One of my favorite books is How to Talk So Kids Will Listen, and Listen So Kids Will Talk.

The main idea is to embrace and redirect.

If a kid asks for skittles before dinner, say, "I love skittles! I wish I could eat skittles all day.. but unfortunately they aren't nutritious, so we can't eat them before our dinner."

You might think "that's great advice for kids, but not for me, because I'm an adult."

But as many layers as we have around ourselves, accumulated over years of maturation, there is still a child-like core.

Kids are in some ways just very pure, very un-adulterated adults.

Even as mature adults, we all have emotions.

Have some compassion for yourself.

The worst thing to do is to try to box away your emotions and pretend you don't have them.

You definitely have them, and if you try to pretend they don't exist they will squeeze out in weird self-destructive places.

Don't let it control you, but don't pretend it doesn't exist either!

Ride the elephant.

Surf the wave.