When Claire Porter’s 4-year-old son Brady notices she is feeling stressed, he says, “Let’s count to 10 together.”
Despite his young age, Brady knows when he or others are experiencing big emotions and what to do about them. Counting to 10 and taking a big calming breath are just a couple of strategies he learned — directly from Porter’s own picture books.
A 2010 graduate of Adler’s dual master’s in art therapy and counseling psychology, Porter transforms the principles she learned – blending creativity with therapeutic techniques – into tools children can understand.
With titles like “The Art Therapy Workbook for Kids,” “Growing Grateful! A Gratitude & Kindness Journal,” and “Bear’s Big Pause: A Race to Stay Calm,” Porter authored several picture books and workbooks that help children better understand and digest their emotions — feelings like anger, jealousy, and sadness.
Her latest, “The Magic Balloon: A Journey to Calm,” set for release this September, centers around a little girl named Macy, whose balloon changes color depending on her emotions. Along on Macy’s journey is the cloud Puff, who teaches her calming strategies when things become a bit too overwhelming.
“It’s a book on self-regulation, how to help with big feelings when things are overwhelming, and then learning different calming strategies,” she said. “That’s what a lot of my ideas are, putting these different strategies into a book so it’s easier for kids to access, see, and relate to a character in that book.”
Combining art and counseling
Long before writing and publishing children’s books, Porter was an undergraduate student pursuing a fine arts degree — with a minor in psychology — when she began asking herself, what can I do with this?
The answer came in the form of art therapy, a field that would allow her to combine two of her interests with her educational and professional pursuits.
In 2008, she enrolled at Adler University in Chicago. Drawn by its institutional mission, Porter pursued a dual degree through the University’s Master of Arts in Counseling: Art Therapy and Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling.
The ability to pursue a graduate degree in two programs allowed Porter to earn training and credentials as licensed mental health counselor, but also as a registered art therapist, allowing Porter to continue her passion of art.
“I appreciated how deeply Alfred Adler valued, not only healing the individual, but strengthening the community as a whole, and that really is one of the things that drew me to going there,” Porter said.
While at Adler, Porter noted her practicum at Hephzibah Children’s Association as a turning point in her career path.
“It was there I first experienced the power of showing up with empathy, creativity, and hope. The children taught me as much as I hoped to teach them, and it became one of the first places I truly saw the impact of the tools I was learning,” she said. “That experience continues to influence my work today, inspiring many of the strategies that shape my children’s books.”
Soon after graduating from Adler, Porter became a school counselor, working with students from kindergarten through second grade, strengthening the youth of her community. She immediately saw a need for materials that helped young children understand and digest their emotions, while also learning how to effectively regulate those feelings.
Connecting with children through storytelling
Porter began creating materials in the form of worksheets she would hand out to her students, which she later made accessible online in self-published picture books and workbooks.
In March 2025, following a feature by her local news station in Indiana, Porter’s work began gaining more notice. Porter started to receive positive feedback from parents and grandparents in her small community. Their children were learning how to recognize their feelings through Porter’s materials, some were even journaling every day and reading every night.
“I had emails, text messages, or just comments on the news post from individuals saying how they love the books or how they’d gifted them to loved ones,” Porter said. “It was rewarding to see how the books have really been positively impacting their grandchild or their child.”
Today as a school counselor, Porter uses her books to help her students continually progress and learn more about what it means to have big feelings.
“The way I’ve designed the books allows us to have active conversations together. Students are able to follow the prompt on the pages and then talk about what they drew or wrote after they’re done,” she said.
Beyond children’s books, Porter hopes to open her own art therapy counseling center.
“So many people have said to me, ‘You need to do this’ and ‘This would be great.’ It’s something that is lacking in our community and a lot of communities,” Porter said.
Porter’s goal is to strengthen her community by supporting its future – the children.
“Storytelling is my way of connecting with children,” she said. “If my books can give even one child the words and tools to handle big feelings, that’s how I know I’m doing what I was meant to do.”