All About Feelings

Synopsis

How are you feeling today? This fun, friendly and reassuring introduction to feelings is designed to help young children recognise, understand and name how they're feeling and learn to talk about and manage their emotions in helpful ways.

Summary

All About Feelings, by Sally Adolf, is a comprehensive guide to having and managing emotions. The book covers a wide range of emotions from basic feelings like happiness and sadness to more complex emotions like anger, anxiety, and guilt. It provides readers with simple tools to recognize and work through their feelings, while also providing a crucial insight into how different emotions interact.

Chapter 1: Introducing the Concept of Feeling

In the first chapter of All About Feelings, readers are introduced to the concept of feeling. Adolf explains that emotions are both inborn and learned. She also focuses on the fact that emotions are not universal, and different people may experience different kinds of feelings at different times. For example, a person could be feeling sad when someone else might be feeling content. The chapter also provides an introduction to the different categories of emotions, including positive, negative, and intense emotions.

Chapter 2: Identifying and Labelling Feelings

The second chapter of this book helps readers learn how to identify and label their feelings. Adolf explains how to observe different physical, mental, and behavioral clues that signal an emotion. She encourages readers to practice self-awareness, and to learn to recognize their own physical and psychological reactions to various situations. Adolf also includes a helpful list of emotion words for each category of emotion, making it easier for readers to accurately label their emotion. To illustrate her point, Adolf provides an example of someone in a heated argument feeling angry and frustrated.

Chapter 3: Understanding Feelings

Adolf presents readers with the idea that understanding their feelings can help them manage them more effectively. She introduces different models of emotional understanding, such as acceptance and problem-solving. Readers also learn how to successfully apply these models to different scenarios. To give an example, Adolf explains the process of accepting an emotion and then finding an appropriate way to work through it. This process would involve the person looking inward to understand their own feelings and then finding a strategy to better cope with the feelings.

Chapter 4: Responding to and Managing Feelings

The fourth chapter of All About Feelings explains how to respond to and manage emotions. Adolf goes over various positive and healthy strategies to cope with feelings, including taking three deep breaths to help calm down, talking to a trusted friend, and engaging in a physical activity to get rid of negative energy. She also includes advice on how to control intense emotions like anger, suggesting that a person should think before they act and not suppress their feelings. For instance, Adolf gives an example of a person choosing to take ten deep breaths and count to 10 before responding to an angry comment.

Chapter 5: Understanding Emotional Intensity

The fifth chapter focuses on understanding what causes emotions to become more intense. Adolf explains that emotions can become more intense due to several factors, such as stress, fatigue, and illness. She also outlines the differences between uncomfortable feelings and intense emotions. Adolf encourages readers to learn how to better cope with intense emotions by understanding the reasons why they become so heightened. To illustrate her point, Adolf gives an example of a person dealing with an intense emotion like anger and understanding that the anger was fueled by their fear of being judged.

Chapter 6: Helping Others with their Feelings

In the final chapter of All About Feelings, Adolf explains how to help others with their feelings. She encourages readers to practice empathy and become more aware of what the other person is feeling. Adolf explains that it is important to listen closely, be patient, and not judge. Additionally, she provides advice on how to use positive language to help someone work through their emotion. To give an example, instead of making assumptions about the other person’s feeling, Adolf suggests offering phrases like “It sounds like you’re feeling frustrated”.

All About Feelings offers a comprehensive guide to understanding and managing emotions. Adolf provides readers with simple tools to recognize and work through their own feelings, and to better help others with their feelings. The book is a must-read for anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of their emotions.