Kids & Teens · Review
Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame Review
Sesame Workshop’s free emotional-skills app — a furry monster teaches toddlers to breathe, think, and do.
Our rating
4.4 / 5
Starting price
Free
Free tier
Yes
Platforms
iOS · Android
Developer
Sesame Workshop (nonprofit)
Launched
2013
Our verdict
Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame distills emotional regulation to a toddler-runnable program: help a frustrated monster friend take three belly breaths, think of plans, and try one. Free, ad-free, research-informed, and built by the most trusted name in early childhood media. For ages roughly 2–5, it is the best first emotional-skills app that exists.
This review is editorial and unsponsored — no affiliate payments influence our ratings. Selfpause makes a wellness app of its own, so where a product competes with us, we say so plainly and let you judge.
Sesame Workshop has spent half a century turning developmental science into things small children love, and this app is the formula at its purest: a furry monster faces toddler-scale crises — shoe-tying defeat, bedtime fear, tower collapse — and your child helps him through.
The titular sequence is real self-regulation scaffolding. Breathe: kids tap the monster’s belly for three slow breaths, co-breathing along. Think: simple plans appear as pictures. Do: pick one and watch it tried. That loop — calm first, options second, action third — is the architecture of every anger-management curriculum, sized for preschool.
It is free, ad-free, account-free, and bilingual (English/Spanish), with parent notes tucked behind a grown-up gate. The catch barely exists: it covers ages 2–5, and that is exactly what it should do.
Pros & cons
What we like
- Teaches the genuine self-regulation loop — calm, plan, try — at toddler scale.
- Free, ad-free, no accounts, from a nonprofit with deep research roots.
- Belly-breathing interaction children physically practice along with.
- Bilingual English/Spanish throughout.
- Parent section with strategies behind a grown-up gate.
What we don’t
- Narrow age band — ages 2–5, by design.
- A single scenario set; novelty fades after months.
- Dated visuals beside modern kids’ apps.
- No progression or personalization.
Best for / avoid if
Best for
- →Toddlers and preschoolers learning to handle frustration
- →Parents who want one screen-time choice that earns its minutes
- →Co-play — the app shines with a grown-up alongside
- →Bilingual households
Avoid if
- →Your child is school-age or older — they will find it babyish
- →You expect ongoing content updates
- →A child shows persistent distress — that needs adults and professionals, not apps
Pricing
Free
$0
Everything, no ads, no purchases.
What Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame is
Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame is a free emotional-skills app for ages 2–5 where children help a monster friend through frustrations using belly breaths, simple plans, and tries.
It is preschool self-regulation curriculum disguised as monster play.
Why helping the monster works
Toddlers cannot reflect on their own meltdowns, but they can coach someone else through one — and skills practiced as the helper transfer to moments as the struggler. Sesame has run this externalization trick for fifty years.
The co-breathing interaction matters too: tapping and breathing with the monster is motor practice, not just watching, and motor practice is how this age learns.
The breathe-think-do loop
Three belly breaths with the monster, picture-plans to consider, one to try.
A complete self-regulation curriculum in ninety seconds of play, repeatable forever.
Parent resources
Strategy notes and customizable encouragement phrases behind a grown-up gate.
The app quietly teaches the parent the same de-escalation sequence — arguably its sneakiest value.
Where Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame falls behind
Longevity. A handful of scenarios; expect months, not years.
Age ceiling. Five-year-olds graduate; nothing here for eight-year-olds.
Production gloss. Charming but visibly a decade old.
Breathe, Think, Do vs. Smiling Mind vs. nothing
For under-fives, this beats general kids’ mindfulness content — Smiling Mind’s youngest programs start making sense around school age, where it takes over naturally.
The honest competitor is no app at all: co-regulation with a calm adult remains the gold standard. This app is best understood as rehearsal for those moments, not replacement.
Free and ad-free means the experiment costs nothing but minutes.
Bottom line
Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame is the best emotional-skills app for toddlers — real technique, zero cost, fifty years of craft. Graduate to Smiling Mind at school age.
Want a daily positivity practice in your own voice? Selfpause lets you record personalized affirmations, layer them with calming music, and keep them on your lock screen.
Try Selfpause FreeAlternatives to Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame
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Finch
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Frequently asked questions
What age is it for?+
Roughly 2–5. School-age kids will find it young; for them, Smiling Mind’s age-banded programs pick up the thread.
Is it really free?+
Yes — Sesame Workshop is a nonprofit; the app has no ads, purchases, or accounts.
Does it actually teach anything?+
The breathe-think-do sequence is genuine self-regulation scaffolding used across child psychology — delivered as play, which is how this age learns it.
Screen time guilt?+
If any app earns its minutes, this one does — especially co-played. It rehearses exactly the skill that reduces household meltdowns.
A note on mental health: apps and online services can support wellbeing, but they are not a substitute for professional care. If you are struggling, a licensed professional can help — and if you are in crisis, contact your local emergency number or, in the US, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline).