FOR EDUCATORS
One shared language for big feelings
Young Mind Masters gives children ages 5-12 a calm, screen- free way to notice a feeling, name the pattern behind it, and choose what comes next - and it travels with them, from the classroom to the kitchen table to the counseling room.
I'm a teacher home educator therapist
● Screen-free & audio-first ● Ages 5–12, two tracks ● Grounded in peer-reviewed research
BUILT FOR HOW YOU TEACH
The same method,
shaped to your setting.
Thirty children in a classroom, one child at the kitchen table, or a child you meet one-to-one — the framework stays the same. Only the rhythm changes.
Classrooms
A short daily anchor and a weekly full lesson that fold into a morning circle. Mixed-age friendly, with tracks for 5–8 and 9–12.
● DAILY ANCHOR + WEEKLY LESSON
Homeschools
A self-contained daily ritual you can lead with no training and no screens. The audio carries the lesson, so you guide the conversation.
● ONE DAILY RITUAL
Therapy & counseling rooms
Externalized characters let a child name a pattern without it becoming who they are — language for sessions and for the work that continues at home.
● SESSION BY SESSION
WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT
The calmest person in the room teaches the most.
Children don’t learn to settle from instructions. They borrow it — from a nervous system that’s already steady. An adult who can stay grounded when the storm hits is the regulation a child learns from first. That’s co-regulation, and it’s one of the most well-established findings in how children’s self-regulation actually develops.
So before Young Mind Masters asks a child to find the Wizard, it helps you find yours.The teacher module gives you the same Notice · Name · Choose for your own hard moments: the noisy room, the afternoon that got away from you — so the calm you bring mid-storm is real, not performed.
You’re not running the method from the outside. You’re modelling it. And the same identity-safe framing holds for the grown-up: the storm is a visitor for you too. Naming your own pattern isn’t a confession — it’s the skill, demonstrated.
THE METHOD
Notice the feeling.
Name the pattern.
Choose what’s next.
Most feelings begin with something real — a first burn. What makes them bigger is the story a pattern adds on top. Children learn to catch that moment, and let the storm settle before they act.
THE ENGINE ● Notice ● Name ● Choose
Notice
Tune in to the weather, inside and out.
01 Trigger
Something happens, and it isn’t always in the child’s control. The first drops fall — the real, first feeling lands.
02 Grumpy Storm
A visiting pattern blows in and adds its story. Thoughts, feelings, and body swirl at once — and the child learns to see it as a storm passing through, not who they are.
THOUGHTS
“I’m not good enough.”
FEELINGS
sad, angry, embarrassed
BODY
tight chest, hot face, racing heart
Name
Name it to see it clearly – I am not the storm.
03 Name the Pattern
The child gives the storm a name – "That's Worried Wovo visiting." Saying it puts a sliver of space between the child and the feeling: this is a pattern passing through, not who I am. You can't step back from something you haven't named yet.
Inside the storm:
"I'm not good enough."
→
Named:
"That's Judgey Jovo visiting."
04 Wizard Pause
The child steps back and takes the Wizard's place – the one watching the storm, not caught inside it. Three small moves make the pause.
Breath
Notice
Name
Choose
Reach for a Wizard Power and choose a wise response.
05 Wizard Power
From that calm, the child reaches for a power the storm can’t reach.
Curiosity
What’s really true? What else could be?
Empathy
How might they feel? How can I be kind?
Courage
I can do the hard, right thing.
Creativity
What’s another way through?
06 Wise choice
The sky clears, and the next step is the child’s to choose — made on purpose, from a settled place.
The patterns are characters children meet — Judgey Jovo, Worried Wovo, Bossy Boz, Gloomy Glomo, and Bouncy Beb. They’re always framed as visitors who come and go, never as a voice inside the child or a label for who they are. The Wizard is the calm, noticing part every child already has.
Marijana doesn't build YMM alone.
Taking a methodology from a working theory to something thousands of children can use safely requires depth in clinical practice, in early-years education, and in operational rigour. Our board has all three.
Board Member
Snežana Volić, MA
Gestalt Psychotherapist · Kindergarten Founder, Belgrade
Snežana has spent over two decades studying how the earliest years shape a child's emotional, social, and cognitive life. As founder of a Belgrade kindergarten (est. 2001), she has designed programs on early-years adaptation, emotional literacy, body-safety and safeguarding for young children, and the return-from-maternity transition for parents.
In her private practice she works with parenting, partnership, grief, trauma, and transgenerational patterns. Her perspective grounds YMM in what is developmentally appropriate at every age the program touches.
Board Member
Kevin Schwarte
MBA, Duke University · Strategy & Operations
Kevin brings the operational and strategic backbone behind the YMM mission. With an MBA from Duke University and a career building landmark commercial projects across the United States, he understands what it takes to turn an ambitious idea into something that actually gets built — on time, on budget, and at scale.
That same discipline is what enables YMM to grow responsibly: keeping the pedagogy uncompromised while the program reaches the schools and families that need it. Kevin oversees governance, growth strategy, and the standards that make a small program institutionally trustworthy
Now you know who's behind the work. Want to see it in action?
Start with one free lesson. No credit card. No commitment. Just 5 minutes with your child — and the first step toward a different kind of thinking.
