Dads Read Too

  JER: “Grumpy Monkey” by author Suzanne Lang and illustrator Max Lang is great for discussing emotions. Sometimes it is hard to recognize emotions or understand why we may be experiencing them. I’m a grown-ass-man and I still struggle with it. Helping your children or any child realize they will have emotions and thoughts interrupt their day, whether those emotions/thoughts were cultivated, expected, random chance, or something else entirely, is a great step towards emotional maturity. (Originally published on Instagram on 19 August 2021)

JER: “ When Sadness Is At Your Door” by Eva Eland reminds me of one of my favorite children’s movie - “Inside Out” as it navigates emotions and the processing of them.  As a child, I felt like I tried to suppress any feelings I was experiencing.  I think some cultural and religious expectations may have contributed to that, but for the most part I think I tried to suppress sadness based on my personal fear or shame.  As I’ve grown older, I’ve found that inviting emotions in and sitting with them can be a much healthier way to process.  I love the author/illustrator’s depiction of sadness as something that could be scary: “it arrives unexpectedly”, “it follows you around”, & “it sits so close to you, you can hardly breathe” to the point that “it feels like you’ve become sadness itself”. This is the “sadness monster” I tried to chase away and pack down when I was a kid.  But if you: “try not to be afraid of sadness.  Give it a name”, “just...