Teaching Children Emotions

Teaching children about emotions — and to talk to God about feelings — can be hard. Here’s a children’s book to help kids with feelings.

Kids have feelings (so many feelings).

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As parents, sometimes teaching children about emotions — and how to handle them in a godly way — can be tough. In fact, as a mom of four kids, I think the majority of my active parenting has been spent helping my kids with their feelings.

King David (of biblical fame) also had a lot of emotions to work through. He did live through a lot–betrayal, the consequences of his own sin, more betrayal, sadness, anxiety, frustration, more betrayal, a deep love for God, and a whole lot of joy.

We can help kids with their feelings by pointing them to the psalms, and specifically to some of the psalms of David that pour out deep emotions to God.

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Teaching children emotions are meant to be given to the Lord in prayer works best through the example of biblical heroes.

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Children and Emotions Book for Christian Parents

Christina Fox, author of Idols of a Mother’s Heart, has written a book to help kids bring feelings to God.

Tell God How You Feel: Helping Kids with Hard Emotions is an excellent 84-page picture book aimed at 4-9 year olds.

Five chapters tell the story of two siblings, Jack and Mia, who brave fear, sadness, rejection, loneliness, and gratitude as their parents take them to the Psalms and then to God in prayer.

The chapters are:

A Scary Thunderstorm
A Friend Moves Away
A Friend’s Rejection
Feeling Lonely
Thankful for a Good Grade

I love that in each chapter of the book, Jack and Mia’s parents take them to a psalm, read it with them, and teach them about bringing their emotions to God.

The book is an excellent tool to aid Christian parents in teaching kids to pray when confronted with emotions, whether they are good or bad feelings.

Four of the stories directly relate in some way to school. I know that for many homeschool parents, school out-of-the-house in books is a big deal, so I mention this. Our kids read such a wide variety of books from different cultures and time periods, seeing kids go to school didn’t bother them. They were able to substitute their own experiences–like going to Bible memory club–for school and still empathize with fictional characters.

Things I really like about Tell God How You Feel:

This is a really well written book with great lessons that don’t feel moralistic or preachy.
You essentially get five stories in one book, each story focusing on a different emotion.
Each chapter has questions for discussion that a parent can take their child through.
The focus of Tell God How You Feel is very biblical.
Characters illustrated in the book are multi-ethnic and there is a girl in a wheelchair. I feel this has been largely missing from children’s literature, and I’m always happy to see it.
(My siblings are multi-ethnic, and my sister spent her life in a wheelchair, so I’ve been looking for these things for a while–though there have been anomalies, I’m happy to see this becoming more common.)
The illustrations are really nice.
The book doesn’t downplay emotions children have. Rather it directs children to deal with feelings in a biblical way.

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Purchase Tell God How You Feel

Tell God How You Feel is an excellent resource for parents, and I recommend it!

Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible

You want your kids to learn and love the Bible.

You want to teach the Bible…

As parents, we deeply desire the best for our kids. We look for the right schools, we make them eat right and exercise, and we get them involved in extracurricular activities. We take our job as parents seriously.

But are we also putting our time and energy into
teaching them the Bible? Giving them the life-changing, soul-nourishing words of Scripture is not only doable, it’s an essential part of parenting kids for Jesus. And the good news is, studying God’s Word as a family doesn’t have to be difficult!

2 Timothy 2:15, ESV, says:

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved,
a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

Our job, as parents who love Jesus, is to help our kids become approved workers, unashamed and rightly handling the word of truth.

The good news? Teaching the Bible isn’t hard. Your family can learn the Bible together.

…and you can!

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Danika Cooley’s book, Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible, will give you the tools and confidence to study the Bible as a family. It will help you identify and overcome your objections and fears, give you a crash course in what the Bible is all about and how to teach it, and provide the guidance you need to set up a family Bible study habit.

You will finish this book feeling encouraged and empowered to initiate and strengthen your child’s relationship with the Lord through His Word.