For children, often play and sometimes challenging behaviours are an expression of feelings. Rarely will children come home from a hard day and tell you exactly what happened.

More often, children will show you how they are feeling through play or behaviours that can sometimes be challenging. Also, the feelings being expressed may not be what you think they are. What I mean by this, is sometimes what appears to be anger, may actually be guilt, shame, embarrassment, or some other feeling that may be more difficult to express to others. In my experience, anger is more normalized. I see more people in movies, in public, in my work, and in my life show anger than I have seen people share feelings of embarrassment. It can be hard to express these possibly vulnerable feelings.

One of the best metaphors I’ve heard, that I will never forget, is that feelings can…