A Good Book

I get a lot of questions from parents about book recommendations for specific things their kids are going through.  Death of a pet, anxiety, sicknesses, crime, divorce, loss and grief issues, etc.  And there are lots of good books out there for each topic, but one book that I refer to time and again is A Terrible Thing Happened

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It's a story about a little raccoon where something 'terrible' happened.  The book doesn't mention anything specific, but you can talk to your child about what it might be, "I wonder if maybe he is being made fun of at school, etc.?" and fit it to something your child is going through.

It talks about how the raccoon gets tummy aches from it, or has bad dreams from it and then he talks to a lady about what happened and starts to feel better.  Now your child might not be in therapy or have a school counselor to talk to about things, but you can always talk about how telling someone about things always makes them feel better. That keeping things (feelings) inside can cause us to not feel good.

Of course kids can't always 'talk about' their feelings. Hence the whole play therapy thing and how children express themselves through play verses words. But you can encourage your child to draw their feelings, and to give their feelings a name 'I see you have been crying and that tells me you might be feeling sad.'

Overall it's a good book to have in your library for those times when things come up unexpectantly.