How to Teach Your Child about Different Emotions

When Pixar released it’s 2015 movie “Inside Out”, it brought to light the important role that emotions play in a child’s mind. Set in the mind of Riley – a happy, hockey-loving 11-year-old, “Inside Out” explores the characters Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust, and follows their journey as they try to navigate Riley through a huge change – a move to San Francisco. It’s clever and moving, and really gets you thinking about the way emotions can control behaviour.

Think about this…your little two-year-old is playing the game where you have to place a series of shapes in the appropriate hole. He’s fine with the circle, fine with the triangle, but when it comes to pushing through the star shape, it’s just not working. You offer your help only to be met with a loud and resounding “No, I do it!”. He tries again, fails, throws the piece across the room and curls himself into a ball as the cries and screams flow. Sound familiar?

Children tend to act out their emotions in very physical and often inappropriate ways. They do this because they don’t understand emotional change, and because they are yet to recognise the significance of each and every feeling they are capable of. The sooner you help them understand and recognise their emotions, the sooner they will express them in more appropriate ways.

Identifying emotions

Identifying, understanding and responding to the emotions both you and others feel is an important social skill for both children and adults. It helps to develop healthy relationships and helps us to recognise why we feel the way we do and when others may need a little extra love, space or comfort.

As parents, teaching children about emotions should be a top priority. Kids who know how to express their feelings in socially appropriate ways are less likely to exhibit behaviour problems, and less likely to throw a temper tantrum.

Preschoolers should be taught basic feeling words, such as happy, angry, sad and scared. Older kids can benefit from learning more complex feeling words, such as frustrated, disappointed, and anxious.

As well as teach the names of emotions, parents need to teach their children ways to deal with uncomfortable emotions. Kids need to learn that just because they feel angry, doesn’t mean they have to hit someone.

Teaching children about emotion

The best way to teach children about emotions is to create opportunities in which you can talk about your feelings. Ideas include:

Labelling

Try to label your child’s emotion or get them to give their emotion a label. When Daddy leaves for work in the morning, say, “I feel a little bit sad when Daddy goes to work. Do you?” or “Learning to ride a bike is fun. Does it make you feel happy?”

By giving your child a label for each emotion, you enable your child to develop a vocabulary for talking about feelings.

Discussing others

Whether you are watching TV, reading a book or passing others in the street, talk to your child about how others are feeling. Say things like, “Billy fell down and scraped his knee – how do you think he is feeling?” or “Stacey’s grandma is coming to visit – do you think she is feeling excited?”

Pointing to certain situations teaches children to recognise the emotions of others.

Role play

Kids love to make funny faces, and you can use this to discuss the faces people make when they are feeling different emotions. Have your child make a happy face, a sad face, a scared face, and an excited face, and when they’ve mastered these, add others like frustrated, tired, bored and nervous to build up their emotion vocabulary library.

Learning responses

When you see others display a response to an emotion, take a moment to discuss it. “In the book, Sally hit Susie when she snatched the toy. Can you think of a better way for Sally to tell Susie that she was annoyed? Maybe she could have used her words and said “Please don’t snatch Susie, I was still playing with that”?”

It’s also important to discuss your own responses, even if it’s after the fact. “I’m sorry that I got angry yesterday when you wouldn’t get in the bath. I shouted at you when I should have told you I was feeling sad and frustrated that you wouldn’t cooperate.”

Discussing options

Talk about positive and not so positive ways to express emotions, and ask your child to determine what’s the appropriate response. Use real-life examples such as “I can see you are frustrated that you can’t get the shape in the right hole. Do you think you should take a deep breath and try again?”

Offering praise

It’s essential that you let your child know exactly what they did right and how proud you are for them displaying their feelings appropriately. It should always be okay to show your feelings – it’s how we choose to display them and respond to them that requires special effort. Your child knowing that they got it right will put them on the right track.

Targeted activities

Activities that target the different feelings we have can be great tools for learning about emotions. Activities to try include matching expression faces to feelings, or drawing a picture to go with an emotion. You could also try singing songs about things that may trigger different emotions.

Displaying an emotion chart

Children might find it easier to identify their emotion when they have a reminder of common feelings. If your child is acting out and are unable to tell you in their own words how they are feeling, get them to point to an emotion on a chart that best describes how they currently feel.

Basic feeling words to include are:

• Happy
• Sad
• Angry
• Scared
• Frustrated
• Jealous
• Lonely
• Bored
• Excited
• Hurt
• Worried
• Tired
• Relaxed
• Cheerful
• Shy
• Disappointed
• Guilty
• Disgusted
• Nervous.

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