Book Review: Everyone Feels Angry Sometimes

 This is a book review of Everyone Feels Angry Sometimes by Dr. Daniela Owen.

In this new series I hope to give parents honest reviews of books, movies and tv shows that we have consumed as a family. 

Last spring while working as house parents in Atlanta we found ourselves in the midst of a dilemma. One of our young men, though only six years old at the time, had great big emotions and an even bigger temper when he didn't know how to properly get those emotions out. 

After many heated days filled with frustrations and after prayers about what we could do in addition to the therapy he was receiving I came across this little book on Amazon by Dr. Daniela Owen and immediately ordered it.

I loved the illustrations by Gulce Baycik of the sweet little doe-eyed children who seemingly went from precious angels to, well let's just say the opposite of angels, in a matter of minutes. Much like my own precious little one I was dealing with!

But more than that I loved how well this book explained what anger is in a way that a child can not only understand but also learn how to deal with.

Owen does a great job of describing how anger feels inside our bodies and how we can begin to identify it before it is too late! 

But sometimes even when we know anger is coming it is hard to stop it.

I love how Owen describes this feeling as a volcano! Our young man we were working with loved this, too and it really seemed to resonate with him. 

Perhaps my favorite part of the book, however, was the easy and practical ways that Owen describes step by step how you can deal with the emotion of anger, slowing it down and keeping it from erupting. 

While this book did not magically solve all our problems for the sweet boy in our home with big emotions, it was a very useful tool for us. Even at his young age we were able to have some good conversations about the emotion of anger using this book to help guide those conversations. This book helped us, as parents, explain why he was feeling the things he was and it helped us encourage him to handle these emotions better. At one point, after we had already read this book together, and while dealing with a future anger episode, he even stopped and asked to read the book again, walking himself through the steps to calm down! If that is not a testimony to how this book helps kids recognize better how to self regulate I  don't know what is!

This book makes no false claims to be a cure all and as with anything of this nature it should only be used in addition to proper therapies, trauma informed parenting and gentle, loving techniques that foster an understanding of issues that the child is facing. 

But it really did seem to help us in our anger management journey with our little guy and hopefully it could help your family as well. 

Find this book on Amazon here