I'm often horrified at how little children understand their emotions. I wish schools thought it was as important to teach humanity as subject areas. Three books I've recently discovered could prove helpful for teachers and parents who see the same need I do.
One day my daughter came home from school crowing, "We have a whole class of optimists!" When I asked how she knew, she told me her class had taken "this really fun test that taught them about themselves". I asked her teacher if I could borrow psychologist Jonni Kincher's book Psychology For Kids: 40 Fun Tests That Help You Learn About Yourself. Immediately I understood why my daughter was so enthusiastic.
Kincher introduces children nine and up to everything from attitudes like introvert and extrovert to learning styles with fun tests. What a concept! Tests that are fun?! Kincher follows up with explanations of what the scores mean and does so completely without judgment in ways that children can understand. She also tells stories that illustrate her points and gives follow up ideas for children who want to more exploring. This book is a great way to study a subject through self and learn about both by playing!
Just as intriguing is Kincher's more recent book, Psychology for Kids II: 40 Fun Experiments That Help You Learn About Others. It's clearly another child pleaser that creates an environment of fun, offers involving questions to investigate, and great discussions which come from observing. This time children study others, using experiments to uncover things like: attitudes and beliefs, communication styles, opinions and judgments and gender differences .
One of the ways I see children limit themselves is their narrow knowledge of human emotions. Most young children seem to have a hard time getting beyond mad, sad, glad and happy. Help comes from Caldecott-winning illustrator and writer, Ed Young. Young was born in China and raised in America and he's done several books which unite his eastern and western backgrounds and prove he's comfortable with emotions. His new book of personal reflection, Voices of the Heart explores twenty-six Chinese characters which contain the symbol that represents the heart. He presents the Chinese character and then reinterprets each using Western symbols. Talk about discussion potential! Young introduces words like shame, mercy, wrath, doubt, resentment, and grace. He gives poignant definitions, powerful visual image and best of all, leaves plenty of room for children to draw conclusions about the connection of art and words, eastern and western traditions, and their own emotions.