What Color is Your Day?

The Moffles love connecting colours with emotions & body feelings & here is another beautiful picture book to help you do just that. There is a tender opening question to help us pause & reflect – what colour is your day, my love? – & an expression of unconditional positive regard – whatever you feel is beautiful, because it is you. The rhyming words & drifting, swirling shapes of the watercolour illustrations create a sense that emotions are layered, nuanced & constantly changing. We can watch them come & go, like clouds passing across the sun. This is a book that approaches our inner world in a gentle way, encouraging children to become curious about how they feel.

So many traumatised children have learned to lock their feelings away – in their heads or their hearts. In family therapy, we create stories to help make sense of why this might have happened. Often a child discovers that they found lots of ways to keep themself safe when they had no-one else to do this for them. They learned to feel nothing. We explore how this was very resourceful, when to feel emotions would have been so sad and scary and painful. Then we think about whether it is still helpful to them now. In their own time, we can find ways to practice opening to feelings again, so that their world can become more joyful & colourful.

In What Color is Your Day? we see the colours changing meaning in different situations – blue can be like a wilted flower or like calmness; green can be like envy or quite fresh. Feelings can be complex & that’s ok, too. There is an invitation to check-in with your colours at the beginning & end of each day – great for encouraging self-reflection & making sense of experiences. The gentle curiosity & ideas in the text & the engaging animal illustrations can encourage conversation, drawing or journaling, depending on the age & ability of your child.

We hear that when we’re ready, the choice is ours to feel a new colour or hue. A reminder that whilst all emotions are valid & welcomed, we can observe them & we can influence them, with our thoughts & actions. A powerful message to help build resiliency in little hearts & minds.