Children have so much to teach us. This weekend at 352Create Festival in downtown Gainesville the Dr. Kich character from the Emotatude book series encouraged children to paint their feelings on paper through his 'Dealing with Feelings' game. The creativity and sensitivity that were expressed on the pages empowered the children to express a feeling on paper. The next step would be to give them a chance to acknowledge those feelings and then decide what to do with them. Since Dr. Kich is an imaginary 'Emotatude' doctor, there was no Giving children a choice is so important. Parents even came up to me and explained that their child was using the color blue to paint love because that is their favorite color. Interestingly enough you could see the expression pouring forth in the movement and richness of her strokes. I began to question whether our world of color coding, quantifying, categorizing, and studying was destroying the unique individual experience we each have when we experience an emotion.
I asked each child to close their eyes and try to see and feel the emotion they are planning to paint. There were no children confused by this. They all acknowledged their inner life. The younger children were more in touch with this than the older ones. Perhaps we can learn to give children space to have their feelings and express them in their own way. The next question left after honoring these feelings, is how to decide what to do with them. Perhaps this exercise will give children a chance to understand that it is o.k. to sit with their feelings and then get to know them. After that they can decide what to do with them.
So the next time you want to push positive perspectives in a sad situation, stop yourself and start acknowledging the feelings that are around that situation. Then you won't be ignoring what is going on inside of your child. After a time you can ask them questions about what needs to be done in the situation. This may help bring self control.
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