Permission to Feel
Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive
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4.6 • 50 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The mental well-being of children and adults is shockingly poor. Marc Brackett, author of Permission to Feel, knows why. And he knows what we can do.
"We have a crisis on our hands, and its victims are our children."
Marc Brackett is a professor in Yale University’s Child Study Center and founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. In his 25 years as an emotion scientist, he has developed a remarkably effective plan to improve the lives of children and adults – a blueprint for understanding our emotions and using them wisely so that they help, rather than hinder, our success and well-being. The core of his approach is a legacy from his childhood, from an astute uncle who gave him permission to feel. He was the first adult who managed to see Marc, listen to him, and recognize the suffering, bullying, and abuse he’d endured. And that was the beginning of Marc’s awareness that what he was going through was temporary. He wasn’t alone, he wasn’t stuck on a timeline, and he wasn’t “wrong” to feel scared, isolated, and angry. Now, best of all, he could do something about it.
In the decades since, Marc has led large research teams and raised tens of millions of dollars to investigate the roots of emotional well-being. His prescription for healthy children (and their parents, teachers, and schools) is a system called RULER, a high-impact and fast-effect approach to understanding and mastering emotions that has already transformed the thousands of schools that have adopted it. RULER has been proven to reduce stress and burnout, improve school climate, and enhance academic achievement. This book is the culmination of Marc’s development of RULER and his way to share the strategies and skills with readers around the world. It is tested, and it works.
This book combines rigor, science, passion and inspiration in equal parts. Too many children and adults are suffering; they are ashamed of their feelings and emotionally unskilled, but they don’t have to be. Marc Brackett’s life mission is to reverse this course, and this book can show you how.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Brackett (Creating Emotionally Literate Classrooms), founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a professor at the Yale Child Study Center, examines how acknowledging one's emotions can create confidence and promote mental health in this provocative, accessible work. Brackett uses his own life story he was bullied and sexually molested as a child to demonstrate the toxicity of repression and how the openness and attention of his uncle eventually gave him "permission to feel" again. With a primary focus on helping adults teach children emotional intelligence, Brackett encourages readers to accept and evaluate their emotions (both positive and negative). He then explains his "RULER" technique recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing, and regulating emotion and recommends adults teach these steps to children as a means for dealing with stress or trauma. He emphasizes that stress can negatively impede a child's creativity and memory and encourages negative behaviors such as poor diet and, eventually, smoking. While Brackett focuses on educational and child-based applications for his methods, his wise principles can easily be applied to adult situations as well. Readers looking for strategies for responding to stress, particularly in children, will find much guidance in this cogent, welcoming work.)
