Understanding Myself: A Kid's Guide to Intense Emotions and Strong Feelings

by Mary C. Lamia

Overview

Gold Medal Winner, Family Choice Awards

Understanding Myself will encourage kids to notice just what their emotions are telling them about themselves, their friends, and family.

Strong feelings and intense emotions are part of every pre-teens life. Understanding Myself is written especially for kids with intense emotions. This informative and practical guide will help kids know what do when their emotions get to be too much!

Understanding Myself is written especially for kids with intense emotions. Chock-full of cool psychology and info on emotions as well as real-life stories, useful quizzes, and fun facts, Understanding Myself will encourage kids to notice just what their emotions are telling them about themselves, their friends, and family. This informative and practical guide will help kids know what do when their emotions get to be too much!

Can you feel sad and happy at the same time?
Does anger really make you hot?
Are you likely to be envious?
Why is stuff so embarrassing?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781433808906
Publisher:	American Psychological Association
Publication date:	11/15/2010
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	6.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	8 - 13 Years

About the Author

Mary Lamia, PhD, is a psychologist and psychoanalyst who practices in Kentfield, California. She is also a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. Extending psychological knowledge to the public has been her endeavor for 30 years. For nearly a decade she hosted a weekly call-in talk show, "KidTalk With Dr. Mary," on Radio Disney stations, and her opinion has been sought in hundreds of television, radio, and print media interviews and discussions. She is the author of Understanding Myself and Emotions!: Making Sense of Your Feelings. Visit her at www.marylamia.com and follow her on Twitter: @DrLamia.

Table of Contents

Getting to Know Yourself

Part 1. Feeling Your Emotions
Chapter 1 The Science Behind Your Emotions
Chapter 2 Moods, Emotions, and Feelings
Part 2 Feeling Self-Conscious
Chapter 3 Embarrassment
Chapter 4 Guilt
Chapter 5 Shame
Chapter 6 Pride
Part 3 Feeling Threatened
Chapter 7 Anxiety
Chapter 8 Fear
Chapter 9 Disgust
Part 4 Feeling Gloomy
Chapter 10 Loneliness
Chapter 11 Sadness
Chapter 12 Grief
Part 5 Feeling Elated
Chapter 13 Excitement, Joy, and Happiness
Chapter 14 Love and Infatuation
Part 6 Feeling Stormy
Chapter 15 Anger
Chapter 16 Envy and Jealousy

Keep Learning About Yourself
About the Author

Editorial Reviews

Gold Medal Winner, Family Choice Awards

"An accessible, engaging book for kids and parents, Understanding Myself offers a basic education for families in understanding, managing and discussing strong emotions and feelings. Its tone is respectful as it clearly defines and clarifies 18 feelings, laying out a basic emotional vocabulary. Although its stated audience is youth eight to 13 years old who are experiencing strong emotions, the book's straight forward information makes it also appropriate and useful for older teens, as well as parents who are struggling to understand their children's and their own feelings."—California Society for Clinical Social Work

"Understanding Myself is right on target for what pre-teens and young teens want to know but are too often embarrassed to ask. This insightful and cleverly written guide is all about how to understand and handle key emotional conundrums. Dr. Lamia's language is perfect for them, and her background in helping kids better understand their emotions and gain confidence in themselves is exceptional."—Mardi J. Horowitz, MD, professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, president of the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, and author of A Course in Happiness and others

From the Publisher

Facile pop-psychology from a clinical psychologist with the credentials to know better. Assigning a chapter each to a select range of feelings—nearly all of them painful or negative ones, such as guilt, fear or anger, with but one shorter chapter allotted to the likes of love and joy—Lamia offers generalizations about what emotional responses look and feel like, typical circumstances that might cause them to arise and superficial insights ("Negative or worried thoughts spoil a good mood"). She also offers bland palliative suggestions ("Forgive yourself and move on"), self-quizzes, sound-bite comments in the margins from young people and, in colored boxes labeled "Psych Notes," relevant research abstracts from cited but hard-to-obtain professional sources. Aside from a mildly discouraging view of "Infatuation," she isn't judgmental or prescriptive, but her overview is so cursory that she skips the stages of grief, makes no distinction between disgust and contempt and barely takes notice of depression. Teens and preteens might come away slightly more self-aware, but they won't find either motivation or tools to help them cope with major upset.(Self-help)

Kirkus Reviews