Big Feelings
Most children (and lots of adults) think feelings are mysterious things that come from nowhere, happen to them, and elicit a reaction that is automatic and out of their control. Sometimes kids can identify what made them react, but it's confusing to them and their grown-ups because the exact same trigger yesterday might not have ignited even the slightest spark… and tomorrow? Who knows? Many parents have a hard time keeping up with all the ups and downs. It's hard to help a child understand what's going on if you can't even begin to find a pattern.
Understanding Myself: A Kid's Guide to Intense Emotions and Strong Feelings - by Mary C. Lamia
A great resource for helping kids understand their big feelings is Understanding Myself: A Kid’s Guide to Intense Emotions and Strong Feelings by Mary C. Lamia. The book's format and language make it ideal for middle schoolers, but the cutsey cover (and, let's be honest, the topic) makes it an unlikely middle school read. Instead, I recommend it as a resource for parents of younger children (preschool-5th grade).
The book’s introduction and first chapters explain the relationship between emotions, feelings, and moods, and gives a little background about why our central nervous system provides us this feedback. It is a short section about a very complex topic, but it is a solid introduction to our brain's most basic job: to keep us safe. The early chapters encourage kids to pay attention to their emotions because they provide essential information. Thinking of it this way means there are no good emotions or bad emotions. Instead, each feeling is potentially valuable for a particular situation. For example, if a child gets scared and bolts away from a wolf, we would say that the fear was justified; but if a child gets scared and bolts away from a dog, we might call that an "overreaction." Helping kids understand that all emotions are useful if we can understand what they are trying to tell us can remove shame from "big feelings" and replace it with curiosity about what those feelings are trying to tell us.
The subsequent chapters break down emotions into five categories: feeling self-conscious, threatened, gloomy, elated, and stormy. (Again, this is a vast oversimplification of ongoing research, but it is an excellent starting point for figuring out the particulars of your child's big feelings.) Every section breaks down the overarching idea into smaller components. For example, the self-consciousness chapters delve into embarrassment, guilt, shame, and pride. These chapters explain each emotion's specifics, when we feel them, why we feel them, how our bodies react, and what pro-social moves we can make when we feel them.
Understanding Myself is a well-organized, well-written, thoughtful introduction to big feelings. The book normalizes emotions and gives parents and teachers kid-friendly language to use when talking to children. I recommend it for parents with feelings, kids with feelings, or anyone who interacts with feeling humans.
$15.95 from the American Psychological Association website. (Available in paperback for $9.99 from other online retailers like IndieBound.)
