Emotional development in children is linked to school success and better mental health.
Teaching children about emotions is a big part of the early childhood centres’ day to day. Being very young, children do not understand the concept of something outside of themselves in the same way adults are expected to.
Ideally, children’s emotional levels should mature as they grow older, moving away from their ego-centric self as toddlers to sensitive, responsive and caring young children.
As educators, we should teach children how to:
Understand What They Feel
Children need to understand that the different emotions they feel are normal.
Label Their Emotions
Always label the child’s emotion when talking to him/her, having the word for what they feel gives the child power over their emotions. It can help both of you to think about his emotion and reaction to certain stimuli and reflect on why he/she reacted that way.
Accept Their Feelings
Never tell the children that it is not ok to feel a certain emotion or that an emotion is bad or good. Emotions are normal, they should be allowed to react to a stimuli and feel the emotion. Only with acceptance will they be able to understand what is happening to them.
Behave Accordingly and Act Proactively
Now that the child can label their feelings and they realise that it is normal, help them understand that they should learn how to handle their emotions and not let it get the better of them.
Give them strategies on how to control strong emotions like anger or even sadness.
To help children we can use incorporate some lessons about emotions early in the school year or even in the middle of the year when a disruptive behaviour emerges.
Books:
Glad Monster Sad Monster by Ed Emberly and Anne Miranda
This book might just be the perfect book for very young kids who love funny monsters.
Ed Emberly is also a Caldecott Medal- winning author and your children will surely love the illustrations inside.
My Many Coloured Days by Dr. Seuss
The children will love how words in the story rhyme – a trademark of Dr. Seuss!
Explore how you can express your feelings in colours.
Today I Feel Silly and Other Moods That Make My Day by Jamie Lee Curtis
American actress tried her hand at children’s books with “Today I Feel Silly and Other Moods that Make My Day.”
It is a fun read that encourages children to be themselves and to accept who they are no matter how silly they feel that day.
Story of My Feelings by Laurie Berkner
This book comes with a cd of the song with the same title.
It simply talks about the different feelings and appropriate ways to express them.
The Pout Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen
This book is a New York Times bestselling book that tells a story about a fish that is always glum and dreary.
He meets several other fishes along the way one day and realises that being glum and dreary is “not his destiny” after all.
When Sophie Gets Angry, Really, Really Angry by Molly Bang
Is a brave narrative of how a Sophie gets angry and how she deals with it. It sends a message to children (and aduts) that it is okay to feel angry.
This book is also awarded a Caldecott Medal.
Songs:
Aside from the traditional nursery rhyme, “If You’re Happy and You Know It,” there are new songs you can sing to your children:
If You’re Happy
Super Simple Songs gave this traditional song a new twist. Super Simple Songs are made by ESL teachers and their music and lyrics are usually catchy and fun.
Feeling Song for Babies and Kids by Zebra Nursery Rhyme gives example of situations when children might feel a certain emotion.
Feelings
Youtube video of Patty Shukla uses real people’s faces to teach about different emotions.
Dave Matthews and Grover Sings About Feelings from Sesame Street is a nice song sung by Dave Matthews with string instrument on the background setting the mood. The song tries to discover the words for feelings that they feel that day.
Feeling Sad and Blue by Storybots sings a song of being proactive even when you feel sad.
Emotion Puppets
Buy emotion puppets from you local stores or create puppets showing different emotions and make them available in your dramatic play centre.
Encourage children to play with their classmates and create scenarios when the puppets might feel a certain emotion.
Role Playing
Have role playing exercise with small groups of children to help them concretely see that other children (and even you) feel a certain emotion depending on the situation.
This can also help demonstrate to other children how they are socially expected to react or behave when certain situations arise.
Make sure the situations you have do not hold bias on different social issues or on a certain emotion.
For ideas on what to role play, you can use your children’s favourite stories or be inspired on daily occurrences in your children’s lives like snack time or even a trip to a toy store.
Expressing Feelings With Play Doh
Let children use clay to make the facial expressions on printed blank faces to show different emotions.
Emotion Mini Book
Create a mini book where the children will either draw or paste a picture of them showing 5 basic emotion: happy, sad, angry, surprised and scared.
Journal
Encourage children to keep a mini emotion journal. This does not need to be like a real diary but more of a daily log book of how they felt that day or on a certain situation.
You may enlist the help of the parents in completing the log everyday by asking the children about their day and encouraging the children to draw what they feel.
This activity does not only help the child learn about his/her emotion but it is also a great for parents to know this about their child. They may even make this into a bonding activity they can do until the child grows up into his/her teenage years.
STOP and THINK Sign
Make a classroom STOP sign that you can use to nonverbally signal children to stop and think of their emotion and their behaviour.
Teach STOP THINK ACT strategy to the children. When they feel a certain strong or negative emotion let them practice stopping to think about their emotion and finding better ways to behave or act.
Calm Down Basket /Corner
Set a small corner in the room where children can go to calm down when they are feeling too angry or even too excited.
In your corner you may have the following:
- a soft beanie chair where the child can comfortably sit
- a floor mat or carpet for those floor tantrum days
- an unbreakable mirror just in case you have a child who have a habit of throwing or punching things. The mirror can remind the child of his/her emotion.
- a book that may remind your child about emotions and behaviour
- a squeeze ball if your child needs to release some tension
- a small soft pillow if you have a screamer
- a stuff toy or doll to encourage your child to talk (even to a pretend friend) about his/her emotions
- calming music stored in a player with ear phones
- a calming down jar or sand timer
Teaching is more than just the ABCs and 1, 2, 3. In preschool classroom, teaching a child about emotions is as big as a deal as teaching algebra or concepts in Physics maybe.
Helping children to control their emotions and to act proactively may be draining at times but it is absolutely a great feeling to see them mature as the months progressed.
Special thanks to Pixabay for the main image.
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