For the Kids Who Feel Everything
I slammed a sliding door off its hinges once.
More than once if I'm honest.
Because my brother wouldn't help me with my homework the way I wanted to be helped. Or because there was no food in the house, which in hindsight there absolutely was food in the house. I was just cranky. But the feeling was real even when the reason wasn't quite right.
I felt things deeply as a kid. Still do. And I didn't always have the logic to go with it. The logic came later, slowly, with age and a lot of practice. But the feelings were always there first, big and loud and completely in charge.
I see it in my kids too. Sorry kids...
And I see it in the school yard. In mum friends talking about their days. In boardrooms where I spent a lot of years watching what people did with their feelings when they thought nobody was looking. Reading the emotion in a room, knowing when to speak, when to wait, when to completely change direction, turned out to be one of the most valuable things I ever learned to do.
I didn't learn it from a book. I learned it because I felt things first and had to figure out what to do with that.
That's what I want for my kids. Not to stop feeling. Not to be less. Just to have some pictures and some words so we can talk about it.
That's why the Little Lightkeepers exist.
Not to fix anything. Not to teach children how to feel or tell parents how to respond. Just to sit in the feelings with little ones and say, I see this. This is real. You are not too much.
These are the characters we built for the kids who feel everything.
For the one whose feelings arrive like a storm - Chloe the Cloud
Chloe is not a fairy in a dress. She is a cloud with a face, fluffy and white and completely full of weather. When her feelings arrive they arrive all at once and sometimes things get knocked over.
She is not mean. She is just honest.
And she always laughs at the end. The storm passes and she is still there and the fairies still want her at the table for board games and warm fairy fizz. That is Chloe's whole emotional truth. You can be the storm AND still be welcomed in after.
For the child whose feelings arrive fast and big and leave a mess. For the parent who loves that child completely and sometimes just needs reminding that the storm is not the whole story.
For the one who holds on too tight - Tilly
Tilly carries an invisible ribbon. It runs between her heart and the heart of whoever she loves. It doesn't break when someone walks away. It doesn't stretch too thin. It just holds.
She was made for the child who stands at the school gate and cannot let go. Who lies awake at sleepovers missing home. Who feels the distance between people as something physical, a pull in the chest that doesn't ease until everyone is back where they belong.
That child is not anxious in a way that needs fixing. They love deeply. That is not a problem. That is a superpower that will serve them their whole life if we help them learn to carry it.
For the one who is brave about most things but has one thing - Cookie
Cookie will get on any rollercoaster you put in front of her. She is also properly scared of spiders.
She sat down and had a cup of tea with one once because she believes in giving things a go. She still doesn't love them. And that is completely fine. Boundaries are important and so is giving things a go.
For the child who is fearless in most ways and then suddenly, unexpectedly, completely undone by the one thing. Cookie says, that doesn't cancel your courage. You can be brave AND have a thing. Both are true at the same time.
For the one who goes quiet - Rosie
Rosie is not the loudest or the fastest. She notices the sigh nobody else heard. She sits with you without needing to fix anything. She says: your light may be quiet but that doesn't mean it's not real.
For the child who internalises everything. Who says "I'm fine" when they are not fine. Who needs someone to sit close and not ask too many questions.
Rosie doesn't ask questions. She just stays.
For the one who wobbles - Marshmallow Clover
She tumbles when she tries to do cartwheels. She lands with milkshake on her chin. She is completely unbothered by both of these things.
For the child who tries so hard to get everything right that the trying becomes the heaviest thing they carry. Marshmallow Clover is the permission slip. Not to stop trying. Just to be okay when it doesn't go perfectly. Which is most of the time. For all of us.
For the one who feels too small to be heard - Hazelnut
She is the smallest fairy in Twinkleblossom Wood. She is also the loudest. Not in volume, in presence. She stands with her feet planted and her arms wide and she takes up exactly the space she is entitled to.
For the child who feels overlooked. Who has something to say and can't get anyone to listen. Hazelnut says, your size has nothing to do with your power.
These characters came from real children. From watching my own kids navigate the world. From school yards and dinner tables and the back seat of the car where some of the most important conversations happen when nobody is making eye contact.
I am not a therapist. I am not a teacher. I am someone who feels things deeply and spent a long time learning what to do with that, and who wants the children in her life to have a slightly easier time of it than I did.
The Little Lightkeepers are not a curriculum. They are not a program. They are just pictures and words for feelings that are real and that deserve to be named.
You don't have to fix the feeling. You just have to sit in it with them.
The fairies will help.
Tilly is part of the Little Lightkeepers, a world of fairy characters available as books, plush companions, songs, and stories. Each one was made for a real feeling.