The Colour Monster

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As a group, we discussed the interesting allocation of colour to the different emotions. Children who are particularly struggling could simply assign themselves a colour for their feeling. However, I wonder how useful this colour allocation is, as some children might have a favourite colour associated with a negative emotion. Love the collage-y illustrations of this picture book, but the text has some troubling issues. While it is vital to teach children to identify their emotions, it is just as important to help them understand that it is normal to feel more than one single emotion at a time, even about the same thing/person/idea. furthermore, labeling emotions with specific colors doesn't work as a one-size-fits-all solution, since color is a very personal experience; people feel very differently about the same color. Telling children that blue is sadness will confuse children who experience blue as tranquility, or power, or curiosity, or any number of other emotions. This book goes so far as to tell children how to experience certain emotions:

Another thing that is just fantastic about this book is the use of metaphor. It compares anger to a fire you might want to stomp out, sadness to a rainy day, and calm like leaves swaying in the wind. If you are doing any sort of metaphor work with kids this is a GREAT book to get the wheels turning! Make a timetable that shows when Colour Monster took part in different activities at school. Can you think of some word problems based on this?Sometimes feelings get… all tangled up. This can be confusing and sometimes we need help untangling them and sorting them all out. Enter “ The Color Monster” by Anna Llenas! This book is AMAZING and as I talk about here and here bibliotherapy is such a wonderful practice that is so adaptable to provide as a therapeutic approach in all sorts of settings – office, in home, at school, and of course Tele-Play! At the start of the story, the Colour Monster is feeling confused. When have you felt confused? What did you do in this situation? What can we do when we feel confused in the future? This book is a wonderful story about a “Color Monster” who is full of mixed up colors and emotions. A little girl takes the monster by the hand and gently helps the Color Monster untangle and separate out all of these feelings and put them into jars.

The format of the book allows for a conversation with children about managing their feelings 'putting them into bottles' and discussing why they might be feeling a particular emotion.

The book also emphasizes being able to feel and honor whatever feeling comes up and tell us that it is OK to feel all of these feelings, it is okay to listen to our bodies, and it is okay to cry! So powerful, especially for young people who often get flooded and want to repress feelings. As a therapist I left the feeling words blank as to let client creativity lead the way (for older clients more feeling words and younger less) and not to have rigidity about what the feelings should be. Before reading the story, imagine what might happen. What do you already know about the Colour Monster from the original book?