Supporting meaningful conversations

Parent & Caregiver Reading Guide

Parent Reading Guide for children's picture book Safe Love Feels Like This by Lauren Armstrong

This gentle, practical guide is designed to help you deepen the impact of our picture book, Safe Love Feels Like This, with the children in your care. This guide will help you turn the story into powerful life lessons.

What’s Inside:

  • Guided Discussion Questions: Explore safe love, boundaries, emotions and feeling respected in age-appropriate ways.

  • Emotion Card Game: Use our printable emotion cards to help children name and explore their feelings, building emotional vocabulary and self-awareness through play.

  • Tips for Talking About Tough Topics: Gentle, trauma-informed prompts to help navigate conversations around safety, respect, and personal boundaries.

  • And more!

This guide helps you turn a beautiful story into everyday language and habits that build your child’s sense of self-worth and emotional resilience.

Educator Reading Guide for children's picture book Safe Love Feels Like This by Lauren Armstrong

Educator Reading Guide

Resource Based on Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction

This comprehensive teaching guide supports early childhood and primary educators in using our picture book, Safe Love Feels Like This, to foster emotional literacy, healthy relationship skills and empowerment in the classroom.

Grounded in Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction, the 16 page guide includes clear explanations, scaffolded activities, and evidence-based strategies to engage students

What’s Included:

  • Key Themes and Guided Class Discussion Questions: Help children explore what safe love feels like and how to recognise their emotions and boundaries.

  • Lesson Plans & Resources:

    • Emotion in Motion Role Play: Students act out real-life scenarios to explore how feelings show up in the body and how to respond with kindness and respect.

    • Sorting Hearts Game: A hands-on, visual activity to distinguish between “safe” and “unsafe” words, actions, and feelings.

    • Emotion Cards Activity: Build students' emotional vocabulary and empathy by using the printable cards in group games and reflection circles.

  • Instructional Sequence Using Rosenshine’s Framework:

    • Daily review and language building

    • Modelling with examples from the book

    • Guided practice with scaffolding

    • Independent work (drawing, writing, role play)

    • Frequent review to reinforce self-worth and respectful behaviour.

  • “As parents who didn’t grow up learning about self-worth, I feel like this guide is helping me re-learn as I teach my children. It’s empowering for all of us.”

    John & Layla, Parents of three.

  • “The Educator Guide is gold. The lesson plans are easy to follow and deeply meaningful. My students loved the ‘Emotion in Motion’ role play, it got them talking about their feelings in such an open, safe way.”

    Amelia M, Year 2 teacher.

  • “Reading the book with my kids was beautiful, but the questions from the guide helped us talk about feelings and boundaries in ways I never thought to before.”

    Sarah S, Parent.

  • “I’ve been teaching for 20 years and rarely come across resources this aligned with both emotional learning and evidence-based instruction. The Rosenshine framework made it easy to implement.”

    Greg B, Primary School Wellbeing Coordinator