Christine McLaughlin

Publishing in July 2023

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Growing Feelings: A Kids' Guide to Dealing with Emotions About Friends and Other Kids

 

The back cover description:

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A clear, useful, and entertaining toolkit for children about understanding their own and others’ feelings so they can build meaningful and joyful friendships.

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Friendships are fun, but they can also be complicated, and they often involve dealing with difficult feelings. It’s common for kids to feel:

• anxious around friends they don’t know well,

• angry or hurt about something a friend said or did,

• sad, lonely, or jealous when a friend spends time with someone else.
   

Learning how to deal with feelings about friends helps kids make and keep strong friendships. It also helps them be a good friend. In Growing Feelings, the follow-up to their bestselling book, Growing Friendships, psychologist and children’s friendships expert Dr. Eileen Kennedy-Moore and parenting and health writer Christine McLaughlin teach kids healthy ways to cope with and communicate about the full range of feelings involving friends and other children.

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This funny and empowering guide offers kid-relatable cartoons, research-based coping strategies, and silly observations from a cat and dog who have their own (questionable) ideas about what might help.

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Growing Feelings shows how all emotions — even the painful ones — can be useful in navigating the emotional roller-coaster of childhood friendships. This book goes far beyond a simplistic and unrealistic “don’t worry, be happy, think positive only” approach. It equips kids with real, practical answers to understanding and dealing with their feelings about friends that they can use throughout their childhood and beyond.