Edit: Congratulations to Samantha and Jenny! They are the winners for the book giveaway!
Last week I was in a department store with my daughter while my husband was trying on some clothes. We were looking at the Christmas ornaments and were having fun pointing out all the different ones.
“A ballerina!” she squealed, gently taking it off the hook and stroking it lovingly. I shifted my giant load of department store clothes, Christmas gifts, and, I don’t know, there was probably a puppy somewhere in there as well, and the point is, I was carrying a lot of stuff. Which was probably why Olivia chose that exact time to Become A Demon Toddler and when I asked her to come with me to find my husband, she froze. Kind of like the Frozen ornament of Elsa she had been looking at. I asked her again and she stood Very Still and I realized, damn, how am I going to get out of this?
I tucked a polo shirt with its hanger deeper into my arms and walked over to her, grabbing her hand.
“Let’s go. We need to go find Daddy.”
And then three things happened.
One, she screeched.
Two, she dropped to the floor.
Three, I effectively lost my shit and burst into flames and all my Christmas gifts went up with my sanity. The End.
***
No, not really. But there was a lot of screams (from her), muttered obscenities (from me), and stares (probably from that lady in the black coat who hates children).
Here’s what was running through my head as I dragged her kicking and screaming, trying to hold on to my bundle through the store: Where is Chris because I’m going to kill him and I’m not even kidding, and Why is it so hard to deal with these toddler emotions?
Courtesy of Maureen Healy
Why All Parents Need To Read The Emotionally Healthy Child
Last month, I read a book called The Emotionally Happy Child: Helping Children Calm, Center, and Make Smarter Choices by Maureen Healy.
// Disclosure: I was given a paperback copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. //
// And keep scrolling to the end, because two of you have a chance to win a copy for yourselves! //
Courtesy of Maureen Healy
Maureen Healy is an author, educator, and speaker, providing consultations and coaching to parents and their children on positive emotional health. She’s also the author of the book Growing Happy Kids, and when she asked me if I was interested in reviewing her newest book, The Emotionally Happy Child, I was more than happy to oblige.
The thing is Olivia, since just turning three, is too young to really reason with, but it’s always been important to me to get started on conversations surrounding emotions early so that when she’s in preschool and elementary school, we’ve gotten a good basis.
Much of what Healy talks about in her book is still premature for Olivia. In fact, during one conversation with her, she explained to me that her work involves children four years old and up because that’s the age they’re really starting to be able to reason, and we all know two and three-year-olds just, well, can’t. They aren’t developmentally there yet, but this book has proven to be a great resource for when Olivia is just a little bit older.
Here’s the thing. My daughter is wicked smart. She has a big personality and is very in-tune with her emotions, even though she has trouble articulating them. Left unchecked, this is a girl who will grow up with these big emotions and will not know how to channel them. I know this about her.
The elementary school girl who throws the chair in her classroom when she’s angry has big emotions that have a hard time being channeled. While Healy’s focus for this book is on this girl, and not my tantruming three-year-old, the premise is the same. And as a mom, I want my daughter to be able to work through her emotions as she grows. I want her to be able to recognize that she’s angry and be able to press pause. I want her to have a healthy reaction, one that comes about from thinking through how she can express that anger in a healthy way.
In other words, I really don’t want to be that parent who gets the call that my kid has thrown a chair in her third-grade classroom.
I know a lot of you reading have young kids. Perhaps even around Olivia’s age and now is the perfect time to start to understand how your child operates. Do they have big feelings? Do they kick and scream, or do they tell you “I’m mad” and then utilize what you taught them to calm themselves and steer their minds toward making better choices?
Probably the kicking the screaming, right? Hey, I’m right there with you.
But this is why I loved this book. Because it got me thinking about how I want to approach those conversations with Olivia when she’s older. The time will come when she will be ready emotionally to be able to reason and think through things instead of acting out of snarling instinct.
The Emotionally Healthy Child is about learning to pay attention to how we feel (yes, even us as parents, because how else can we model for our kids?) and using practices such as mindfulness. Healy teaches things such as understanding that our emotions, such as anger, are temporary, and using techniques such as mindful breathing can help center us and let go of that emotion. We can easily teach these things to our kids, even at a young age.
She devotes an entire section to the different tools you can choose from depending on your child’s specific needs and personality. Teaching deep breathing exercises is one of them, but there are a ton of others such as giving your child’s anger a name—such as Mad Max* so that they learn their anger is temporary, and not a part of who they are.
It’s not just about the so-called negative emotions like anger and sadness, because as she explains in her book, these are very necessary emotions in our lives. She also teaches about increasing emotions such as happiness and bravery. If a child is feeling insecure or experiencing forms of bullying, she gives tips on increasing their confidence and giving back some of that control to the child.
*I really hope I can have a kid named Max, just for this fantastic nickname.
Would I recommend this book?
For sure. Especially if:
- you have an elementary school aged child or older.
- you have a toddler and want to start preparing now with some of these techniques to work through big feelings.
- you are parenting a child with intense feelings.
- you yourself need some help on managing your emotions (I paid particularly close attention to the section on anger because I have a three-year-old who pushes my buttons daily.
||| Giveaway Time |||
Maureen Healy and her team have been gracious enough to offer a print copy of the book for TWO lucky readers! Enter by visiting the Rafflecopter link below! Winner will be contacted by me via email next Tuesday morning (November 4th)! Open to U.S. and Canada residents only.
If you want to purchase the book, The Emotionally Healthy Child, you can find it here on Amazon. You can find more information on the book by visiting her website growinghappykids.com.
