Books for Helping Kids with Emotions

I am both a mumma to a four year old tornado of a child who experiences approximately 30 emotions in 30 minutes. I'm also a sensitive human myself who is still learning about emotions and the way we can hold space for them and allow them to pass rather than let them take over. These are some of my favourite books for learning about emotions with our tamariki, as well as gathering up the tools that can help us to move through the many emotions that visit. These books are perfect for families with little people, as well as classrooms where our superhero kaiako manage the emotions of 30+ people each day. 

One of my favourite local companies is Wilding Books, founded by a mum Rebekah Lipp who wanted to arm parents and childen, caregivers and teachers, with books that helped us all navigate our biggest emotions. I love every book this company releases, and they have some absolute treasures when it comes to emotions and mindfulness that you should check out.

'Big Emotions for Little People' is the perfect introduction to our littlest wildlings, a board book for toddlers to see themselves in the beautiful illustrations and put names to the feelings they might experience. The labeling part of emotional regulation is so important and something I think a lot of adults also could learn more about. Once we can identify what we are feeling (or even realize we are feeling it in the first place!) we can then use one of the tools from this simple yet effective board book - belly breathing! My girl loves reminding me to take a deep breath when she can see my getting dysregulated, and if the only thing I ever teach her is how powerful a moment of belly breathing can be I'll be happy.

For the older wildlings, the next book I would pick up is 'How Do I Feel?'. This bestseller is an emotional dictionary, filled with over 60 emotions and things they can do when they feel them. This is really a treasure of a book for all ages and as a family it has such huge potential for everyone getting better at feeling their emotions, realizing why they are helpful and what they might be telling us, and breaking cycles that might be keeping us stuck.

As well as these two books that I would recommend every whānau have a copy of, Wildling Books have a range of other amazing pukapuka. I love the 'Aroha's Choice' and 'Aroha's Way' books for their beautiful invitations to slow down and connect to nature. 'Finding My Calm' and 'Let It Go' are two more books that are about what to do once we experience big emotions, and how we can move on from them. Rebekah so clearly lives and breathes this stuff, and her books are ways we can all get better at recognizing and reacting to our feelings.

You can start teaching tamariki to name their emotions when they are just learning to talk. Whether it's using language to share how you think they might be feeling, or to model how you are feeling, or using board books to give them the words for different basic emotions from the very beginning. 

I love a good board book - hardy and simple and yet often still so effective. The Hairy Maclary and Friends board book 'How Do I Feel' is a great one because it's using characters we know and love to introduce a spectrum of emotions along with life the flap details which encourage tamariki to engage and relate. Another life the flap board book that my girl loves is 'Angry Unicorn'. This one is focussed on the feeling of angry (a very familiar emotion for any four year old) and the story not only entertains as we get to see this unicorn experiencing intense anger for the first time, but also encourages tamariki to talk about how it feels when they get angry, what sometimes causes them to get angry, and how we can manage our anger. 'I'm Afraid' is another board book about a specific emotion that Milo the Monkey is feeling before he's about to head off to see some friends, and I love the clear, vivid illustrations and the very relatable experience for tamariki to read about. I'm also a big fan of Susan Verde's board books like 'I Am Yoga'. This gets more into the tools we can teach tamariki, the things that we can tell ourselves when we are feeling intense emotions and the ways we can find our own little place of internal peace.

Two favourites from my days teaching that I also love now as a parent are 'The Rainbow in my Heart' by Jessica Urlich and Rebekah Ballagh (also comes in board book format!), and 'Big Feelings' by Rebekah Ballagh. Both created by fellow Kiwis - Jessica Urlich who writes my favourite poetry about parenting in the entire world, and Rebekah Ballagh who has a background in mental health and therapy and has amazing resources for adults too around mindfulness. Both of these books are wonderful introductions to the language of emotions and feelings, as well as the positive ways in which we can listen to our feelings and let them visit us rather than control us. The rainbow in my heart has sparked many conversations in my whānau about what feelings feel like, where we feel them, and what colour we would give them. 

I adore the series 'Big Bright Feelings' and their collection of books about children experiencing very relatable emotions. 'Ravi's Roar' for example is about a young boy who gets extremely angry during a family outing where people just aren't doing what he wants. Usually his angry tiger inside isn't too ferocious, but this time it comes out in a big way and Ravi has to learn about how we recover from our intense emotions, and how we may need to make amends.

Another series I love is Jayneen Sanders 'Little Big Chats', a bunch of amazing books that help unpack big topics in approachable ways with children and cover a range of things from body consent to big feelings. Two to highlight for this topic in particular of helping tamariki cope with emotions and learn skills to self-regulate are 'Mindfulness' and 'I Always Try'.

1. It's okay to feel big feelings! In fact it's important! Every feeling has something for us, and a reason why it's come to visit. 
2. The key to naming how we are feeling. Don't forget we can get specific, the more so the better. Modeling this for our tamariki could look like saying out loud 'I felt so embarrassed when I dropped my drink earlier. Thank you for helping me pick it up', or 'I felt really frustrated earlier when I couldn't do my zip up! It's hard when things get stuck'.
3. Emotions only stay briefly. Research says something along the lines of emotions only physically affecting us for 90 seconds maximum, unless we decide to cling to them or freak out about them or ruminate on them. This is why it is so key for us to recognize the feeling, name it, sit with it, and allow it to pass.
4. The power of a belly breath! We could all do with a few moments of belly breathing each day. The more we as adults can model this for our tamariki when we are processing our own big feelings, the more naturally they will turn to this as one of their own tools for moving through big feelings.
5. Look after you! One of the best ways we can support our tamariki with their big feelings is by taking care of our own. By making sure we have eaten, slept, and taken care of our hauora (health and wellbeing) we can then have more capacity for holding space and supporting our little one's emotions. If you notice that it's harder than usual to deal with the inevitable tantrums or explosions, maybe there's something you need as well! How can you take care of your own emotions as well as the emotions our loved ones are feeling?
6. We are all doing our best with the tools and resources in each moment. Our tamariki aren't getting upset just to make us late, you aren't grumpier than usual because you're choosing to be. I find it so useful to remind myself on a daily basis that we're doing our best. Doesn't mean I can't try and make small shifts or improvements, but it's important to give ourselves and our tamariki grace and to accept the reality of the emotions we are experiencing in this moment rather than wish it was different. Kia kaha koutou, you are all doing amazing things out there looking after young ones.