Back again briefly. I've just jotted down some of the stuff we do - there's loads more but this might offer some ideas to start with. Sorry if the expression/spelling is terrible. I blame a looooong day and a scrambled brain! Feel free to ask for clarification or for ideas on more specific stuff. Hope it helps!
Teaching about emotions
1. Facial expressions, body language and voice
- Pull funny faces in the mirror. Then pull faces that portray emotion. “Look, here’s my angry face! How am I showing that I’m angry? What are my eyebrows doing? What’s my mouth doing? Are my eyes wide open… looking up or down…” Explore what each face looks like and describe each feature. “I wonder if your angry face looks the same as mine… each person looks a bit different when they show emotions. Look, your eyebrows point down the same as mine. I wonder what Dad’s angry face looks like, let’s go get him to show us.”
- Do the same with body language. Watch what your shoulders, hands, posture, head-tilt, level of eye-contact etc. does with each emotion.
- Practice different voices. Again, good to start of and intersperse with silly stuff to keep it fun.
- Play a guessing game – I’m going to act out an emotion… guess what I’m feeling”. “Now you show me one and I’ll guess”
2. Learn about what triggers emotion
- Watch movies with dramatic emotion and pause half-way through a scene. “How do you think he’s feeling? Why? How is he showing that he feels that way – what’s his face / voice / body doing. What do you think he might be thinking? What do you think he’s going to do next? Will that help him to feel better? What could he do instead?
- Label, describe and discuss the emotional experiences your child sees. “This morning when I turned the TV off, little sister got very angry. She wanted to watch more TV but I told her that it was time for school. Do you remember how she showed me she was angry? What do you think she was thinking? What could she have done instead?”
- Describe your own emotional experience as you’re having it – “I’m feeling pretty nervous right now because… “
- Use puppets to act out emotional scenarios.
- Make posters of the 4 key emotions – happy, sad, angry scared. Draw the relevant face in the middle or stick a photo of your child pulling that face. Then all around put words, drawings, cartoons, photos, magazine cut-outs etc. of things that make me feel…. You can add to this over time.
- Teach that our own thoughts cause how we feel. If something is difficult and I think “I’ll never manage this and people will laugh at me if I get it wrong”, you’ll feel very different than if you think “I’ll have a try… doesn’t matter if I don’t get it perfect, I’m just learning” etc. Fantastic resource for teaching kids about the connection between thoughts and emotion: Mind Your Mind by Julie Johansen and Leigh Hay.
3. Teach that emotions can vary in intensity.
- Make a ‘thermometer’ for each emotion and label 1 – 10 from bottom to top. For each thermometer find words that mean a little bit, medium or a large degree of that emotion (eg. irritated, angry, furious) and put them against 1, 5 and 10. If you can think of other words, see where they might fit. Talk about how you act when you’re number 1 vs 10 and in between. Talk about and draw/write in what kinds of situations might make you feel say, a 3 as opposed to a 9.
4. Explore physical experience of emotion
- Get your child to lie on a big piece of butcher’s paper and draw around their body. Use different colours for each emotion and draw symbols / colour-in / write words on different body parts to show where emotion in felt and what it feels like. Eg. angry might feel like hot face, tight jaw, noisy head and clenched fists. Nervous might be felt in the stomach etc. etc. Check how your child experiences emotion as it’s bound to be at least slightly different from where/how you feel it.
- Get in touch with the physical experience of emotions as they happen. This is quite tough to do if your child is very angry or scared – better to talk through your own experience with these emotions. But great to do with more positive stuff or when a negative emotion is not too ‘full-on’. Eg “Wow, you’re really excited about going to the movies. I can see you’re skipping around all over the place. How does it feel in your body to be this excited…”
Oh, and I should add... I tend to agree with what others have said. Sometimes kids are more likely to take on info from someone other than their parents - not sure if she's like this? A good kids CBT therapist would do the above kind of stuff with your daughter if you needed outside help.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks