Emotions are a big part of our lives, even when we’re just starting out in school. For children in Year 1 to Year 3, learning how to manage emotions can be both fun and incredibly beneficial for their future development. It helps them feel better, connect with others, and strive to do well in school. This guide will provide tips and activities to help young children understand and manage their feelings positively.
Why Understanding Emotions is Important
Understanding and managing emotions, also known as emotion regulation, is crucial for development and well-being during childhood and adolescence. Children who can manage their emotions are more likely to:
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- Express emotions appropriately, such as speaking calmly.
- Recover quickly after feeling strong emotions like disappointment or frustration.
- Control impulses and behave positively.
- Build better relationships, learn effectively, and become independent.
Your child’s ability to understand and manage emotions develops over time. When your child is young, they need help with understanding emotions. This mostly includes recognizing and naming emotions, which lays the groundwork for managing emotions as they grow older.
Fun Activities to Recognize and Name Emotions
Children develop their ability to recognize and name emotions through plenty of practice. It’s easier for children to practise through play, when they’re relaxed, or before their emotions get too intense. Here are some activities:
1. Emotion Cards: Create or print cards with faces showing different emotions (happy, sad, angry, scared, etc.). Use these cards to play matching games or storytelling activities. Ask children to pick a card, name the emotion and share a time they felt that way.
2. Feelings Chart: Make a daily feelings chart where children can place a sticker or draw a face that represents their mood each day. This visual tool helps them become aware of how they feel and recognize changes in emotions over time.
3. Emotion Charades: Write different emotions on slips of paper. Each child takes turns drawing a slip and acting out the emotion while others guess. This game helps children recognize and empathize with different emotions.
4. Story Time with Emotional Themes: Read books about emotions with your child, such as “The Way I Feel” by Janan Cain or “F is for Feelings” by Goldie Millar and Lisa A. Berger. Discuss the emotions characters in the stories might be experiencing. For example, you can ask your child “How is this person feeling? What do you think made them feel this way?”
Teaching Strategies to Manage Emotions
As children grow, they’ll learn more strategies to manage their emotions without help, as well as learning about strategies that do and don’t work for them in particular. Here are some simple strategies to try out at home:
1. Deep Breathing with Bubbles:
What You Need: Bubble solution and a wand.
How to Play: Teach children to take a deep breath and blow bubbles slowly. Explain that just like blowing bubbles, deep breaths can help us feel calm. Watch the bubbles float away and imagine worries floating away too.
2. Calm Down Corner:
What You Need: A small, cosy space with pillows, stuffed animals, and calming items like stress balls or fidget toys.
How to Use: Create a designated space where children can go when they feel overwhelmed. Teach them that it’s okay to take a break and use the calm down corner to relax and regain their composure. Sometimes they may want to use this corner to let out and feel all their emotions.
3. Calm-Down Jar:
What You Need: A jar with glitter and water.
How to Use: When shaken, the glitter swirls around, and as it settles, it can help a child visualize calming down. This is a great sensory tool for children to use when they need to calm themselves.
4. Simple Calming Techniques:
Teach your child to count to 10 slowly or take 5 deep breaths when they feel strong emotions. Suggest ways for them to react, like clapping their hands when excited, asking for a hug when sad, or squeezing a cushion hard when angry.
5. Emotional Toolkit:
Create a “calm-down jar” with activities like colouring, listening to music, playing with a favourite toy, or reading a book. This helps children have pre-set go-to activities to manage their emotions.
6. Talking to your child:
In some situations, it’s healthier for your child to both manage their strong emotions and work through them. Asking your child about how they are feeling and what they think has caused these feelings, and then addressing the root cause are all important ways of regulating emotions.
Building Empathy and Social Skills
Understanding and managing one’s own emotions is important, but so is understanding others’ feelings. Developing empathy and social skills helps children build positive relationships.
1. Emotion Puppets:
- What You Need: Puppets or socks and craft supplies.
- How to Play: Create emotion puppets and use them to act out different scenarios. Take a pause in the scenario to discuss how each puppet feels and why. This role-playing activity helps children understand different perspectives.
Adaptation: You can also use dolls or figurines, it’s easier for children to engage with understanding emotions in different people when they are interested in or invested in those individuals. So using characters that they already like can make this a more fun and engaging activity for them.
2. Compliment Chain:
- What You Need: Strips of paper and a stapler.
- How to Play: Start a chain where each child writes a compliment about another person on a strip of paper. Link the strips together to form a chain. Display the chain at home. This activity promotes positive interactions and kindness.
Teaching Problem-Solving Skills
When children feel strong emotions, these can interfere with and present challenges for daily activities. Knowing how to overcome these challenges can help children to manage their emotions more effectively.
1. Problem-Solving Steps:
What You Need: A poster with problem-solving steps mapped out (e.g., “Stop, Think, Plan, Do”).
How to Use: Teach children to follow these steps when they encounter a problem. Role-play different scenarios and practice working through the steps. This helps them approach challenges calmly and thoughtfully, and with a plan.
2. Brainstorming Solutions:
What You Need: Paper and markers.
How to Play: Present a common problem (e.g., feeling left out at school) and brainstorm possible solutions together (e.g. finding a new playmate, telling the teacher, doing an independent activity, writing down feelings during this time)Write down all ideas, no matter how silly they seem. This activity shows that there are multiple ways to solve a problem.
3. Understanding Triggers:
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- Help your child keep track of what triggers strong emotions. Use a diary to note what happened, how they felt, and what they did to manage these emotions. This helps them understand their emotions in a deeper way.
How can Educate Excellence help?
Here at Educate Excellence, we encourage children to express their emotions and we try to nurture safe and open environments so that each child is able to express themselves as clearly and well as possible. If you need help with this, please contact our PLOs who will be happy to provide advice where they can.
Managing emotions is an essential skill to exercise for young children as they grow and develop, and it can be learned in fun and engaging ways. By understanding their feelings, expressing them healthily, and developing strategies to cope with challenges, children can build a strong foundation for emotional well-being. Through activities like deep breathing with bubbles, emotion charades, and creating a calm-down corner, children can learn about working with both their own emotions and the emotions of other people. With a little creativity and patience, helping children manage their emotions can be an enjoyable and rewarding experience for both children and adults guiding them.
Remember, teaching children about emotions is a very gradual process that requires patience and consistency. There will be times when these approaches and activities work great and other times when they do not. But do not fret! The more they practise and encounter a range of situations and emotions, the better they’ll become at managing their emotions over time and navigating the social world around them.
