diagnosis and they’re not their symptomology.”
Whisler said working with kids instead of against them will make them feel less like an outcast in the classroom.
Illustrator and therapist Catherine Geiger said she met Whisler during her time working with kids on the spectrum.
Geiger said Whisler spoke with her about writing a book, and Geiger said she’ll illustrate the characters. Geiger said color theory is used in the book.
“For example, Squirmy Wormy is orange and Weary Beary is blue,” Geiger said. “So, there is some color strategy in the book because of my background, and complementary colors are supposed to evoke more energy.”
Geiger said when Whisler said Squirmy Wormy, she immediately had a vision of what he would look like.
Whisler said their book is available online but will be published as of March 24 to carry Squirmy Wormy’s message that, in the eyes of a friend, there is no such thing as a ‘problem kid,’ only a child waiting to be accepted.
