Review: Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive

Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive by Marc Brackett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Earlier this year, I read Emotional Intelligence 2.0 and took the accompanying test, testing lower than I would have liked to. Reading Permission to Feel helped me understand that emotional intelligence is something that must be modeled and taught intentionally (so that explains a lot.)

I appreciate this book because it can be read from a lot of perspectives - for personal growth, as a parent, an educator, or just a human in the world. Brackett unpacks emotional intelligence in the first part of the book, then introduces a tool he likes to use. He uses RULER - Recognize, Understand, Label, Express, Regulate - and there are chapters on each of those skills. The final section addresses emotional intelligence in schools, homes, and work.

It was interesting to read the failures of his work - they started by trying to teach educators how to teach emotional intelligence but quickly discovered that the teachers themselves needed to be trained and improve their own first (as is often the case with most pedagogy!)

I read it from the perspective of working in higher education, but found more to reflect on for myself. Not too surprisingly, mindfulness is a component of both recognizing and regulating ones emotions, so I appreciated the connection to a practice I already have.

Thanks to the publisher for sending a copy my way. This came out September 3, 2019.

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