Nicola Parkinson is an Osteopath, Meditation teacher and Neurodevelopmental Therapist, and has managed to turn her ADHD into a skill.

I have been meditating for over 30 years to calm and centre my mind as I have ADHD, and reading has been a big part of that calm for me, so I wanted children to experience the peace, calm and focus that reading brings.

My first books – The Star Dragon Meditation Stories I had chance to write in lockdown 2020 when I was off work for the first 3 months. I had time to focus on my children’s work, thinking how I can incorporate a meditation for children to enjoy and gain the same benefits from it that I did.

I have always had a liking for dragons, and I initially brought out my first set of books- The Star Dragon Meditation Stories in 2022. It was an absolute pleasure, and exciting to see children enjoy them. The Star Dragon Meditation Stories are a set of 6 different stories accompanied by an audiobook that has brainwave music in the background for children to listen to whilst they read. This amplifies the sense of hearing whilst reading stimulates vision and along with touch and the breathing techniques in the book, this all calms a child’s brain before bed, switching on the vagus nerve.

This enhances the stress and anxiety processing in their brain overnight. Your child has a better chance of thriving at school with less stress building up. The books are written in half imagination and half reality meaning the Draco Star Constellation is situated above the North Pole in the sky and children can locate it. Each friend of the dragon in each book has a name of a real species e.g. Alcathoe the bat is a species of bat, so children can search the characters and learn about them.

And so, as my writing journey unfolded, the Christmas dragons appeared, where you can follow Santa on his magical journey 3 days before Christmas to the Christmas Dragon Forest in the North Pole, also accompanied by an audiobook.

I want to show children how amazing imagination is and how captivating inside your own mind can be and encourage more of that in children, so in each book you can draw your own characters and write your own story.

I truly hope you enjoy them as much as I do, and the dragons become a magical part of your children’s life.

Watch out for more to come from Nicola Parkinson.