Bibliotherapy

Yesterday I shared my children’s book addiction with you, and despite the fact that we already own about 50 million books I couldn’t stop myself from buying a few more.

One of the books I found at Ollie’s (best place ever for buying new books) was The Fathers Are Coming Home by Margaret Wise Brown, the author of Goodnight Moon.

When I saw this book I knew I had to get it for Nicholas because, as you know if you are a frequent reader of this blog, he struggles A LOT with attachment issues. It would also be great for families who have a parent deployed or one parent who travels a lot for work.

In my pre-mom life, I was an elementary school teacher specializing in gifted education. Gifted kids have a lot of anxiety too, so I thought today I might share one way professionals are taught to utilize children’s books to curb anxiety in children so that you can do it at home. Although, you are probably already doing it to some extent because I think most parents do.

I think a lot of parents do this naturally, but I just thought I would share the reasoning behind it from a professional perspective. When a child is suffering from anxiety over a stressful situation like bullying, divorce, or in Nicholas’ case worrying unnecessarily every day about whether or not his dad is going to come home from work, one of the best things you can do as a parent is to find a children’s book that puts a fictional or historical character in a similar situation. It’s a technique called bibliotherapy and when I was working as a gifted specialist we had many trainings about it because gifted children struggled often struggle with elevated anxiety.

Many teachers label this a text-to-self connection, which it technically is, but bibliotherapy intends to go much deeper than your average text-to-self connection. It deals with emotions the child is feeling in the moment and allows them to identify those emotions in themselves through empathizing with the character. This is not, “Hey, the girl in the story is moving and I remember once when I was five we had to move and I was kind of scared too.” It’s “I really know how she feels because my parents said we are going to move next month and I had to start putting my stuff into boxes last night and I’m scared I won’t see it again because the movers might lose it or break it, and I have to go to a new school and what if they don’t like me?”

It’s also not books like If You’re Angry and You Know It that teach children about a specific emotion and how to handle it. Those books have their place too, but not here. In this technique you want the child to be able to project their emotions onto another character because it’s easier for them to deal with. It’s better to read If Your Angry and You Know It when the child is not actually angry because he/she will be less defensive and more open to the techniques presented. When children are angry, it’s better to find a book that puts fictional characters in a similar situation. That way they develop their sense of empathy and use it to process the emotion. “I know how she feels because I feel that way right now too!”

Stop in the middle of the story and ask how your child thinks the character is feeling. are the other characters being mean? Look at the pictures and the facial expressions in them. Look ahead at the pictures and predict what might happen. If the child is predicting that terrible things are going to happen, you can get some insight into why they are so stressed.

***Always, always, always read the book first! If the ending is not similar to the outcome you want like if something bad happens to the character you want your child to identify with, do not read that book! For example, if you are moving and start reading a book about a family who moves and then a tornado comes and destroys their new house, that’s probably not going to make your child feel any less stressed.

You can do this with movies too. That’s called cinema therapy, but that technique is better for older children or adults, and, no matter what age, books are always a better option. Books are better, especially for young children, because people tend to use their imaginations to put themselves into the story. In a movie, you can just watch someone else act it out and you are more likely to miss the point because you don’t have to do as much thinking and processing.

Back to Nicholas, I read him this story twice yesterday. Once before Eddie came home and once at bedtime after Eddie was home. It was important to read it yesterday because today Eddie is going to an out-of-town conference and won’t be home before Nick goes to bed. We’ll read it again, but now he has prior knowledge of the story, so I can reference it when he’s anxious later tonight. “I know you miss daddy. I bet the boy in our book missed his daddy too. His daddy was a sailor so I bet sometimes he was gone on a ship for a long time. What happens at the end of the story, again?”

“His daddy came home.”

“Oh, that’s right. His daddy came home and gave him a big hug. I bet your daddy will do that too when you see him tomorrow.”

We (I) use this technique all the time. Eddie does too, but I’m not sure he knew he was doing it. What books have you used to help your child deal with stressful situations?