Moon’s Wisdom - a story for young children that helps develop feelings and needs literacy
Back in lockdown, an illustrator friend and I worked on a project to put watercolour pictures together with a short story I had written about a bear who wanted to play and how he came to discover that others had needs too thanks to Moon’s presence and being.
We did it for the sheer fun of working on a project together with no thought about what to do with the end result. Once it was nearly ready to be published, we realised that it could be a lovely story to help children learn to develop feelings and needs literacy and so we added a list of reflective questions an adult could ask to deepen the reader’s own connection to feelings and needs.
We then decided to a publish a small print run and we realised that we weren’t looking to make any profit ourselves so we are donating all profits to NVC Matters UK - a community interest company dedicated to helping people discover the benefits of and learn NVC.
There is more and more research showing just how important it is to help children articulate their feelings. Here is what Lisa Feldman Barrett has to say in her book How Emotions are Made
If you are a parent, you can help your children develop the skills to become emotionally intelligent. Speak to them about emotions as early as you can, elaborate on the feelings of storybook characters…even if you think they are too young to understand…This helps your children build a well-developed conceptual system for emotion...you are handing them tools to help them self-regulate, make meaning of their sensations, communicate how they feel and influence others more effectively.
And here is a taster of the book:
“Diiii” called Bear one early dusky morning. Dina Dog pricked up her ears, stretched and came bounding with joy to see Bear. As she bounded closer, she stopped in her tracks and looked at Bear. She senses that Bear was being unusually demanding this morning. Seconds later she found herself in Bear’s bath pan - FULL of cold water! She was extremely disgruntled. This was not what she had planned for her morning play……
If you have a young child that you would enjoy sharing this story with, you can purchase it here