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The Power of a Good Book in Releasing your Child’s Emotions
My child was snuggled into me so I felt his arm move. I felt him wipe away his tears. He wiped his eyes back and forth a few times before snuggling even deeper into my shoulder.
We were reading a picture book version of Heidi.
And in that moment Heidi was nurturing a sad goat who had been taken from its mother. Heidi felt the goat’s pain because she too was an orphan.
The description of the goat searching for its mum and unable to find her, paired with Heidi’s own sadness as she comforted the goat was the indirect but powerful language that brought my own child’s emotions to the surface.
What was already in him was stirred up.
This is the power of a good book.
It’s what Dr Gordon Neufeld calls, emotional playgrounds.
Play often has this brilliant ability to allow what is already in a child’s system to get stirred up and to move out of the body. It’s the space where emotions get to come forward.
My son’s own sadness and grief were stirred up as he felt Heidi’s sadness.
This is such a beautiful process that occurs during play.
It’s especially such a beautiful process that occurs during a good book.
So I wonder, do you read literature that evokes emotions in your child?
Do you pause on the bits that feel intensely sad to allow their own grief to surface?
Do you hold them in the moments so their tears have the space to fall?
It’s some of the most powerful ways that we can indirectly allow our children the space they need to FEEL without pressure or intensity.
You can explore this further in the Podcast Episode 009: ‘Reading to Kids to Release Emotions’