Fortunately, more and more importance is being given to the study of emotions in children. How little ones know how to manage their emotions or not will be a great predictor of success and happiness in their adult lives. What children need is not to avoid negative emotions, but to learn to manage them, identify them in themselves and in others, and learn from them. Let's see what are the activities to work on emotions with children.
As the child becomes more social, between 2 and 3 years old, he is exposed to intense emotions that they do not know how to handle: jealousy, anger, shame, guilt. That's why it is necessary to start emotional education from a very early age, so that it is easier for them to manage and express them.
Activities to work on emotions with children
Dictionary of emotions
At home we can create a dictionary of emotions. They catch photographs where there is a person expressing an emotion. You can choose them yourself or have the child help you select them. They can be from magazines or taken from the internet. Once selected, the children must identify and classify it.
Depending on the age of the child, emotions can be more complex or less. If it is very young, it is better to start with the basic emotions: sadness, joy, fear, disgust, sadness and anger. If you are a little older and your language is more developed, you can explain a situation in which he or she felt this way. You can explain how it feels in the body and what it feels like.
Flask of Calm
The Calm Flask is an activity inspired by the Montessori method. When children are overwhelmed by intense emotion, this method is very effective in calming them down. Calms child stress and anxiety, and allows them to talk about the emotion they feel from the calm.
You have a complete article of the calm flask, where we explain how it is done, how it works and what are its benefits. It is something we can do at home with them, have a fun time and also learn to manage emotions.
Read tales
Reading stories along with games are the two activities with which children learn the most. They exist in the market books specialized in emotional intelligence that we can take advantage of so that they read, have fun and learn emotional management.
Among the most recommended books are:
- The Monster of colors.
- The bestiary of emotions.
- Nacho's emotions.
- The great book of emotions.
We also leave you a wide selection of best 20 stories for children 0-3 years, and the 20 best stories for children between 3-6 years old.
Theater or emotional puppet
It's a game of role play, where children can put voice, action and emotions to the characters, creating made-up stories where others express their feelings. You can use dolls, stuffed animals or puppets, whatever you prefer. To play the theater we will only need two dice what we can do with them. In one a character will appear and in another an emotion. Another option if you don't want to make dice is to do it in version letters. The child must create a story with that character where that emotion comes out.
Music
As we saw in the article 7 benefits of studying music in children, music is a amazing vehicle to express emotions. It is a great resource that we can show children. For this we choose different songs that express different emotions. The child must identify the emotion and talk about a situation where they have felt this way.
Drawing
Children express themselves very well through drawing, especially when their vocabulary is a bit limited to express themselves well. We can show faces that represent different emotions or put a mirror on them and have them do it themselves. Then they must draw it and identify that emotion.
Why remember ... educating in emotion is the best investment we can make in our children.