by Kathy Eugster
May 1, 2024
There are so many reasons why parents and caregivers should teach their children about feelings and emotions. Children are not born knowing the names for all their feelings they will experience as they grow and parents and caregivers can play a very important role in helping their children develop a feelings or emotional vocabulary.
- Identifying and naming a feeling leads to understanding and managing that feeling which is important for a child’s ability to self-regulate.
- Helping children learn about and understand their feelings also gives them the tools to express themselves appropriately to others, which is a necessary social skill.
I use the words “feelings” and “emotions” interchangeably, and define them as natural states of mind that originate as sensations that we feel in our bodies. To be precise, emotions originate as sensations in our bodies, and feelings are influenced by our emotions but are generated from our thoughts. However, feelings are different than thoughts. Thoughts are what we think about or talk to ourselves about in our heads.
When children are first learning about feelings and emotions they will often start with the most basic, for example happy, sad, and angry. However, children do experience many complex feelings, just as adults do, and it is important to help children learn about these more complex feelings since children are not born with the ability to identify and label what they are feeling.
Many adults are unfamiliar with the variety of feelings that we commonly experience. Here is a list of fifteen of the most common comfortable and fifteen of the most common uncomfortable feelings that come up for children and that are important for them to know about.
Important Comfortable Feelings for Children
Happy Playful Satisfied Safe Relieved Grateful Relaxed Curious Excited Proud Confident Hopeful Powerful Brave Loving
Important Uncomfortable Feelings for Children
Sad Disappointed Bored Afraid Worried Surprised Confused Shy Angry Frustrated Jealous Disgusted Guilty Embarrassed Lonely
I urge you to become familiar with each of these feelings. You should be able to identify each of these feelings in yourself as they come up. The more familiar you are with these different feelings, the more you will be able to assist your child in learning them.
Identifying Your Child’s Feelings
One of the best ways to teach your child about feelings is by identifying and labeling out loud a variety of feelings you see coming up in your child, not just happy, sad, or angry.
- “I’m noticing you look very disappointed.”
- “It looks like you’re feeling curious.”
- “You look like you’re feeling confused.”
- “You’re disgusted with that!”
- “I see you are feeling relieved that you found your ball.”
- “That was scary for you.”
- “You’re feeling brave.”
- “It seems like you are feeling lonely”
- “You look like you’re feeling proud for building that fort.”
- “It looks like you might be feeling bored.”
- “I see you’re feeling excited about that!”
- “I can see you are feeling very loving towards your doll.”
- “You look like you feel worried right now.”
- “You look like you are feeling very relaxed.”
- “That surprised you!”
Throughout the day, watch your child and identify whatever feeling you see coming up in your child, then communicate this feeling to your child using a statement. Don’t ask your child how they are feeling. Watch your child’s face, body language, and behaviors. Children don’t often tell us directly how they are feeling. Use your empathic skills to come up with a feeling word that matches what they are expressing. Basically, you are putting a feeling word onto the feeling your child is experiencing.
Also, please go to the following Blog, Identifying Feelings: Giving Your Child a Feelings or Emotional Vocabulary In this Blog, I go over in more detail how parents and caregivers can identify their children’s feelings and I also provide some interesting visuals of feeling faces that may help you become more familiar with some important feelings for children (and adults too!).
Here’s something to think about:
In a play approach I call Child-Directed Playtime, one of the skills used during playtime is the Feelings Identification Skill. This is when the parent or caregiver watches the child at play and then identifies any feelings coming up in the play. The reason for doing this is to support the child in developing a good emotional or feelings vocabulary. In addition, the parent or caregiver is providing an environment of acceptance and understanding for the child. Please go to the following Blog: 6 Key Concepts for Child-Directed Play with Your 3-10 Year-old Child for more information on Child-Directed Playtime.
Additional Tips for Teaching Feelings and Emotions
Modeling Your Own Feelings
Another excellent way to teach your child about feelings is by modeling your own feelings. Children are very observant, especially around emotions. Tell your child when you are feeling a specific feeling and model what you want to see and hear from your child when they experience that feeling. Talk about your facial expressions and your body sensations as you experience your emotions. Let your child know it is normal to feel this way at times. Remember to model both comfortable and uncomfortable feelings.
- “Ughh! I’m feeling so frustrated that my computer keeps crashing! I feel my muscles are tense and I’m breathing faster! But, it’s normal to feel this way when things don’t go your way. I can try taking some deep, slow breaths to feel better.”
- “I’m feeling hopeful that I will be ready on time. I know what I need to do.”
- “I’m confused! I don’t understand how this works! Let me think, I need to dig out the instructions and remind myself how it works.”
- “Now I’m feeling very relaxed. Oh, it feels good all over my body. My muscles are nice and loose. I am taking some nice deep breaths”
- “Oh no! I wasn’t able to get a ticket! I’m so disappointed!”
To help your child learn to regulate their feelings, it is important for you to regulate your feelings first. This is called co-regulation and it is a very powerful way to support your child in learning to manage emotions. Please see the following Blog on regulating your own feelings to read about some interesting facts you may not be aware of: Surprising Things You May Not Know About Self-Regulation!
This is very important:
Parents should keep in mind that, although they can express their feelings, it is important that they do not seem frightening to their children. This is very disorienting and disturbing for children, since parents are meant to be a child’s source of safety and security. You also don’t want your child to feel they have to make you feel better. If you can acknowledge, accept, and manage appropriately whatever feeling is coming up for you, you are role-modeling a very healthy life skill for your child.
Identifying Feelings in Others
Direct your child to look at others’ faces, body language, and behaviors. Get your child to think about how others might be feeling. Do this not only for comfortable feelings, but for uncomfortable feelings as well. Describe the facial expressions and body language that fit for each feeling.
- “Look at her face. She looks like she is feeling surprised.”
- “She’s jumping around and laughing; I bet she feels very happy.”
- “I can see that man frowning. It looks like he might be feeling disappointed.”
- “He’s showing us what he made and it looks like he is feeling very proud and satisfied with what he did.”
- “That boy got very quiet and his mouth is turning down. It looks like he is feeling nervous.”
Here’s another tip:
When reading a story together, have your child identify how the characters in the story are feeling. Ask questions like, “How do you think that character is feeling?” and “How can you tell that character is feeling that way?” and “Can you make a face that shows that feeling?”
Sharing Your Feelings
Another way to teach your child about feelings is by sharing your own feelings and emotions. Pick a time to do this; mealtimes or bedtimes often work well. Tell your child about a situation that happened to you during the day that made you feel a particular emotion. Then, ask your child to share their experiences that make them feel either that same emotion or a different emotion.
- “Today I tripped and stumbled. I didn’t hurt myself, but I felt so embarrassed! Have you ever felt like that?”
- “A good thing that happened to me today was when the dentist told me my teeth were all healthy and I felt very relieved. What was something good that happened to you today?”
- “I felt so disgusted when I stepped in dog poop today! When do you feel disgusted?”
- “I felt very satisfied today when I finished that job for work. Tell me about a time when you felt satisfied.”
- “I felt a little bit shy when I met that new person today. When do you feel shy?”
Modeling Feelings Using Toys
Using puppets or toy characters, or pretending to be a character yourself, act out different situations and role-play or express different feelings through the toys.
- You make a puppet take away a toy from another puppet who then expresses sadness and says, “That was mine, now I’m sad and feel like crying!”
- You make a toy pirate get knocked off his boat and express anger by saying, “Okay, who did this, now I’m really mad!”
- You are pretending to be a cat that is being chased by a dog, “Oh no, help! I’m scared of the big dog!”
- You are pretending to be a doctor and you say, “Hmmm, I’m feeling very curious about your sore finger. Please show me where it hurts.”
Show Acceptance of Feelings
Normalize feelings and give permission for your child to feel a certain way.
- “It’s okay that you are feeling frightened, we all get scared at times.”
Empathize and let your child know you understand.
- “You are feeling really nervous. I can see how hard this is for you.”
If your child is misbehaving, set limits for the behavior but acknowledge the feeling. All feelings are okay, but not all behaviors are okay.
- “I can see you are very confused, but it’s not okay to hit.”
Encourage your child to use their feeling words to express themselves. Explain to your child that by telling others how they feel, others can understand them better.
- “Use your words to tell him how mad you are feeling.”
Play Feelings Games
- Guess-a-Feeling: Make different feeling faces and have your child guess what you might be feeling. Then switch and have your child make faces and you guess.
- Moving Feelings: You and your child move around or walk like you are mad. Then switch to a different feeling, for example sad, and you and your child act like you are sad. Do this for a variety of different comfortable and uncomfortable feelings.
- Mirror Faces: You and your child face each other and pretend one of you is the mirror. Then, whoever is looking in the mirror makes a feeling face and whoever is the mirror acts like the reflection and imitates the feeling face.
- Feelings Colors: Help your child choose a color to match to a feeling, for example, red = angry, yellow = excited, etc. Then you and your child draw pictures of how you are feeling in different situations using the appropriate colors.
- Musical Feelings: Listen to different types of music and you and your child move in the way the music makes you feel.
You may want to consider this:
If you are interested in learning more about parent-child play, and especially about the Feelings Identification Skill, please see my book, Play Skills for Parents: Connecting With Your Child Through Play, for comprehensive guidelines. This book will help make playtime easier and more enjoyable for you and your child. My book is unique in that it will provide you with a framework for engaging in parent-child play that can be applied to any play activity.
Also, you may want to subscribe to my email list (see below) to be the first to know when I post new Blogs, usually every month.
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Copyright Kathy Eugster, MA, 2024.
Please feel free to pass on this article to anyone you think might find it useful.
Contact me at: keugster@telus.net