Helping Children Understand Their Emotions
/by Taylor Herzer, CSW
Expressing emotions and understanding what you feel when you feel it can be hard for anyone to grasp. Children especially can have difficulty understanding and expressing emotions, which can turn everyday frustrations, disappointments, etc. into outbursts, crying, and shut downs. Here at Tree of Life, we strive to help children better understand their emotions and learn new tools for emotion expression. In connection, we work with parents to better help their kids understand how they are feeling and foster healthy feeling expression. The following article dives a little deeper into this process and gives some tips and tricks to use at home!
2 Keys to Understanding Emotions for Kids
Connecting Emotions & Physical Sensations:
Emotions feel different for everyone, so helping children pinpoint what particular emotions feel like in their body is the first step. For example, when I am feeling a lot of worry or stress, my mind gets foggy, my heart might race, and I may start fidgeting with my hands. However, some children will express that for them, worry or stress feels like sweaty palms, shaky legs, and an upset stomach. The feeling is the same but the body sensations are very different. If your child does not understand that the sweat, shaking, and stomach pain is connected to worry then they may have a hard time letting you know that that is what they are feeling. Therefore, helping children understand that different feelings have different sensations is the first step to helping them understand their emotions.
Getting Comfortable with Expression:
A lot of children will express that even talking about feelings makes them feel uncomfortable or overly vulnerable. This can be due to a variety of reasons, but a common reason is that they are not used to talking about their emotions openly. Along with discovering which emotions lead to which body sensations, it is important to get your child simply talking about how they feel. In a therapeutic setting this may look like game play, modeling emotions in relation to what is being talked about, expressive arts activities, and more. As time goes on, the more emotions that are modeled and expressed the more the child will be able to express themselves in times of need.
How it May Look in Therapy
Many children respond well to interactive activities such as card & board games, play therapy, expressive arts therapy, and more. All of these tools help the child to engage with the different concepts in a fun and hands-on way. Throughout any of these processes the therapist will most likely be modeling the different emotions that arise, and helping the child pinpoint and label what different emotions look like to them. Through these activities children could also be learning different tools and coping strategies to use at home or whenever they are feeling intense emotions.
Some of the games that are played pinpoint specific emotions and allow the child to interact with labeling their emotions. This tool can also help with labeling the emotions of others, and potentially learning new tools to help with expression and/or calming down. Other games are designed just to get the child talking about feelings in a more fun way. With these games, children are not only learning how to express themselves on their own, but also listening to an adult share and express when they have felt similar things. It’s important for children to know that they are not alone in trying to figure out their emotions and how to express them, and that everyone is allowed to make mistakes when it comes to healthy expression.
Play therapy is typically used for younger children (ages 3-10, but can be used for older children) and provides a space for the child to process their emotions through the safest tool they know how; play. Modeling emotions is a big way for the therapist to help the child engage with emotion expression. For example: “That makes me feel sad”, “I wonder how that doll feels right now”, “I am feeling exhausted after that”, etc. This allows the child to begin connecting emotions to different experiences, and again allows them to engage with the concept that everyone feels and expresses differently.
Expressive arts is another great tool that is used to help children engage with different emotions. Again it can be fun and interactive, and allows the child to express themselves and their emotions. This can look many different ways. Sometimes they express themselves through artwork and prompts such as “draw a picture of what purple feels like”. Or it can be creating feelings wheels, drawing out what different feelings look like in your head, etc. Expressive arts is a great interactive way for children to connect and express emotions.
How Can You Help as a Parent or Guardian?
Now, many parents may be wondering “How can I help my child at home?” There are many ways that you can help your child to be better able to express how they feel when they feel it.
Modeling the different emotions that you as an adult feel: Sometimes parents want to appear strong and put together for their children, but allowing them to see that mom sometimes gets frustrated, or dad sometimes cries, is important for the child to understand that emotions are normal, and it is okay to show and express them when needed in healthy and appropriate ways. When you feel something, say something. Let your kids know that you also feel strongly about different things throughout your day. Another way to do this is by doing feelings check ins at least once a day (could be at dinner, on the drive home from school, before going to bed at night, etc). This is where each family member is prompted to share one hard emotion they felt, and one easy or feel good emotion that they felt. This opens the door to having more conversations about emotions and sets the tone that sharing is good and needed.
Share emotions and model healthy expression, is during tantrums and meltdowns: Has your child ever been yelling, screaming, and/or crying and you thought to yourself “Now I’m angry.” It is completely okay to share that with your child at that moment. Say “I’m getting frustrated and need to calm down. I am going to take a break and then we can talk about this more.” Then take your break and come back to address the situation. Some parents will even say they need to take a few deep breaths and then offer for the child to join them, modeling how they do it as they go. This not only normalizes feeling frustration or anger, but also shows them how to combat those feelings in a healthy way.
Help your child label emotions that they may be feeling: For example, let’s say your child had a play date planned and had been looking forward to it all week. Then suddenly an hour before the play date, the other family has to cancel for one reason or another. Not only might you, as the parent, be feeling disappointment, but your child most likely will be feeling that way too but maybe a little more intensely. When they start to cry, get angry, or shut down due to this, you can express and pinpoint that feeling with them. “I can see that you are disappointed about this, I am too. Would you like to take a break and then work together to figure out what else we can do with our day?” Or if they are inconsolably upset or angry you can state “I can see that you are angry. Not being able to go is super frustrating. Let’s talk about it more when you feel more calm.” By doing this you are labeling and validating what they are feeling about the situation, and they are getting more familiar with how those different emotions may physically feel for them.
Figuring out healthy ways to express emotions can be difficult at all ages. By helping your child learn to express their emotions, you can set them up for success later in life. It can be a hard process depending on the child and the situation, but taking small steps at a time can lead to bigger results later down the line. Don’t forget to be patient with yourself during the process!