Timing is everything when it comes to products and how they affect our lives. It’s old fashioned timing that drives our spotlight of Kimochis.
Our 8 year old daughter had come home from school crying because she had a 3rd grade substitute teacher that was mean to her. Tough day for the little one. We all have them. When she got home that afternoon, the initial struggle was that she didn’t know exactly how to articulate what she was feeling, so she didn’t talk at all. As a parent, that’s worst case scenario. You begin thinking “what’s really going on here”? Was that substitute teacher just mean or is there something else? Little is worse in this world than seeing your usually carefree child being truly sad and having trouble dealing with their emotions.
Now for the timing part. A plush toy called Kimochis had literally made its way into our house that day. By dinnertime, our 8 year old was feeling better and eating her dinner as we started unwrapping the Kimochis doll and learning what the toy was all about. On the surface Kimochis are fantastic plush dolls (Kimochi Hupptopus, Cloud, Bug and Cat) that aim to help kids learn to talk about feelings. The actual Kimochis (which means “feelings” in Japanese) are small pillows with printed-on feelings…happy, jealous, silly, etc. There is also a blank Kimochi and a washable pen so that kids can write their own feelings. Kids can stuff the dolls into the mouth and pockets of the dolls. The product is geared towards younger kids, so we assumed it would be our 3 and 2 year old daughters that interacted most with the product. Like any 8 year old, our daughter takes an interest in anything new and she started reading through the included Feel Guide and reading some of the descriptions to her younger sisters.They started passing the Kimochis around the dinner table. Our younger ones were having fun putting the little pillows in the mouth of the Kimochi Huggtopus. It was great seeing them discover what the toy had to offer.
Our 8 year old was starting to open up a bit, so like most parents (often with varying results) we took that opportunity to try and get a little more info about the school days’ sequence of events. Instead of talking right away, she took the blank Kimochi pillow, the washable pen and created her feeling. On the front she drew a face with an obvious grimace and on that back she wrote the word, “mad.” OK, now we’re getting somewhere! This lead into a game the girls made up on the fly where they selected one of the feelings on the small pillows and said “If you were [insert feeling here], what would you do to the Huggtopus”? If the feeling was silly, they would make a funny face for the plush doll. If the feeling was sad, they would frown for the doll, etc. This game got them laughing and talking as they became sillier and sillier. Again, as our 8 year old continued to open up through laughter, we looked for opportunities to engage.
Enjoying the momentum of their new game and the distraction of laughter, we asked our 8 year old to pretend the Huggtopus was her substitute teacher. Still laughing and having fun mind you, she punched the Huggtopus with her “mad” Kimochis pillow. Wow, OK, now we’re really getting somewhere! To be clear, we’re not encouraging violence against substitute teachers, but this lead to a quick conversation that uncovered the days events. Our 8 year old had been sad and mad because her sub got mad at her for something she did by accident. A good kid and a good student and she felt like the sub didn’t know her and pegged her as a class disruptor. She said the sub made her feel like a “bad kid”. We all know that feeling in a variety of different contexts.
Although the Kimochis may be geared towards the younger kids, it really helped our 3rd grader use play and laughter with her sisters to get to the bottom of her terrible day. The timing of this toy has made it a big time favorite in our house. For more information on Kimochis, visit their website.
