You may have seen the many commercials for the newest Disney movie, "Inside Out" invading your televisions and just dismissed it as another kid flick. I admit I thought the same exact thing. However, this movie has done an amazing job at being relatable to adults as well as children.

In the movie, the young girl, Riley, is a genuinely happy person; her main emotion is joy with the other four emotions, fear, anger and disgust, being the partners in the emotional palette. There are many different hardships that come into Riley's life, and she is forced to deal with them in the ways that she can, even if the way she chooses isn't always the best. Watching Riley go through the hardships really brings attention to the way that the emotions work together to make her feel certain things.

Here are some ways that watching the movie can help explain what children are feeling:

Times of sudden sadness.
There are times where young kids are seemingly happy and playing with their friends when they are pulled down by sadness. A good way to explain this is by saying Joy is trying to make a good memory when Sadness comes in to turn the memory sad. She didn't mean it but sometimes it happens. It is okay to feel sadness but not to be plagued by it for too long. Joy is waiting right around the corner for her time to shine again!

Times of severe fear or anger.
As seen in the movie, Anger has his own way in the control room. He doesn't care what anyone else says, when he realizes he is angry, he REALLY shows it. A way to explain this to children would be that Anger pushes all the other emotions away and takes rein. But he definitely calms down when he realizes the anger isn't needed. He can be good in small doses only when really needed, but he is a little too intense at times. Fear, on the other hand, is a scaredy cat. He is definitely afraid of everything and wants to make sure that you are OK. He takes rein when there is a good reason to be frightened. He is there to protect you from getting hurt and he is really good at it.

Times of disgust or joy:.
In the movie, Disgust is depicted as the emotion that protects you from being socially awkward as well as protecting you from eating gross foods. Explanations for the emotion of Disgust could simply be that she is there to make sure that you don't eat anything gross or that you wear cute clothes to school. She can be a little harsh at some points, but you can dial that back a little bit, if needed. Sometimes it's good to have her though. Joy is just a very happy emotion. She loves to make people smile and laugh. She is just a very fun emotion to have. There are a lot of people who have her shine though most.

This movie can start conversations that might be hard with children or even teenagers that don't understand why, all of the sudden, they are sad or angry. Although these emotions have their own personalities, the child can ultimately try to control them if they are getting out of control and sometimes they need help, and that's okay. These emotions are there to express personality but they don't need to be the only thing that people focus on. The chart below can really help understand the personality overlaps with the separate emotions as well.

Christophe Haubursin/Vox

The depth of this film is surprising coming from a children's movie, but it can be a wonderful vehicle to understanding more about emotions and personality. Frankly it helped me understand my emotions a bit more as well.