What a Feeling
The learning materials from the start-up ‘Little Feels’ are a great way to train children’s emotions
“We are currently living in a type of mental health crisis,” says Mariette Herzog. “Every fourth child in German daycare centres exhibits signs of social-emotional developmental deficits. Twenty percent of all schoolchildren have mental health problems. Almost half of all later mental disorders begin before we turn 14 years old.” It doesn’t look any better when we get to adulthood. Mental health problems are often rooted in the fact that people are bad at dealing with emotions. Not facing them. Distracting themselves. Exercising excessively. Turning to drugs. However, avoidance and repression create a vicious circle.
“The root of the problem is to be found primarily in childhood,” says Herzog. “When children learn how to deal with emotions and self-reflection, it helps a lot.” To support this, she created “Little Feels”. Her aim is to give parents the tools they need to gradually familiarise their children with the topic of feelings. “We as adults often forget that children need to learn what feelings are and how they can deal with them,” says the psychologist. “This begins roughly at age two and is usually a pretty stressful time for parents.” But it’s also a very important time. Effectively managing one's own emotions is a crucial foundation for success in later stages of life, such as in school or work, as well as for fostering happy and fulfilling relationships.
“With Little Feels, we want to help children come of age with self-confidence, resilience, and happiness.” Animal characters symbolise various emotional challenges and how to deal with them. The giraffe, for example, stands for self-perception and self-worth. She stands out with her long neck. From her, children can learn that they are good the way they are. The bee and its strong community teach the little ones to ask for help. This is not always easy and sometimes laden with shame. And shame is not conducive to development.
“For the very small children, I use books to present the animal characters,” Herzog explains her concept further. “Reading aloud doesn’t just create important bonding moments, but it also builds a common vocabulary to speak about feelings.” It comes with a matching cuddly toy. “The children can use it to play and remember what they learned from the stories.” For children aged three to seven, digital media like apps and games replace the books in the set with the cuddly toy.
With a recently acquired grant from the Berlin Startup Scholarship, Herzog is now realising her ideas as part of the Adlershof Founder’s Lab. She designs the prototypes for the cuddly toys herself. The books, too, are her work. “Children’s books are my great passion,” she says. “I have written several stories and illustrated themselves.” She is now looking for like-minded people to conquer the market with. “We will start with an online shop and then expand into the product range of bookshops, toy shops, and drugstores,” she says. Learning materials for kindergartens and schools are to follow. “I will be truly happy when the characters have a permanent spot on television and support as many children as possible in their emotional development.”
Kai Dürfeld for Adlershof Journal