Shubert Books and Conscious Discipline Learning Resources
The Shubert book series sits at the center of how Conscious Discipline translates its adult-facing framework into language children can actually absorb. Developed by Dr. Becky Bailey and published through Loving Guidance, Inc., these illustrated storybooks follow a character named Shubert — a small, emotionally expressive creature — through scenarios that mirror real moments in early childhood. The books function as both read-aloud tools for classrooms and homes and as entry points into the broader Conscious Discipline system.
Definition and scope
The Shubert series comprises a set of illustrated picture books designed specifically to introduce children to the emotional regulation and social skill concepts embedded in Conscious Discipline. Each title targets a distinct competency — managing frustration, welcoming new experiences, navigating fear — and pairs narrative storytelling with the same neurological and behavioral framework that adults study through Dr. Becky Bailey's foundational work.
The scope is deliberately narrow per title and broad across the series. A single Shubert book doesn't try to explain all 7 skills of discipline at once. Instead, it picks one emotional scenario, tells a short story about Shubert experiencing it, and models a regulated response. That constraint is a feature, not a limitation — young children's brains are not built for abstraction, and the books are calibrated accordingly.
Loving Guidance publishes the series alongside companion guides written for educators and parents, which connect the story content back to the adult-facing Seven Powers for Conscious Adults and the seven skills of discipline. The materials are intentionally stackable: a teacher can read Shubert's Big Voice to a class in the morning and reference the same emotional vocabulary in an afternoon conflict without any conceptual whiplash.
How it works
The books operate on a dual-audience model. The child experiences a narrative. The adult — teacher, parent, caregiver — receives embedded scaffolding through the companion materials that explains what's happening neurologically and how to extend the lesson beyond storytime.
The mechanism looks like this in practice:
- Story exposure — The child hears or reads about Shubert encountering a triggering situation (a new school, a big emotion, a moment of failure).
- Modeled regulation — Shubert demonstrates a specific coping strategy drawn from Conscious Discipline's breathing techniques or the Safe Place concept.
- Vocabulary anchoring — The book introduces or reinforces specific language ("I am safe," "I can do it") that maps to the broader Conscious Discipline linguistic framework.
- Adult facilitation — The companion guide prompts caregivers to connect story moments to the child's real experiences, making the book a conversation starter rather than a passive read.
This architecture reflects the safety-connection-problem-solving progression at the core of Conscious Discipline. The books don't skip to problem-solving. They build safety and connection through story first, because that's the neurological sequence that actually allows learning to happen — a point Bailey grounds in attachment theory and prefrontal cortex development research.
Common scenarios
The Shubert books appear most consistently in 3 distinct contexts:
Early childhood classrooms — Teachers in pre-K through second grade use the books during morning meeting or circle time. Schools implementing full Conscious Discipline programs often sequence specific titles to align with the routines and rituals they're building across the school year. A school establishing a Safe Place in September might open with I Love You Rituals before introducing Shubert titles that reference it directly.
Home use for emotional coaching — Parents, particularly those exploring Conscious Discipline for toddlers or for elementary-age children, use Shubert books proactively rather than reactively. Reading Shubert's New Baby before a sibling arrives, for example, addresses displacement anxiety with narrative distance — the child processes through Shubert's experience before having to process their own.
Therapeutic and special needs settings — The concrete, predictable structure of the books makes them useful for children who benefit from explicit social story formats, a category that includes children with autism spectrum disorder, anxiety disorders, and sensory processing differences. The Conscious Discipline approach for children with special needs explicitly incorporates the books into individualized strategies.
Decision boundaries
Not every Conscious Discipline resource is a Shubert book, and not every Shubert book is appropriate for every age or context. These distinctions matter when building a learning resource set.
Shubert books vs. broader Conscious Discipline print materials — The Shubert series is child-facing narrative. Bailey's adult titles — including Conscious Discipline: Building the Classroom of Your Dreams and Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline — are practitioner-facing theory. The two categories are complementary but not interchangeable. A parent who only reads the child books is missing the adult self-regulation framework; a teacher who only reads the adult books is missing a high-leverage classroom tool.
Age appropriateness — The Shubert books are calibrated for roughly ages 3 through 8. Using them with teenagers requires significant contextual reframing and will typically feel condescending without adaptation. The Conscious Discipline for teenagers framework uses different entry points entirely.
Standalone vs. embedded use — A Shubert book read once in isolation produces limited lasting effect. The research basis for Conscious Discipline — explored in depth through Conscious Discipline research and evidence — consistently shows that outcomes improve when materials are embedded in a coherent, repeated practice rather than used episodically. The books are designed as part of a system, and they work best when treated that way.
The visual tools and charts that accompany many classroom implementations serve a parallel function: extending the emotional vocabulary of the books into the physical environment so that children encounter the same concepts across multiple daily touchpoints, not just during storytime.