Books that help us understand our feelings and emotions

Dear Readers,

Since starting my blog in March, I have spent some time reading through comments and talking to parents in person about the daily challenges they are facing with their children. A particularly common problem that I have heard of is how young children are struggling to embrace their differences and don’t understand what is going on with them. I remember feeling the same way when I was a child, and even in my teenage years. Why was I so anxious all the time? Why did I struggle to do things without an argument? The list goes on. But in the end, I found that the best solution for me was to read books that explained some of the challenges that I could relate to. In this post, I am going to share with you some of my favourites.

A good book for younger kids with anxiety is “What To Do When You Worry Too Much”, an interactive guide to explain what they’re feeling, and how to manage it. This book talks about what a worry is, why it happens, and how to deal with them. One of my favourite parts is how they compare worries to tomatoes. When you tend to them, the worries get bigger, just like a tomato plant grows more tomatoes the more that you water it. The book provides strategies to deal with worries and make them go away, like talking back at your worries, spending less time on them, and imagining putting your worries in a box so you can think about them at another time. Like tomatoes, if you don’t spend time tending to them, worries will eventually shrivel up and go away.

I also love the ‘Can I Tell You About…’ series, where books are written from the perspective of a child with a specific disability or condition, such as PDA and Asperger’s Syndrome. These books are really helpful for children and young people to understand what’s going on, or why they are a bit different. One of my favourite parts was reading the books and realizing that the characters sounded exactly like me. I finally understood what was going on in my head, why I felt different emotions, and most importantly, that my feelings were normal. These books are also good for other people who might know someone with the same disability or condition, such as siblings, classmates, parents and teachers. It gives a great guide on how to help the person, and what accommodations they might need.

I used to love reading these books when I was younger. I remember feeling excited and relieved when I finally had answers to the questions that I had about myself. I found it more helpful than my parents trying to explain to me what was happening because I could relate to them better. I have also used examples from the books to help me explain to others what I am feeling.

Before I go, I’m curious about other books that may be helpful for children and young people. So I would love to know, what books have you read when you were younger that helped you?

I hope you enjoyed this blog post, and I can’t wait to see you back next week!