Emotions are Data
One of the most useful things my dad taught me was that emotions are not in the moral realm, they are in the same realm as color sensations or feelings of hot or cold: data about the world. My emotions are data about me, and the emotions of others are data about them, but they aren't "good" or "bad." This is such a useful perspective, because, frankly, with small kids you need all the information you can get.
There's not really a funny anecdote to illustrate this point, so I'll point to a blog entry that inspired me to write this entry.