Children need our help dealing with emotions. The part of the brain responsible for emotional regulation is still maturing and they don't always have the words to express how they are feeling. Everyday situations can easily overwhelm them, and we need to show them healthy coping strategies.
Providing our little ones opportunities to explore emotion helps them to release and regulate their feelings. These opportunities might be physical activities, imaginative play or getting creative.
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Taking the time to do an emotion activity with your child will allow you to have some great conversations about what emotions are and how we can cope with them.
Here are some of the activities that have helped us deal with big emotions, as well as some of our favourite toys and books for talking about feelings.
Emotion stones
This is a fun craft, which you could either do yourself or create alongside your child.
You will need:
Smooth flat pebbles
Paint pens - we use Posca Pens
PVA glue
Write the names of as many different emotions you can think of on the stones and have fun decorating them. If making them with your children you can talk about the shapes and colours different emotions remind us of.
We keep our finished stones in a pot and get them out from time to time to start conversations about how we are feeling.
Spin art
Process art, where the focus is on the fun of the creation, rather than the end result, is incredibly therapeutic. Spin art is not just process art, it's also wonderfully physical, so kids can take their frustrations out on it!
You will need:
Salad spinner
Squares of paper
Paint
Cut some pieces of paper so that they fit inside the bottom of your salad spinner.
Pop one piece in and invite your child to pour some paint in each colour on the top. If you are worried about the mess you could put a small amount of paint in bowls and give them a teaspoon.
Close the lid of the spinner and let your child enjoy spinning it! Then open it up to see the magical results. As the results are a surprise every time, this one is quite addictive!
You can talk about the different colours and how what emotion your child associates with them - is red an angry colour? Is blue calming? Yellow happy? How does this picture make you feel?
Playdough faces
Playdough is our go-to for playful and creative learning. It's totally open-ended and when you make your own it costs next to nothing.
We used some of our playdough to create simple expressions, such as angry, happy and sad, then practiced making the faces ourselves. It's a great way of helping your child understand how our moods are reflected in our facial expressions.
We created a quick and easy playmat by drawing a face with marker pen on card and lamintating it. If you don't have a laminator at home, you could cover it with some sticky back plastic or contact paper.
For more playdough ideas, check out our ultimate guide here: https://www.howweplayandlearn.com/post/playdough-what-you-need-to-know
Feature stones
We love story stones and this is another great version for learning about emotions! These feature stones uses cut out pictures of features (eyes, nose, mouth etc) from magazines.
You will need:
Old magazines
Scissors
PVA glue
Collect features from your magazine - look for pictures that are a similar size and will fit onto one your stones. Carefully cut them out and glue onto the centre of your stones with PVA glue.
Once dry, give them another coat of PVA to seal and create a smooth finish.
We use them to create some very funny faces and to talk about how we can tell what emotions people are feeling.
Books
There are loads of excellent books out there which help children deal with emotions. Reading in itself is a great mood booster and can really help children to relax. We try to read together at least once a day.
We love "How are you feeling today?" by Molly Potter. It's a lovely reference book that suggests coping tactics for the various emotions; it's also a really visual way to introduce younger children to the types of emotions and how they can all be dealt with differently.
"No worries! An activity book for children who sometimes feel anxious or stressed" by Dr Sharie Coombes is a great book aimed at children aged 7+ that helps them colour and doodle their way to happiness, calm and confidence. Doodling and colouring is a fantastic way for children to express their feelings non-verbally, it helps regulate emotions and can reduce stress and anxiety.
Toys
There are some wonderful toys and resources out there which will help your child playfully learn about emotions. We love this set from Kidly:
It comes with lots of magnetic features so you can create pretty much every emotion under the sun.
Puppet play can support children emotionally by providing them with a “friend” they can talk to or confide in. It's a great way to vocalise feelings without the tricky social skills that go with talking to a person. Puppets will not pass judgement and they will give their undivided attention!
We love our sockette puppet by The Puppet Company as it's colourful and easy to animate.
I hope I've given you some ideas on how you can talk about emotions in a creative an playful way!
Do you have any tips for helping kids deal with emotions? What has worked well in your house?
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