Feelings Unit

I have come to realization that "A" has not been dealing with emotions very well. He tends to only want to do what makes him happy or act out in anger. I have desperately tried to protect him from feeling sadness or fear, and in turn led him to miss out on being able to come out from the other side of it. Feeling the negative feelings helps us grow and become stronger. In a way to rectify my parenting mistake we are taking a hard look at feelings.

You can pick up this poster at Learning Palace for $1.50 or so

It is common for people to make word-a-day vocabulary cards. I decided to make emotion vocabulary cards. I started with 12 different feeling cards with the definition, a picture that corresponds to the emotion, the word used in a sentence, and then ways to deal or cope with that feeling.You can download my first round of vocabulary cards here. Just like traditional word-a-day cards we are picking one feeling a day to look at and get a better understanding of.

The vocab card we chose today

I try to include three or four coping mechanisms for each feeling. There are strategies for even happy emotions. Coping ideas range from hugging a stuffed animal, positive self-talk, talking with parents, exercise, etc. One thing we learned that help children with calming down in taking a volcano breath. I have made a video of "A" demonstrating what that looks like and we use it frequently.

 Over 1+1+1=1 there is a feelings lapbook for tots. It is very cute for younger children. There was one thing in the unit that I felt would be a great exercise to do with "A". There is two headless children (a girl and boy) and a bunch of happy faces (although they aren't all happy but a range of emotions). Included is a list of guiding questions like, "Her Mommy just told her she needed to go to time-out, how is she feeling?" Then the child looks through the facial expressions and picks the appropriate head. This is great for reading emotions of others and how to respond. "A" appropriately commented that you can have more than one feeling and so some of his people had multiple heads. I really love this and am working on new questions to ask.

 While you are discussing how facial features show emotion why don't you have your child act out different emotions. This allows them to face negative emotions in a safe environment and also let's them feel how the body changes depending on the mood.

Sadness

Anger

Scared

Excited

Sometimes what we feel is more abstract. Have your child color what the feelings would look like just using colors and symbols. Ask them what color would sadness be? See what they come up with.

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