Addy’s Summer Adventure

"Addy's Summer Adventure: A Story of BIG and Small Feelings" is thoughtfully written by the authors of "Your Feelings Matter: A Story for Children Who Have Witnessed Domestic Violence". In that book, Tiffany and Amber normalized emotional responses, encouraged healthy conversations, and empowered children to overcome feelings regarding domestic violence. This inspired them to continue their vision: an ongoing message around the normalization of feelings.

In life, humans experience a lot of emotions that can be challenging to decipher. These emotions are largely impacted by personal experiences, culture, current environment, and traumatic experiences.Tiffany and Amber recognize the importance of an appropriate expression of self and have carefully incorporated a later version of the "Emotion Wheel" (originally developed by the late Robert Plutchik) to help visually group feelings. Emotions (happy, sad, angry, fearful, bad, and surprised) are represented by corresponding colors throughout the story.

With "Addy's Summer Adventure: A Story of BIG and Small Feelings", Tiffany and Amber hope to help adults assist children with increasing their feelings vocabulary. By doing so, children are given a voice becoming more emotionally intelligent, self-compassionate, and resilient.

Amber Holmes LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker for the state of NC. She was born in Charleston, SC and comes from a proud military family, including her husband, Ahmad, an ARMY veteran. Since early childhood, Amber can recall having a genuine empathy and understanding for how other people feel. Empathy, coupled with her natural ability to problem solve and advocate, guided her into the field of Social Work.

Through her journey, Amber continued to grow professionally and personally, leading her to become passionate about informed conversations centered around the self (self-discovery, self-awareness, self-compassion, etc.). She believes emotions and feelings are what makes us human, and its key for normalization to begin in childhood. As a first-time parent, she hopes to set a foundation of healthy emotional development for her son, Aiden. Her vision is for Addy's Summer Adventure: A Story of BIG and Small Feelings to serve as a learning tool during parent-child interactions that reassure children every feeling is normal and welcomed, therefore reinforcing healthy emotional responses.

Tiffany Sanders LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker for the state of North Carolina. Originally from Asheville, NC, Tiffany experienced many BIG (complex, intense, uncomfortable) and small (simple, easy, comfortable) feelings as a child. She remembers having BIG feelings of confusion, worry, and sadness about unexpected events and small feelings such as excitement, love, and curiosity about summer adventures. These feelings inspired Tiffany’s helping nature and her ultimate decision to be a Social Worker. 

As an adult, Tiffany has spent much of her social work career working in Charlotte, NC.  Having worked with children as a clinician, Tiffany is dedicated to helping her ‘littles’ identify feelings beyond “happy”, “sad”, “mad”, and “scared”. She recognizes the “gap” in children understanding the range and impact of emotions.  Her hope is that Addy’s Summer Adventure: A Story of BIG and Small Feelings will help children (and adults) connect the dots by identifying different ways to express feelings in an age appropriate manner.  More importantly, she hopes that children are reminded that all feelings, no matter how BIG or small, MATTER!