CONNECT THE DOTS: DEVELOPING AN EMOTIONS VOCABULARY

The ability to understand the nuances of emotions and expressions present challenges for most children and even some adults. But why is it important to develop a feelings vocabulary? Ultimately it is to help a child to identify their own feelings and also become more empathetic toward others.

Today it is more important than ever to foster empathy in the children in our lives. A child who feels genuine empathy for another is less likely to do harm to another because they will have a genuine compassion for them. These emotions come from within the child.

In contrast a child who behaves out of fear of punishment is more likely to “behave” when an authority figure is present but behind their back will act more aggressively toward their peers. I have seen this first hand in many of my programs.

How amazing would it be if we could help children cultivate empathy? I believe that we could significantly reduce the bullying issue that we are experiencing today.

So how can we help a child create an emotional vocabulary and develop empathy for others?

Most children when describing their own or someone else’s emotion will use words like sad, mad or happy. But as most adults know there are an array of varying emotions besides just those three.

As parents and educators it is our job to coach and lead them and this includes helping them to identify, acknowledge and name their feelings. We do this by helping the child develop a “feelings vocabulary”.

We all have times of frustration, anxiety, fearfulness, anger, joy, excitement, happiness, etc.. How we express these feelings can be a good or bad example as well as have positive or negative results. How we react to others emotions can make or break a situation too. Below are four steps you can take to help your child to identify and understand their own feelings as well as to help them to identify and deal with other’s feelings.

Step 1: Read books or create stories that deal with feelings.

• Children love stories. While you are reading the book take the time to talk to your child about what you are reading.

• Even if you are not reading a book specifically dealing with feelings you can use the opportunity to discuss feelings. Point out the different facial expressions. Ask your child if they can figure out what that face means.

• For younger children, look at the pictures and ask the child to identify the facial expressions of the characters and ask them if they can identify what that person may be feeling.

• Ask; “Have you ever felt like this?”

• If they cannot recall a time you bring up a time you can remember and talk about it. Once you have done this for a while you will find that your child will start noticing the expressions on the faces of other book characters on their own.

• For older children; Choose a feeling word for the day — jointly look it up in the dictionary and be sure everyone in the family is now familiar with its meaning

• Choose a feeling word and act out how that might look; draw a picture of the feeling; create a dance that expresses the feeling, etc.

• This is a great idea for a family night activity.

• Pick a word and find all the synonyms you can for it. Talk about how the feelings differ. When I was growing up we played this game after supper some nights. It really helped us to develop not only a good vocabulary but often led us into discussions that allowed us to look at things from another’s point of view and made each of us more empathetic toward others.

Step 2: Talk about your own feelings.

• Share not only your feelings but the cause of it. This creates a model to allow your child to learn about feelings. For instance; “It looks like rain is coming and I’ll be sad if we will have to cancel our BBQ picnic.” “I am so excited about Auntie coming over because she is going to love our new house.” “I was furious when that driver cut me off. He almost caused an accident.”

• The child will be able to see that a person can have multiple feelings.

• Talking about feelings also helps the child to learn that different people experience varying emotions in the same situation. Especially if they were with you in those situations or if another person was there and they shared their feelings.

• As you discuss yours and others feelings this helps the child to learn to “read” others emotions and help them to also develop discernment and empathy toward others. In other words they can learn when is a good or bad time to approach someone with a request.

Step 3: Identify, acknowledge, reflect and direct the child’s feelings.

Children like adults can have very strong feelings. These feeling don’t go away because they are told not to feel that way. In fact they will actually intensify. Instead the best approach in any relationship is empathy and compassion. When we listen with empathy we let the child know that their feelings are part of them and they feel loved and accepted.

• Children learn best from experience. If you see they are experiencing a particular emotion, identify that emotion; “I can see that you are very excited about going to the zoo.”

• Acknowledge the emotion; “The thunder startled you didn’t it?”

• Reflecting their emotion gives them permission to have feelings; “It is okay to feel sad when Mommy leaves.”

• Most times children do not know what to do with these emotions and this is when we can direct them. “I can see that you are frustrated with this math question and that is okay. So put the pencil down, blow out the frustration. Get up and walk around the desk then let’s work on it

together.”

• It is important to not only name the emotion but also the cause.

• Reflect not only positive emotions but the negative ones too.

• Here are some words to describe a child’s varying emotions that you can use to build their vocabulary, you may want to add more to this list:

• Angry Afraid, Anxious, Bad, Bored, Confused, Content, Disappointed, Ecstatic, Embarrassed, Exhausted, Excited, Frustrated, Forgiving, Guilty, Grateful, Happy, Hopeful, Interested, Jealous, Joyful, Justified, Lonely, Lovely, Longing, Mad, Mischievous, Overwhelmed, Proud, Sad, Shy, Sorry, Thankful, Worried.

Step 4: People Watching Game

Children are typically very curious about others. They also have an incredible imagination. You can turn many everyday activities into a feeling activity. For instance:

• Go someplace where there are lots of people gathered such as a park

• Comment on what you see

• Ask questions to get the child thinking such as,

  • “What do you see?

  • How do you think they are feeling right now?

  • Why do you think that?

  • How would you feel if you were doing that?

• When watching TV or a movie, talk about the characters and ask similar questions like those above. When waiting in a grocery store line you can do the same.

Helping children deal with feelings can be daunting, especially if it is an area we struggle with in ourselves. There are lots of resources out there to help. Here is an Amazon link with some books on feelings that you can either purchase or find at your local library. Depending on the age of your child, you can search for other books on the subject that will help. I also recommend that if this is an area of challenge for you there are ample resources.

This is an important and really big subject. Most challenges and joys in our parenting and childcare world revolve around feelings don’t they? If I can leave you with one piece of advice it would be this: it is not your job to make your child or children happy. So many times we confuse the happiness of the child with our role as parent or educator. Take the pressure off. You are responsible to train, lead, nurture, and love the children in your world. Never are you responsible for their feelings. You cannot cause or change someone else’s feelings. Even your 1 year old, 5 year old, teen, or young adult child. They alone are responsible to manage their own feelings as you alone are responsible to manage yours.