In this month’s interview, Dr. Anna Huang, a co-founder of The Mindful Peach Co. (@mindfulpeach.co) shares about her budding company and first book, “I Want a Popsicle!”, which is being published after a successful Kickstarter campaign last month. Growing up as a child of immigrants from mainland China, Anna experienced firsthand the challenges of navigating emotions in an Asian American household. Now a mother and clinical psychologist, she’s on a mission to help Asian American families explore and understand feelings through bilingual storytelling. In this interview, we’ll talk about her journey, the inspiration behind her book, and her hopes for fostering emotional connections between generations.
Can you tell me a little about yourself, highlighting your background, key experiences, and what drives you professionally?
I have lived all over the United States. My parents immigrated from China and were both professors, so they took various research and teaching positions at universities all around the country. As a result, I was constantly adjusting to new cities and communities. One consistent place that my mom found support was within our local Asian American communities. I realized that so many of my Asian friends across the country struggled with similar things – they didn’t know how to express their feelings to their parents, and this often led to some serious mental health issues. When I got to college, I discovered the field of clinical psychology and knew that it would help me reach my goal of helping Asian American families to communicate better and provide more emotional support for one another. This goal brought me to California where I got my PhD in Clinical Psychology and now have my own practice seeing clients. I really enjoy working with Asian American clients and helping them better understand their own needs and how to get them met in healthy ways.
What was your favorite children’s book growing up, and why?
I was a total bookworm as a kid! Each week my mom brought me to the library, and I brought an empty backpack and stuffed it full of books (I got a lot of strange looks from the librarians when I would check out all 20 books of a series at one time). Looking back, I realized that reading was my coping. It gave me an escape from the rigors of school, and gave me something to do since my parents both worked full time. I read the entire Babysitter Club’s series as a young child. Later on I was more drawn to fantasy series as it felt like such a fun escape from my normal life. Harry Potter was, naturally, a staple. Though it seems like a cliche, I especially loved the Asian characters in each book (Claudia and Cho Chang), simply because there were so few Asian characters in the books I read. This is part of why I want my books to depict Asian American families and cultural references.
How did your experience growing up in a bilingual Asian American household influence your decision to create bilingual children's books?
My parent’s heart language is Mandarin, and I grew up speaking Mandarin with my extended family whenever I visited them in China. Although I hated my weekly Chinese school lessons (I mostly resented that it took a large chunk of each weekend), I was forced to attend through high school. By then, however, I realized the importance of being able to communicate with my extended family and what a gift it was to be bilingual. To my parent’s surprise, when I got to college I voluntarily signed up for MORE Chinese school classes and ended up getting a Minor in Chinese Language & Culture. Since my husband and I are second-generation Asian Americans and are not fully fluent in Mandarin, it was important to me to have as many resources as possible for my future children to get Mandarin exposure. I also know from my psychology training that there is a critical period of language learning in the first couple years of a child’s life. All of that led to our first creation being a bilingual children’s book to maximize all the learning that happens in this important life stage.
How did your background in clinical psychology shape the themes and approach of your book?
In my line of work, I spend a lot of time reflecting with my clients on the ways their parents failed to provide a safe space for their emotions. Most of my Asian American clients would say that their parents have little to no emotional intelligence, which I can relate to. Our parents were busy managing the hardships of immigrating to a new country, and most of them were not taught to value or express their emotions in healthy ways. When I thought about how I could best impact a larger group of people, it made sense to start from the beginning – from childhood. A children’s book that normalizes emotions and teaches coping skills can help both the adult reading it and the child listening to it!
How has becoming a parent influenced your perspective on children's literature and emotional education?
When I first got pregnant with my daughter, I was so excited to build a library for her. I did a lot of research into bilingual children’s books and emotion-focused children’s books. Though there is a greater awareness these days about the need to teach kids emotions (which I am so grateful for!), there were painfully few books that combined emotional education with bilingual tools. I also think there is still a big gap in children’s literature that features diverse children and families. I hope our books can help fill some of that gap.
Can you explain the importance of integrating emotional vocabulary into children's literature, especially for Asian American families?
My toddler loves to read books on repeat. She’s even memorized entire books because we have read them together so often. Books help children grow in their creativity, learn how to prepare for various situations, and expand their view of the world. A child’s daily story time is a wonderful way to incorporate the learning of emotional language. For Asian American parents who may not be well versed in emotional words, incorporating this learning in story time can help both parents and children grow.
How do you hope "I Want a Popsicle!" will impact Asian American families?
I hope this book fills a gap in children’s literature that combines bilingual resources and socio-emotional development. My husband and I also worked hard to ensure that our book is a realistic, relatable, and fun story to read. This is just the start of what will hopefully be many books that help Asian American parents grow in emotional intelligence and their ability to provide space for their children’s feelings.
What advice would you offer to parents who are struggling to introduce emotional vocabulary to their children?
My most important piece of advice is to be self-reflective! As parents, the more patience, emotional capacity, and self-awareness we have, the more of that we can provide to our children. Good parenting starts with knowing ourselves well! As we grow in our own comfort and ability to use emotional vocabulary, we will be better able to teach and pass that along to our children. I have a list of some of my favorite books and social media resources on my personal website.
How do you see The Mindful Peach Co. evolving in the future?
My husband and I are so excited about all that is to come! To start with, we would love to create a whole series around Eden and emotions. We also hope to create more books for various ages, and perhaps other resources like videos or workbooks. We are also open to collaborating with other Asian American psychologists and parents to provide other resources related to mental health in a variety of formats and languages.
Is there anything we haven't discussed that you'd like to share?
To all the parents that are even thinking about ways to help their children learn about feelings or coping skills – you’re already doing something powerful and important. I’m in the thick of this with you (my little three-nager is FULL of big feelings) and I’m excited to learn together with all of you.
Follow Dr. Anna Huang at @MindfulPeach.co on Instagram or visit her website at https://www.mindfulpeach.co/!
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