Parenting Through play
Fun and engaging ways for adults to connect with kids, better understand their behavior, and guide them towards success.
Super Silly Social Skills
Tone it Down
That’s Debatable: A Game for the Argumentative Thinker
Tone it Down: Mind Your Manners Edition
A playful, powerful, and unexpectedly hilarious way to teach kids how their tone shapes connection.
Tone It Down is an engaging, interactive communication game that helps kids master one of the most essential—and most overlooked—social skills: understanding that how you say something can matter even more than what you say.
Packed with silly phrases, dramatic voices, and exaggerated expressions, this high-energy game turns playtime into memorable learning moments. Kids explore and really get to feel how tone of voice, facial expression, and body language can completely shift the message, making space for clearer, kinder, and more confident conversations.
Through laughter and playful experimentation, children build stronger, more respectful communication habits, increased emotional awareness and regulation, deeper empathy and social insight through shared play
Tone It Down is more than just a game—it’s a fun, flexible tool for raising emotionally intelligent, self-aware kids who know how to express themselves.
Tone it Down: Mind Your Manners Edition
That’s Debatable: A Game for the Argumentative Thinker
Tone it Down: Mind Your Manners Edition
Tone it Down: Mind Your Manners Edition is a fun, interactive game designed to tackle
the emotional challenges children and adults face in today’s high-stress world. This
research-based game strengthens emotional vocabulary and provides practical tools for managing feelings, fostering deeper connection and communication between players of all ages.
Through humor and exaggerated tone contrasts, players learn that how something is said can be just as important as what is said. A collection of only polite, kind, and uplifting phrases is used—but when spoken in rude or negative tones, their charm fades quickly.
This unique dynamic helps players understand the importance of tone in effective communication.
Perfect as a stand-alone experience or paired with Tone It Down, Mind Your Manners Edition promotes lifelong emotional intelligence and enhances social understanding in a fun, engaging way.
That’s Debatable: A Game for the Argumentative Thinker
That’s Debatable: A Game for the Argumentative Thinker
That’s Debatable: A Game for the Argumentative Thinker
That’s Debatable was designed with spirited, strong-willed kids in mind—the ones who always have a comeback, love a good challenge, and fight hard to make their voices heard.
This game transforms that passion into purpose by guiding players through structured, kid-friendly debates on fun and thought-provoking topics. Players are encouraged to form clear positions, actively listen to others’ viewpoints, and—perhaps the toughest challenge of all—practice letting go of needing the last word.
Through engaging prompts and playful competition, kids build essential life skills like respectful communication, critical thinking, and self-regulation.
Whether used at home, in classrooms, or in therapeutic settings, That’s Debatable provides a safe space for children to express themselves, feel heard, and discover the power of thoughtful dialogue.
intentional connection collection
Positive Affirmation Cards
Bright, bold, and beautifully worded—this colorful deck of 80 definition-based positive affirmation cards is designed to build confidence, boost self-esteem, and nurture emotional growth.
Perfect for a daily dose of encouragement, this vibrant set helps users of all ages expand their emotional vocabulary while practicing the art of positive self-talk. Whether you pull a card for yourself, tuck one into a lunchbox, or leave it on a coworker’s desk, these small gestures make a big impact. Use them to: start your day with a confident mindset, spark uplifting conversations, reframe negative thoughts, share feel-good messages with others.
Whether you're 6 or 60, these pocket-sized pep talks are your gentle reminder: You’ve got this.
The Big Book of Stories About Feelings
This powerful collection of short stories invites kids into worlds that feel a lot like their own—full of challenges, choices, and chances to grow. Each story mirrors the real emotional experiences children face, from feeling misunderstood to finding courage in tough moments.
Some readers will see themselves reflected in the characters’ struggles and triumphs. Others will discover new perspectives through imaginative problem-solving and fresh points of view. Either way, every story opens the door to empathy, resilience, and self-discovery.
Each tale is paired with thoughtful reflection questions to spark critical thinking, encourage emotional insight, inspire meaningful conversations about life, feelings, and choices.
Perfect for home, school, or therapeutic settings, The Big Book of Stories About Feelings helps children connect the dots between fiction and their own real-world emotions—one powerful story at a time.
Think it Through
Think it Through
Big ideas. Bold opinions. Smarter conversations. Think It Through is a conversation catalyst that gets kids thinking deeply, speaking thoughtfully, and listening with intention. Designed to build essential communication and listening skills in a fun, interactive format, this game helps kids explore values, perspectives, and ideas that matter.
Whether used casually as engaging tabletop conversation cards or competitively in solo or group-style discussion, Think It Through offers a fresh way to challenge young minds and spark meaningful dialogue.
Kids will strengthen critical thinking through open-ended questions, practice respectful listening and discussion, explore personal values and ethical decision-making, build confidence in expressing opinions and backing them up
Think It Through is a powerful tool for raising emotionally intelligent, thoughtful, and articulate kids—all while keeping the fun front and center.
About Clever and Calm
Why is it important?
When adults expect too much from children too soon, it can lead to frustration, harsh discipline, distrust, and strained relationships. At Clever & Calm, we’re here to change that.
Games, activities, and stories are each paired with thoughtful educational content to help adults and kids better understand one another. The goal is to reduce the tension caused by unrealistic expectations and replace it with connection, empathy, and growth.
With a focus on child development, relationship-building, and playful skill-building, we make it easier for adults to guide with confidence and for kids to receive feedback without fear.
Why does it work?
Kids can’t build skills they’re never allowed to practice. Yet it’s common for adults to respond to undesirable behaviors with punishment or demands to make it stop. That approach shuts down opportunities for learning and misses the chance to teach healthier ways to express big feelings.
At Clever & Calm, we take a different approach.
Our games and activities are designed to give kids a safe, playful way to explore developmentally appropriate (but sometimes challenging) behaviors. By creating space to intentionally engage in these moments, kids get to practice emotional regulation and problem-solving in real time—before the pressure of real-world situations.
Best of all? The fun, silly nature of play lowers defenses, making it easier for adults to explain important concepts without relying on correction or punishment. It turns teachable moments into joyful ones when kids are most open, curious, and ready to grow—during play!
Who is it for?
These games are designed to create safe, supportive spaces where kids can be kids—and where adults can guide them through the ups and downs of growing up.
Children who are neurodivergent or have experienced trauma may benefit from additional opportunities to strengthen these skills as well as extra guidance or support from the adults in their lives. These games offer just that—through playful experiences that encourage curiosity, connection, and growth.
Kids who struggle with communication, impulse control, or social awareness are often the ones who ask to play again and again. Why? Because the games give them a fun, shame-free way to practice and ask questions without fear of doing it “wrong.”
Whether at home, in therapy, or in the classroom, these resources work beautifully across a wide range of needs, personalities, and learning styles.
And best of all—everyone has fun while doing it.
Where did it start?
From Misunderstood to Making Meaningful Change
The spark that would become Clever & Calm didn’t begin in a polished boardroom or business incubator—it started behind the double-locked doors of a children’s psychiatric unit in the Florida panhandle.
As an undergraduate practicum student in a Statewide Inpatient Psychiatry Program, Cathleen Campion was tasked with identifying a problem at her practicum site and developing a solution. The facility was overburdened and under-resourced, with children labeled as “severely emotionally disturbed” and staff working tirelessly just to maintain safety. Cathleen saw people who cared deeply—but were overwhelmed. Therapists were buried in documentation, psychiatric techs were stretched far too thin, and the children… they were bored, misunderstood, and expected to adapt to a clinical structure that didn’t see the world through their eyes.
And Cathleen wasn’t really supposed to be there.
She had secured her practicum with a phone call to an old family friend who oversaw all the children’s behavioral health programs for the entire agency. He didn’t realize they had requested a pause on interns only a few weeks before Cathleen joined. To make matters worse, she was a bachelor’s level practicum student, not even a higher-level clinical intern. With no clinical skills at the time, Cathleen was essentially useless to them —and she could tell. She was quietly shuffled into a corner with patient files until someone gave her the green light to wander the unit and “talk to the kids.” So she did.
That’s when Cathleen started noticing something big.
Nearly every conflict on the unit came down to miscommunication. Staff were responsible for correcting behavior, but kids were quick to get defensive. The words used weren’t the problem—it was how they were said. Tone, inflection, expression—those nuances were getting lost, escalating what could have been teachable moments into full blown meltdowns and never-ending power struggles.
It hit close to home. Cathleen was one of those kids once—often misinterpreted, corrected harshly, expected to “fix” her tone without anyone helping her understand it. Cathleen knew what it was like to be misunderstood, to not have the words or tools to express what she felt inside.
For her final project, Cathleen created a solution: a game called Tone It Down. It was designed to help kids play with tone—to explore how saying the same phrase in different ways could change its entire meaning. It offered room for laughter, self-awareness, and safe connection. A way to practice real-life communication skills through experience, not lectures.
That game was the beginning. But it wasn’t the end.
As her career grew, Cathleen worked in schools, an acute care behavioral health hospital, foster care, the juvenile justice system, and finally settled into private practice. She saw the same patterns everywhere—misunderstood children, stressed-out caregivers, broken systems. Cathleen kept returning to that core belief: children deserve to be seen as whole people. They need emotional tools that speak their language—play, imagination, and connection. And adults need help learning how to guide them without losing themselves.
So, Cathleen founded Clever & Calm.
It’s not just a company—it’s a mission. A way to bridge the gap between emotional wellness and real life. She created stories, activities, and games that spark emotional learning in a fun, accessible way—with “adult education” inserts included so grown-ups can keep growing too.
At the heart of it all is a mantra Cathleen carried with her since that very first practicum:
Be the person you needed when you were younger.
That’s who Cathleen strives to be. For the kids. For their caregivers. And for the little version of herself who just wanted to be understood.