Draw Along With Tidy Tim

The ‘Get to Know Me’ series is made up of resources aimed at children with additional needs. Developed by child psychologist Dr Louise Lightfoot and illustrated by Catherine Hicks, the series includes activities specific to anxiety, depression and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). This book, Draw Along With Tidy Tim, is an activity-based picture book story, in which individual children are encouraged to interact with the story in a creative way – through writing, drawing, scrap booking, collage, activities etc.

Active engagement helps children to understand and process information, and aids long-term recall. It has been designed to support the individual child and encourage an empathetic and inclusive environment. In this book, we meet Tidy Tim, an octopus with many arms but not many friends. His swirly whirly feelings make him spend all day cleaning and tidying his house instead of going out and making friends. But one day, Tidy Tim gets himself into a terrible tangle and realises he needs the help of Jenni the Jellyfish, who helps him untangle his arms and his feelings.

This book was written with children with OCD in mind, providing an opportunity to relate to Tim’s thoughts, feelings, behaviours and experiences. However, children with a range of needs may benefit from the story. The book is written in a narrative style, so it does not use diagnostic labels and is not intended for this purpose. Instead, the focus is on creating a common language which children can understand and use to make sense of how they are feeling.

A practitioner guidebook is also available (ISBN 978-0-8153-4948-8).