A guide to talking about the movie with your kids.
Inside Out is a powerful story, and it is just the start. When you can know what you truly feel, respect it, and express it – your communication and relationships deepen. The emotional impact of the movie takes time to process, but when your family is ready to talk, this is an amazing opportunity to bring the message of this movie – there are no such things as bad feelings – into your family life.
If you only have time for one conversation, ask the first question and begin to exchange stories. Our studies show that parents are the number one influencer of girls all the way through high school, so you are more powerful than Pixar when it comes to giving her permission to connect with sadness, fear, joy and all the emotions in between.
If you only have time for one question:
Q: Like Riley, have you ever experienced something that made you feel sad, or hurt, but it also allowed you to take action, or make a change?
This is a question to both share and listen. Without over-sharing something you might be in the middle of right now, see if you can recall a moment in your life when a difficult emotion, such as one in the sadness family, give you the information that you needed to make a change or a choice. While Inside Out shows us that no feelings are better than other feelings, that is not the message that most of us send to our kids every day.
Start Building Your Emotional Intelligence Here…
Q: When fear is in charge at your “Headquarters,” how can you tell if that is a healthy fear that you should listen to because something is dangerous, versus just something new that would be good to try?
There isn’t a hard and fast rule to guide us when facing fear. The important thing to realize is that fear can be helpful, and keep us safe, and fear can also be too helpful, and keep us from pushing the limits of our comfort zone. Now that we can visualize fear as a long purple guy with a big nose, it might be easier to decide if we want him driving the controls at any given moment.
Q: When we go through hard times, most of us, like Riley, have emotions that are harder to connect with or share. When Riley’s joy and sadness got lost, disgust and anger were easier for her to express. When you’re upset, what is at your control panel? What might get lost and hard to find?
There is no universal guide to what people show and what people hide. Everybody is different, and it comes from a mix of our innate temperament, and the culture in which we grow up. Some cultures embrace anger as a part of daily life, and others try to lose it in the stacks of long-term memory. It’s important to own the impact of your culture and temperament so that you can better understand yourself, and therefore other people who might be different.
Q: Do you think girls and boys get different messages about which emotions are supposed to be driving the control panel? If yes, what’s the impact?
In some cultures, there are strong rules about gender and culture, and in other cultures gender expectations aren’t as defined. In our mainstream culture, girls are often taught to be happy, and anger is seen as unattractive. Boys, on the other hand, have far more permission to be angry, but could be socially punished for expressing sadness. Both of these expectations make it hard to develop skills for expressing all of the emotions and can lead to habits where we are ashamed to reveal what we really feel, and therefore ashamed of ourselves. When this happens it is impossible to know and get what you really need to feel better.
Q: Why does it matter that Pixar made a movie starring a girl?
While girls are 50% of the population, they are only 25% of characters in kids’ media. To have a movie starring a girl is significant, to have one starring a girl who isn’t a princess, or valued for her looks is radical (not because anything is wrong with princesses, they can be cool, depends on the princess). When princesses dominate, it doesn’t feel like there much choice in how to be a girl.
It was really hard for Riley to move, make new friends, and join a new hockey team. Losing touch with her feelings during that time made it ever harder – she lost touch with her personality, and people that cared about her. Reconnecting to those feelings, no matter how hard they were, gave her the information that she needed her parents, needed to play her favorite sport and reconnect with friends. Because feelings tell us where we are, they point us where we need to go.
Read our #HowDoYouFeel #InsideOut Twitter conversation
How Challenging Emotions Can Empower Action and Positive Change
Comments 22
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Enzian
Great questions, but the typos are atrocious ! “Staring” instead of starRing (3x in one paragraph, really?!), ‘loosing’ (ILO losing) anger, therefor(E) , suppose(D)…and that’s just the first read. I respect and agree with the content. As a journalist and with the current availability of těchnological aids, however (I mean come on… Spellcheck has been around for over a quarter century!!) these types of errors are truly frustrating. We all need to start taking more pride in the quality of our work, not just the creation of it. That said… Thank you for the content. Wish there were more such discussion materials for media targeted at children (and if my phone autocorrects words poorly, don’t think me hypocritical, I have a Czech keyboard ať present…) 🙂
Dorothy Ponton, Community Engagement Manager
Hi Enzian,
Thank you for your comment. I’ve updated the post to including the correct spelling of starred, therefore, and supposed. I can’t seem to find ‘loosing’ anywhere, so if you could point me to the paragraph, that would be helpful. I’m bummed that I missed those typos. Being afraid of making mistakes and doing it anyway is what we’re all about, so I can’t guarantee it will be perfect next time either. Feel free to give updates if you see typos we missed.
Our in-person programming is targeted at children, since we believe they learn best by playing games, experiencing lessons in action, and watching their parents practice the skills at the same time. Check here to see if there’s a Parent Daughter workshop coming this Fall to your area.
Thanks, and good luck with your keyboard: it sounds contagious!
Enzian
True.
The word is in the sentences starting with “Some cultures embrace anger…”
Lastly, your point about shame in showing emotion is so valuable, and not just for boys. We are taught to associate emotional with dramatic or immature, when it could be such a valuable tool for authenticity and progress instead. Thank you again for this great post.
Chuck Wolfe
This is a lovely example of how to help children learn more about managing their own emotions. I like the idea of creating a guide for parents to use with their children. I plan to talk about your guide on my radio show “The Emotion Roadmap: Take the Wheel and Control How You Feel” tomorrow. For anyone who would like to listen the show is on 89.5 FM in Bridgeport, CT or streaming on http://www.wpkn.org from 12 – 1 PM Eastern Time. Here is a link to information about my show http://www.cjwolfe.com/Radio.pdf
Thank you again for publicizing this idea for a discussion guide!
Janine Halloran
I’ve got tickets for tomorrow night. My family and I can’t wait to see it. I’m thrilled to see how I can use this movie when I’m working with my clients on understanding and coping with their emotions and to spark conversations with my own children. Thanks so much for this guide!
Dorothy Ponton, Community Engagement Manager
You’re very welcome! Would love to know the impact after the movie.
Jan
I was very distressed that this movie, about an adolescent girl, showed “sadness” as fat, reinforcing more body stereotypes for girls. This was concerning for me and actually overshadowed some of the more important messages.
Dorothy Ponton, Community Engagement Manager
Hi Jan,
Yup. Totally thought that seeing the previews. I really liked the discussion over at the Pigtail Pals community regarding Joy being skinny, and Sadness being fat. Ex: “Right, but had Joy been round then we’d be complaining about the “jolly fat” stereotype. Sometimes you just can’t win for trying.”
Another parent said her daughter saw Joy as wearing something twirly and happy, whereas she identified with wanting to wear a bulky sweater when she is sad. That makes me think kids will see this from a tactile experience as well.
Sarah
Heading to the movies to see Inside Out this coming Monday with my soon to be 8 year old daughter. Before I even knew of this movie my daughter and I have been, and continue to be, struggleing with her father, my husband who is emotionally and mentally abusive. I want very much for my daughter to have a voice and to be comfortable in expressing her feelings, especially knowing her dad and I may be heading towards a divorce. From what it sounds like, this movie Inside Out may help us both .
Dorothy Ponton, Community Engagement Manager
Hi Sarah, sorry to hear you’re struggling. That’s tough stuff, at any age, and especially nearly 8. If a movie helps talk about things, that’s great. Please consider some extra support for yourself too.
Hugs.
Lmbo
This is a joke right? Why does someone always have to make a movie out to be some political / social alternative meaning. Just watch the movie and enjoy it for what it is. ENTERTAINMENT. You are a joke. If it takes a Pixar movie to get you to talk to your child about their emotions then you failed at parenting a long time ago. This is what is wrong with our world people LOOKING to make issues out of things that aren’t there. I recently read a review about how old fashioned the new jurassic park is because the main woman started out as a no nonsense business oriented strong woman and ended as a compassionate, loving woman who wanted to have a family. Why is either portrayed image wrong. Some women are strong business minded no family wanting hard heads, others want to focus on family with jobs second. Stop analyzing every little thing and just watch the movie. I’m so sick of the god damn P.C. police stirring the pot.
IMS
Have you seen the movie? Because it’s not about making it political. The movie is extremely emotional and makes kids curious about emotions. I can’t imagine anyone watching the movie and not having feelings and questions about what they’re feeling.
Teen Wise Seattle
This is not about being PC. This is about being an emotionally intelligent society and raising our kids to be aware of their feelings. Very important.
Dorothy Ponton, Community Engagement Manager
Hi Lmbo, and thanks for your comment. It sparked some discussion here! It is surprising to be called a joke, or to have the discussion guide labeled political. Helping parents talk to their kids about feelings is pretty much our jam, 365 days a year.
While I haven’t seen Jurassic World yet, it does sound super frustrating to have a woman’s choices judged, whether she focuses on family or career.
Totally not joking.
gypsy
lmbo, I completely get where you’re coming from. And, I’m a social worker and work with kids and families every day and agree with you about society needlessly picking apart and analyzing every freaking little thing. But I have to say, I think this movie is worth the talk. I’m in my 40s, no kids and my husband and I went to see it last weekend with friends and their young daughter. I found that the movie made something that is normally so abstract (emotions/feelings) more concrete. The full impact was a little over our friend’s daughter’s head but an 8 year old I spoke to really seemed to get it. And I’m finding that even I’m making references (sometimes humorously) to it when needing to describe how I’m feeling about something.
Courtney
Thank you for this guide!!! We are a week away from moving our two children to another state and are so grateful for a kids friendly conversation starter for expressing the emotions we will all go through during the adjustment. I just hope we can all channel Riley and the lessons we learned when we need to!
Dorothy Ponton, Community Engagement Manager
Good luck on your move!
Debbie Johnson
Thank you for the great questions! This movie opens up an invaluable conversation about the importance of feelings. I hope every parent of young children will talk to their children about this movie!!
Dorothy Ponton, Community Engagement Manager
You are very welcome! We’re pretty excited about how many conversations this movie will spark.
Teia Jones
Thank you for this guide that creates conversation with their children. Many of us are on the way to the theaters this weekend to see this movie and no doubt, there will be questions about emotions that this guide will help parents get through. Thank you!
Dorothy Ponton, Community Engagement Manager
So glad you liked the guide, and have fun at the movies!