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Meet the authors of ‘Bottled’ Tom and Jo Brassington
When we were looking at putting together our March well-being themed newsletter, we thought who better to share their story than the authors and creators of the book Bottled. Here they tell us about their beliefs and experiences which led them to creating the text and resource:
We believe that all classrooms, and all schools, should be emotionally honest spaces. Spaces where every child and young person is encouraged to express their emotions in an honest way, certain that it’s safe for them to do so. Our book, Bottled, was created for this purpose.
We are Tom and Jo Brassington – siblings, both primary school teachers, and the co-creators of Bottled book. Five years ago, we were both at the beginning of our teaching careers. We would regularly ring each other for support, to discuss ideas, and to share what we were seeing in our individual classrooms. Before long, we noticed a common thread. In every classroom we worked in, we saw children struggling to access learning because they were overwhelmed by their emotions. Whether it was anger spilling over from an argument at break time, frustration at a mistake made, or sadness carried into school from home the inability to discuss and navigate emotions was limiting children.
Together, we both started to explore ways to support children to begin talking honestly about their emotions. We tried to provide them with the language to do so, the skills required, and the opportunity to practise. Quickly, we realised that one of the best ways to build empathy, and to provide children with the opportunity to practice emotional regulation, was through picture books. Picture books are magical. They are a window into other worlds. They allow children to rehearse empathy, and to step into the experiences of the characters they read about. Sometimes this mirrors their own experiences, other times it helps them to understand experiences that aren’t their own. Either way, through exploring the emotional experiences of characters in a book, children can rehearse empathy and emotional regulation when they aren’t overwhelmed by the emotion themselves.
Working together, we began to build our own empathy libraries in our classroom book corners: a collection of books which could be used to introduce, unpick, and discuss a variety of emotions that we saw our children struggle to understand. Over time, we were beginning to see real changes in individual children, and in our classrooms. Our children were becoming emotionally honest, and our classrooms emotionally honest spaces. There are so many fantastic children’s picture books which allow you to explore a variety of different emotional experiences by empathising with their characters.
