Giving the Gift of Memories Through Books with Megan Alms

On today's episode of the "Helping Families Be Happy" podcast, host Dr. Carla Marie Manly, a practicing clinical psychologist, Wellness advocate, and author based in Sonoma County, California talks to Megan Alms. She will be talking with us about her upcoming book Creature From the Woods.

 

Episode Highlights

• 01:44: Megan talks about her freelance journey and what motivated her to write a picture book.
• 03:00: Megan shares how her sister inspired her to write the book Creature From the Woods.
• 03:30: Megan shares how she gravitated toward being a big sister and being part of her imaginary world.
• 06:50: Megan's big message through her book is a focus on unconditional love. It's a fun little book to read and go through all the rhymes and act out all the motions.
• 07:58: The deer fawn taking timid steps was really this adult figure in Megan's life watching her take chances and take and learn these new things, and the owl was curious and wanted to learn new things.
• 09:06: The book talks about emotional intelligence and relationship building. Just reading through it can help bring back childhood memories.
• 10:57: Carla recalls her reading experience with her parents. She has memories of laughing; her parents used to read, and they tripped over their words a little bit and they would just laugh and laugh.
• 11:48: Megan talks about tenderness and wanting to cling to childhood moments.
• 13:29: Sometimes quietness gives you a chance to sit and think and commit to memories.
• 14:21: When we read to a child, we are giving that gift of tenderness to the child and to ourselves, says Meghan.
• 17:10: Meghan shares how knowing the characters of the kid's show brings them together as a family.
• 19:07: Reading together shows love in several different ways, all at the same time.

3 Key Points

1. As per Megan, her book is something that kids can look back on once they have grown up and seen various messages and fully understand.
2. Meghan explains how she focuses on unconditional love and helps readers to relive memories. 
3. For kids and for families, it is important to find those love languages, the things that make them feel loved, and know what things make them come alive because you don't have to have all the same hobbies. But there is something about genuinely caring about a passion or a way of loving each other.

Tweetable Quotes

• "I started getting all of these ideas for all of the different fun things that I enjoyed reading when I was that age and things that I wanted to share with my sister because at the time she was a toddler, and she loved pretending she loved to pretend to be different animals." - Megan Alms
• "Your parents created that piece of reading together from very early on in your life." - Carla Marie

Resources Mentioned

• Helping Families be Happy Podcast Apple
• Megan Alms: Instagram Website
• Familius: Instagram Facebook Shop
• Podcast Editing