How Books Help Us Bridge the Communication Gap Between Parents, Caregivers, and Children
- Natalie Cooney
- 3 days ago
- 10 min read
As parents and caregivers, yearning to understand the inner worlds of our children, like their fears, joys, and the feelings or struggles they don’t always have words for, is just part of the gig.
But sometimes, no matter how open our hearts are, there’s a gap between what experiences we’ve had, how we relate to ourselves, and what we expect from our little ones.
Our own emotional intelligence as parents and caregivers directly impacts how we relate to the gamut of experiences that are all normal and healthy parts of an emotionally, socially, sexually, and securely attached developing person.
Our little (or big teenage) ones are learning from us, watching and experiencing how we relate to ourselves, them, and the world of emotions, relationships, and the body.
This space of misalignment is where stories can become a very useful tool. Books can act as a bridge, like a third neutral voice that holds the feelings, questions, and experiences we all struggle to express. This can create enough room and trust for vulnerability and mutual understanding.
As Integrative Marriage and Family Therapists, we help people explore their inner worlds and how it impacts their relationships with others. We inherently consider how internal and external systems of feedback impact us. The parents’ own feedback loops within themselves and the world around them has a direct impact on their children.
Reading and resourcing are excellent ways to heal and work on expanding our emotional intelligence. Working with your own inner child in a compassionate and secure way can help you and your kids thrive, because, in turn, you are then able to hold them in a container that is:
Reflective and non-judgmental
Secure and non-reactive
Open and curious in response to their experience in this world
These qualities are found to increase secure attachment and thus help your child be a productive member of our world, with less chronic pain, traumatic vulnerability, and more resilience!
Whether it’s a picture book about what feelings and sensations are, a graphic novel about grief, or a thoughtful guide to help you and your child through conversations on sexuality and body boundaries, literature has a way of speaking for us, and to us, when direct conversation feels too activating and unstructured.
Why Stories Work: The Power of a “Third Voice”
When we read with our kids (or even talk about what they’re reading), something subtle but powerful happens: the story becomes a third voice in the room.
This voice takes the pressure off both parent and child. Instead of asking a child directly, “Why did you do that?” or “Are you feeling sad?” — we can wonder together about a character:
“I wonder how she felt when her friend stopped talking to her?”
“What do you think he could do when he’s scared like that?”
Through that shared curiosity, kids start to project their own emotions onto the story — and before we know it, they’re speaking truths that might have felt too vulnerable in a direct conversation.
Children and teens respond beautifully to this kind of indirect dialogue. Stories allow them to stay emotionally safe while still being honest.
And for parents, these moments can feel like a window opening. Suddenly, the walls come down — and understanding comes in.
When Kids Have Experienced Something Big
Books can be especially meaningful when a child has been through something difficult, such as a loss, a move, bullying, divorce, or trauma.
When conversations are coming up short, it’s time for stories step in. Our little ones learn and experience through play and stories.
Reading about a character who’s experienced something similar helps kids and adults feel seen and less alone. It gives shape to confusing feelings and offers a roadmap for what sitting with and understanding these experiences might look like.
Even if the story doesn’t match their exact situation, it can still normalize the emotional truth underneath it: sadness, anger, fear, hope.
For parents, sharing these stories can be a gentle way to begin a conversation that might otherwise feel too painful or abstract. You might say:
“This part reminds me of what our family went through.”
“Have you ever felt the way a character’s name is feeling?”
When we name what’s hard, even through a character, we model courage, empathy, and the belief that feelings can be held and understood. Imagine you are nervous about how a loved one might respond to something like a boundary or a change in identity, and you see them respond very openly and kindly to a character going through something similar in a book or movie. This would settle nerves about sharing those vulnerable words with them.
How to Use Books to Support Connection
Here are a few simple ways parents and caregivers can use books to deepen communication:
1. Choose stories that match your child’s/teen’s world. Pick books that mirror your child’s age, challenges, and emotional landscape, not just their reading level.
2. Read together, even if they can read alone. Shared reading is a relational act. It builds safety, trust, and the habit of curiosity.
3. Ask open-ended questions. Instead of “Did you like it?” try “What part felt the most like real life to you?” or “What character do you think is most like you?”
4. Let silence do the talking. Sometimes, a quiet moment after reading says more than a dozen questions. Trust that your child is processing. You can even wait hours to reflect. For toddlers, bedtime is one of the best times to have a chat, as they are likely to be interested in pushing bedtime a little later.
5. Revisit stories often. The same book can mean something entirely new as your child grows, or as you do. It can be a great way to reflect on how time has passed since this book was in rotation.
Book Recommendations
🌱 For Children: To Help With Understanding Feelings and Experiences
Books in this section help younger kids explore their inner world and feelings, family changes, loss, friendship, and belonging. They often use metaphors, animals, or simple narratives to introduce complex ideas in accessible ways.
Naming and understanding big feelings & Identity
by Chandele Morris, Jeric Tan
by Gabi Garcia, Ying Hui Tan
by Allison Szczecinski M.Ed., Dean Gray
by Todd Par
by Becky Cummings, Zuzana Svobodova
by Kate Kissinger
by Natasha Anastasia Tarpley
Coping with change, loss, or trauma
by LeVar Burton, Susan Schaefer Bernardo
by Margaret M. Holmes, Cary Pillo
by Steve Herman
by Ali Redford, Kara Simpson
For Neurodivergent Kids
by Kathy Hoopmann
by Shaina Rudolph, Danielle Royer
by Kathy Hoopmann
by Kathy Hoopmann
Understanding Body Safety & Starting The Conversation
by Elizabeth Cole, Julia Kamenshikova
by Pattie Fitzgerald
by Lizzie DeYoung Charbonneau
by Jennifer Moore-Mallinos
🌿 For Teens: Identity, Growth, and Communication
Adolescence brings both emotional intensity and a deep need for autonomy. Stories that center authentic teen voices can validate their struggles while modeling self-reflection and resilience.
Gender, Identity, Puberty, and Self-Acceptance
by Mady G & Jules Zuckerberg
by Christian Hoeger and Kristen Lila
by Horne and Wilkenson
by Robie Harris
by Heather Corrine
For Healthy Sexual Development
by Joanna Cole
by Heather Corinne
🌸 For Parents: Education and Hard Conversations
Educational books can be some of the most valuable tools for families. They help parents find language for conversations that can feel awkward or overwhelming, and ensure kids receive accurate, shame-free information, as well as helping provide tools to ease transitions or difficult times with strategies backed by research.
Child Development & Trauma
by Peter A. Levine, Ph.D., Maggie Kline
by Clarke & Dawson
Whole-Brained Child
by Dan Siegal
No Drama Discipline
by Dan Siegal
Good Inside
by Dr. Becky
Calm and Compassionate Children
by Dermond
Sex Positive Education
by Melissa Pintor Canagey
Additional Resources
Calming Corner: Helping Littles Name & Process Feelings
by uoyien
by BEAWART
by Thought-Spot
Healthy Sexual Development & Internet Safety
by happermations
Why Kids and Teens Respond So Well
Children and teens are naturally imaginative; they thrive in the language of story. They learn through metaphor, picture, rhythm, and repetition.
When we meet them there, in a place of openness and feeling the endless possibilities of life, we speak their language.
Stories bypass the logical mind and go straight to the heart. That’s why reading about a dragon who’s afraid of the dark can sometimes teach courage better than a pep talk ever could.
Teens, too, are still attuned to story as a mirror. They crave examples of honesty, bravery, and belonging. Books give them permission to feel and to think, to hold complexity without judgment. And most importantly, to be seen as they want to see themselves.
When Parents Heal, Kids Feel It
The beautiful thing about reading, especially together, is that it invites everyone to slow down.
When a parent sits beside a child, turning pages with care, it says: I have time for you. You matter.
That attention and focus can be healing in itself.
And when adults engage with these same themes by revisiting children’s books or exploring their own emotional stories, something powerful shifts. Parents who can name and soothe their own feelings model that same skill for their kids.
This is especially important when it comes to topics like sexuality, body awareness, and consent, which often carry layers of unspoken shame.
As Dr. Noel Clark (2017) explains, sexual shame is a visceral feeling of humiliation and disgust toward one’s own body and identity as a sexual being, and a belief of being abnormal, inferior, or unworthy. This feeling can be deeply internalized, but it also shows up in relationships — quietly shaping trust, communication, and emotional or physical intimacy.
Sexual shame develops across the lifespan through interactions with others, as well as through cultural and societal messages. Over time, this creates a continuous feedback loop of self-criticism, uncertainty, and fear around one’s right to make decisions, even safety decisions, in sexual or relational encounters.
When parents and caregivers begin to recognize and heal these patterns within themselves, they free up more space for openness, curiosity, and non-judgmental communication with their children.
To best support parents and caregivers, it helps to:
Normalize shame triggers — Notice when discomfort arises and treat it with compassion, not judgment.
Provide tools to heal shame — Through therapy, education, and embodied self-awareness practices.
Share common sexual health and developmental knowledge — So conversations can be grounded in both care and accurate information.
Create ongoing, readily available support — Through those on the front lines: therapists, educators, clergy, medical professionals, coaches, and parent community leaders.
By bringing awareness to these layers of inherited shame, we give children a new model rooted in body trust, consent, and self-worth.
Being the Parent that Your Child Needs
Books don’t replace conversation; they open the door to it.
They give us shared language for what’s often invisible: feelings, fears, and hopes. They help us listen differently, not to fix, but to understand.
Whether you’re reading Goodnight Moon to a toddler or discussing a YA novel about friendship and loss with your teen, you’re doing something sacred. You’re saying: I want to know your inner world.
And in that space, you are tending to your relationship with your child.
If you have had a childhood experience that didn’t include a secure parent you may be invited through your child’s experience and your reactions to it, to heal yourself. Or you have a teen that would benefit from therapy, or you may want help learning to heal yourself and parent from a place of security and care.
Start Supporting Your Child or Teen With Relationship Therapy in San Diego, CA
We are here to help! At Compass Healing Project, we are a group of somatic relational therapists who work online in California and in-person in San Diego, CA. We specialize in healing the developmental gaps we received that create anxiety, grief, depression, post traumatic stress, and impacts us and those we love. We invite you to set up a discovery call to explore what your healing journey may be and how relationship therapy can help create deeper bonds. You are welcome here and we’d love to meet you! You can start your therapy journey with a caring therapist by following these simple steps:
Reach out today for a free discovery 20-minute consultation
Meet with a caring therapist
Start learning a shared language for your family to manage big emotions, identity, and more!
Other Services Offered with Compass Healing Project
At Compass Healing Project, we use a range of modalities to support various mental health needs. In addition to teen therapy, we also offer ketamine assisted therapy, EMDR, Clinical Sexology, and embodiment practices. Each is tailored to help with anxiety, depression, PTSD, grief, sexuality concerns, and relationship issues. We also offer intensive couples therapy and Hypnotherapy. To learn more about our services, visit our blog or connect with our therapists in California or Colorado.
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