Healing Feelings: A Healing Story for Children Coping With a Grownup's Mental Illness by Leslie Baker, M.A., MFT

24 p., Tate, 2010.

It can be confusing and upsetting when your parent, or another important adult, has a mental health problem. In this rhyming story, author and marriage and family therapist Leslie Baker demystifies adults' mental disorders. After reviewing feelings that are familiar to children, she explains that sometimes, adults' feelings don't work in the way they should, as a source of information that will "help our minds know where to guide us." She empathizes with children's sense of loss of the happy parent (or other adult) they once knew, and reassures kids that their adult will feel better again, with the help of therapists ("feeling healers") and physicians. Reading this story offers children understanding and hope in a painful situation.

More information about the book is available at The Healing Feelings Book.

Ages 3-8
Main character's cultural background: none
Cultural context: multicultural