How to explain emotions
Understanding Your Emotions (for Teens)
How Emotions Help Us
What are you feeling, right now, as you start to read this? Are you curious? Hopeful that you'll learn something about yourself? Bored because this is something you have to do for school and you're not really into it — or happy because it's a school project you enjoy? Perhaps you're distracted by something else, like feeling excited about your weekend plans or sad because you just went through a breakup.
Emotions like these are part of human nature. They give us information about what we're experiencing and help us know how to react.
We sense our emotions from the time we're babies. Infants and young children react to their emotions with facial expressions or with actions like laughing, cuddling, or crying. They feel and show emotions, but they don't yet have the ability to name the emotion or say why they feel that way.
As we grow up, we become more skilled in understanding emotions. Instead of just reacting like little kids do, we can identify what we feel and put it into words. With time and practice, we get better at knowing what we are feeling and why. This skill is called emotional awareness.
Emotional awareness helps us know what we need and want (or don't want!). It helps us build better relationships. That's because being aware of our emotions can help us talk about feelings more clearly, avoid or resolve conflicts better, and move past difficult feelings more easily.
Some people are naturally more in touch with their emotions than others. The good news is, everyone can be more aware of their emotions. It just takes practice. But it's worth the effort: Emotional awareness is the first step toward building emotional intelligence, a skill that can help people succeed in life.
Emotions 101
Here are a few basic things about emotions:
- Emotions come and go. Most of us feel many different emotions throughout the day. Some last just a few seconds. Others might linger to become a mood.
- Emotions can be mild, intense, or anywhere in between.
The intensity of an emotion can depend on the situation and on the person. - There are no good or bad emotions, but there are good and bad ways of expressing (or acting on) emotions. Learning how to express emotions in acceptable ways is a separate skill — managing emotions — that is built on a foundation of being able to understand emotions.
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It's All Good
Some emotions feel positive — like feeling happy, loving, confident, inspired, cheerful, interested, grateful, or included. Other emotions can seem more negative — like feeling angry, resentful, afraid, ashamed, guilty, sad, or worried. Both positive and negative emotions are normal.
All emotions tell us something about ourselves and our situation. But sometimes we find it hard to accept what we feel. We might judge ourselves for feeling a certain way, like if we feel jealous, for example. But instead of thinking we shouldn't feel that way, it's better to notice how we actually feel.
Avoiding negative feelings or pretending we don't feel the way we do can backfire. It's harder to move past difficult feelings and allow them to fade if we don't face them and try to understand why we feel that way. You don't have to dwell on your emotions or constantly talk about how you feel. Emotional awareness simply means recognizing, respecting, and accepting your feelings as they happen.
Building Emotional Awareness
Emotional awareness helps us know and accept ourselves. So how can you become more aware of your emotions? Start with these three simple steps:
- Make a habit of tuning in to how you feel in different situations throughout the day. You might notice that you feel excited after making plans to go somewhere with a friend. Or that you feel nervous before an exam. You might be relaxed when listening to music, inspired by an art exhibit, or pleased when a friend gives you a compliment. Simply notice whatever emotion you feel, then name that emotion in your mind.
It only takes a second to do this, but it's great practice. Notice that each emotion passes and makes room for the next experience. - Rate how strong the feeling is. After you notice and name an emotion, take it a step further: Rate how strongly you feel the emotion on a scale of 1–10, with 1 being the mildest feeling and 10 the most intense.
- Share your feelings with the people closest to you. This is the best way to practice putting emotions into words, a skill that helps us feel closer to friends, boyfriends or girlfriends, parents, coaches — anyone. Make it a daily practice to share feelings with a friend or family member. You could share something that's quite personal or something that's simply an everyday emotion.
Just like anything else in life, when it comes to emotions, practice makes perfect! Remind yourself there are no good or bad emotions. Don't judge your feelings — just keep noticing and naming them.
Putting Feelings Into Words: 3 Ways to Explain What You Feel
Have you ever had trouble finding the words for what you’re feeling or thinking? Most of us have encountered this difficulty at some time or another.
It often happens just when we most need to be able to explain ourselves – when we’re feeling something particularly strongly or in a crisis or just want to communicate a strong feeling.
If this happens to you more than it seems to happen to other people you know, you may suffer from a problem called “alexithymia.” It’s a fancy name that comes from Greek and means an inability to find words for emotions. The psychoanalyst Peter Sifneos came up with the term in the early 1970s.
Although a great deal of research has been done on the problem of alexithymia since Sifneos named it, it has generally been considered highly unresponsive to traditional psychotherapy. Yet alexithymia is believed to be an important component of many different diagnostic groups, including schizophrenia, autism, drug and alcohol addiction, eating disorders, personality disorders, and a tendency to engage in dangerous and/or impulsive behaviors. And there is significant evidence that if you suffer from any of these disorders, you will benefit from learning to pay attention to and find language to express your feelings, both to yourself and to other people.
Three social scientists have now released a book showing that even research, which is traditionally supposed to be done without feeling, is often done with unacknowledged feeling. They say that when these emotions are recognized, the research benefits. The same is true for you, no matter how difficult it may be for you to begin to think and talk about your feelings in words.
I have long believed that alexithymia can and should be treated in talk therapy with some slight changes in the therapeutic stance. Stijn Vanheule, Paul Verhaeghe and Mattias Desmet, clinicians and researchers at Ghent University in Belgium, have come up with a successful system for working with alexithymia in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. But you do not have to be a psychotherapist to use this system. If you have difficulty finding words for your own feelings, these three suggestions can help you begin to make that connection; and when you are making connections between your feelings and language, you will start to find better ways to manage both the feelings and difficult situations.
You can also use these three techniques with loved ones and children who you want to help learn to talk about their feelings.
Two things before you start. First, these three techniques do not have to be done in any particular order, although the first step is the best place to begin this work. Once you’ve been doing it for a while, you may want to mix it up, sometimes doing them as they are written, and sometimes doing them in another order. That’s okay. However feels most useful to you is how you should do it. And second, it’s very important not to focus on the idea that you can’t do this, but to think instead about the experience that you are trying to name.
Feelings can be powerful, and you may have a strong reaction to putting some of them into words. When this happens, it is important to find ways to back off. Go back to step one, get yourself something to eat or drink, or distract yourself with television, something on your computer, music, or a walk around the block.
But also remind yourself that these emotions are not bad, no matter how bad they feel. And you are not bad for feeling them.
What is most likely going on is that you are feeling something that you cannot picture in your mind and that you cannot find words for. Like a small child who becomes frightened because he or she doesn’t know what’s going on, you might feel a bit overwhelmed by experience. The work that you are doing is to find a way to represent the feelings in your mind’s eye so that you can know what you need to do to manage them successfully. Like anything else in life, this takes practice.
Three ways to get better at knowing, thinking and saying what you are feeling:
1. Think about concrete situations you would like to change. Focus on one or two specific recent situations – an argument at home, an incident at work. Try to put into words for yourself (or ask your child or your loved one, if you are trying to help someone else, to put into words for you) the chain of events that led up to the situation.
Be very specific. For instance, if you had an argument with your husband, wife, child, or parent before you left the house this morning, start with the first event of the morning – the moment when you woke up. Did the alarm take you by surprise? Did you stay in bed longer than you meant to? Did you get up and take a shower? How did that go? Was the shower long enough? Too long? How was the water – hot, cold, neutral? Then keep going. What happened next? Who did you see? What did you say to them? What did they say to you? Did you make your own breakfast? What did you eat? What clothes did you put on?
The goal here is to get yourself (or your child or partner or whoever) to develop mental representations of those moments that gradually led up to the argument. Putting them into words is only part of the process. Naming them and imagining them are often connected activities. If you can, try to develop a mental image of each of these moments.
2. Spell out to yourself how you understand the problematic situation.
The idea is not to blame yourself or the other person, but to put into words what you think has actually happened. Then try to put into words what is distressing about what happened. So, for instance, if you and your daughter argued this morning before she left the house, your goal in this step is to put into words what happened, what you argued about, and what you think might have been the reason for the argument.
Then try to say what it is about the argument that distressed you. Maybe you feel frustrated and worried that she insists on going outside in the cold without socks or tights. Maybe you’re worried that she’s going to get sick. But maybe you’re also bothered because she talks back to you and you feel like she should be more respectful? If you were that disrespectful to your parents, what would have happened? She just shouldn’t talk to you like that! Don’t try to solve the problem and don’t try to change things in this step. It’s okay that you’ve come up with a couple of different answers.
It can be both of these things – and more. Most arguments have several different, overlapping meanings.
The goal here is not to solve the problem, but to find a way to put it into words and pictures – that is, to mentally represent it – inside your own head. Gradually, those words and pictures will begin to evolve into feelings that make sense, even if they are not comfortable.
3. Try to put your emotional responses into words, and then to think about how you handled the situation and how else you might handle it. So now you’ve got several thoughts and images of both what led up to and also what happened in the argument with your daughter. Now, try to put into words what you understand about your emotional response. This part will include words and thoughts, but also physical sensations. For instance, you might try to notice if your stomach clenched or the muscles in your arms tensed. Did you grind your teeth or clench your jaw? Did you feel a heaviness in your chest?
There are many mindfulness exercises that can help you pay attention to what you’re feeling in your body.
One of them asks you to start with your toes and travel up your body, asking yourself over and over again, “What do I feel there (in my toes; my ankles; my shins; my calves; and on up to the top of your head).” The important thing is not to make judgments about these feelings, but again to try to find ways to represent them in words and mental images. Often, feelings in our bodies feel so wordless that we can’t even imagine naming them. But as with any exercise, the more you pay attention to and name these physical sensations, the easier it will get. And you will have more information about what is going on inside of you, since physical feelings are often linked to emotions.
Next, try to understand why you might be feeling these emotions. Perhaps your resentment that your daughter is being so disrespectful has something to do with bad feelings that you carry around about yourself. Do you worry that other people in your life don’t respect you? If so, why? And what if you separate those worries from your concern with your daughter.
What else might be going on here? You know she is rebelling against you, but is that all bad? Maybe it is a sign that she feels secure enough in your love for her that she can allow herself to begin to take an important developmental step towards being more independent and self-directed. If you think that might be going on, does that change how you deal with your frustration?
Now you can problem solve. Based on these mental representations, you may find that a solution comes fairly easily. Or, if you feel that you still don’t know what to do, it will be easier to get some support or guidance from a friend, older sibling, or even a counselor, because you’ve already started the process of describing the situation and putting your concerns into words.
In summary, then, this three-step process helps you begin to identify not only what you are feeling, but also the specific events and experiences that led up to that feeling. You are, in other words, learning to develop mental representations of the details that go into any emotional experience.
Once you have a more detailed and meaningful picture of and words to describe any experience, you can often find more successful ways to manage your feelings and respond more effectively to any situation.
For further reading:
Caroline Clarke (Editor), Mike Broussine (Editor) and Linda Watts (Editor): Researching with Feeling: The Emotional Aspects of Social and Organizational Research. Routledge Press.
Stijn Vanheule∗, Paul Verhaeghe and Mattias Desmet: In search of a framework for the treatment of alexithymia. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice (2011), volume 84, pp. 84–97
F. Diane Barth, LCSW: Speaking of feelings: Affects, language and psychoanalysis. In Psychoanalytic Dialogues, volume 8, pp. 685-705.
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Teaser Image Source: iStock_000037226630
Copyright F. Diane Barth, LCSW, 2015
Follow me on Twitter:https://twitter.com/fdbarthlcsw
Children's Dictionary of Emotions - Definition of Emotions for Children
When a bright event occurs in life, we emotionally react to it.
Every person is sad, funny, ashamed. How to explain to a child what emotions are?
Our vivid sensations are called emotions. There are quite a few of them. It is important to be able to distinguish them from each other: this helps to know oneself, the inner world of parents and friends, to make speech beautiful, expressive.
Differences between emotions and feelings:
- feelings often last much longer;
- emotions are superficial: quickly arise, quickly disappear;
- feelings are specific, emotions are vague: "I'm scared" (emotion), "I'm afraid of her" (feeling).
Feeling - a set of complex emotions (for example, love consists of interest, joy, etc.)
What a child of senior preschool and primary school age should be able to:
- quickly distinguish emotions from each other;
- understand the emotional state of the interlocutor;
- describe one's own mood;
- choose suitable epithets to describe life situations.
Let's see what emotions exist and how they manifest.
Joy
This positive emotion is familiar to everyone: for example, people experience it when they win a competition, receive a long-awaited gift, hear praise.
The mood rises sharply, we begin to think optimistically: the future seems beautiful, and the world around us is benevolent.
Joy manifests itself in the form of a broad smile, light laughter.
Sadness
Sadness is a negative emotion that we encounter during unpleasant moments of life; the opposite of joy.
We feel sad when we lose, when our plans are violated. Emotion shows that a person's expectations have not materialized into reality.
Sadness also appears when we read sad books or watch movies where something sad happens to the main characters.
Sadness is a slight despondency that does not last very long. The look goes out, the smile leaves the face, but later everything returns to normal.
Anger
Violent, brightly colored negative emotion that can be beneficial - anger helps to start acting.
People get angry when something wrong, unfair from their point of view occurs on the path of life. For example, in a class, a quiet and calm classmate is offended, who does not wish harm to anyone - such a situation can cause the observer to become angry at the offenders.
Anger also signals that the surrounding reality does not allow one to achieve goals, to feel free and comfortable. A stranger got rude on the subway and stepped on his foot? This is one of the cases where anger is natural.
When angry, a person frowns, purses his lips, can look at one point. The opposite of anger is calmness, acceptance.
Fear
Fear is considered to be an evil, unpleasant and destructive emotion for a person, although it can save us from troubles.
This emotion is born when a person realizes that something bad is about to happen.
The future threat is not always real, sometimes we ourselves come up with troubles that could happen in the future.
Fear makes our body muster all the strength to fight an obstacle: the heart beats loudly, the body tenses up, the skin turns red or pale.
When the human brain realizes that the threat has passed or turned out to be fictitious, peace returns, the normal state. The opposite of fear is a feeling of complete security.
Admiration
This is a pleasant, uplifting emotion. It arises when we encounter the beautiful, the unique, the rare.
For example, people experience admiration when visiting museums, art galleries. We admire the beauty, grandeur of nature, the complex and mysterious structure of the cosmos.
However, others can also cause this emotion - we like to watch talented people, their work (dance, drawing), follow scientists, heroes, researchers.
Simple things (a fashionable dress, a cute toy) also become an object of admiration.
It all depends on the person who is watching what is happening, on his taste.
The opposite emotion of admiration is disgust, contempt.
How does it manifest itself? A person can smile, raise his eyebrows, slightly round his eyes.
In the online course "Emotions for Children" we will introduce the child to the variety of human feelings and emotions, teach them to assess the emotional state of the interlocutor and correctly express their own emotions. The course is designed in the format of an interactive story game and is designed for children 7-13 years old.
Shame
A very unpleasant, internally destructive emotion, felt as heaviness or burning (people who are ashamed often blush from this experience).
Shame arises when we do ugly or ridiculous things in public. The presence of witnesses is the basis for the emergence of shame. For example, a person will be ashamed of the fact that he cursed loudly in a public place (and then calmed down and regretted it) or slipped and fell into a puddle in front of everyone.
Emotion is born when behavior does not correspond to the ideal - personal or other people's. The opposite emotion is superiority, looseness.
Resentment
Negative emotion that has much in common with disappointment. Its opposite is a slight feeling of forgiveness.
We are offended by a person when he does not live up to our expectations: for example, the betrayal of a best friend causes resentment, because we expect support and loyalty from loved ones. Feeling empty, confused.
You can also meet with resentment when faced with injustice, when the situation cannot be corrected: the student has been preparing for participation in the school Olympiad for a long time, dreamed of winning, showing knowledge, but lost. In the soul, resentment accumulates at oneself, at unfortunate circumstances.
How is resentment manifested? The lip moves forward a little, the person hides his eyes.
Interest
When we meet something new, we automatically show a positive emotion called interest: we stop looking at the object of interest, raise our eyebrows, open our mouth.
People love information: remember how you pay attention to your friends' new clothes, watch bloggers making weird videos.
A person is attracted by unusual things, he hurries to study them, get to know them better and understand: what if knowledge will help in the future? Any fact can be useful.
We may be interested in specific activities, phenomena, people (this is how hobbies, new friends appear). Interest makes you search, reflect, develop intellect and imagination.
The opposite emotion of interest is boredom.
Surprise
Surprise is considered an unusual emotion: it can be both positive and negative.
Indeed, the things that surround us can pleasantly surprise us, and sometimes we experience surprise combined with disappointment or disgust.
For example, the courage of a person who saved a child during a fire, as well as the dishonesty of a thief who stole other people's things, can surprise.
How to recognize this emotion? The man raises his eyebrows, lips and eyes round.
Indifference is the exact opposite of surprise.
Disgust
When we strongly dislike something, we make faces and squint. Wrinkles appear around the mouth and eyes. This is disgust.
One can feel disgust towards real objects: such an emotion will be caused by spoiled food, mold.
They also feel disgust towards bad people who do terrible things (for example, criminals).
Why does disgust appear? This is how the brain reacts to things that can harm: cruel people, surfaces with harmful microbes, etc.
Delight, pleasure are emotions opposite to disgust.
Contempt
This emotion is externally manifested through pursed lips and a slightly slow look.
Unlike disgust, contempt can only be felt for people and their actions. Tastes, smells, objects are not included here.
Everyone has an idea in their head about what is good and what is bad. Contempt appears when a person does not correspond to our ideas about what is good and right.
Sometimes this emotion helps us feel better than others.
Admiration and respect are emotions directly opposite to contempt.
Guilt
Causes a heavy sensation in the chest, intense gaze.
A person feels guilty when he realizes that the perfect deed was bad, wrong.
This is a state in which we punish ourselves for insults, insults of loved ones. Perhaps no one we know condemns us, but we feel that we need to ask for forgiveness.
The emotion of rightness, confidence is opposed to guilt.
Suffering, grief
Grief is an emotion that brings a huge amount of mental pain. We suffer when a beloved pet dies, a loved one dies.
In moments of grief, people cry, sob, refuse to have fun. Pay attention only to the unpleasant event that caused the suffering.
This is a complex process: sometimes the grief does not disappear for a long time.
A completely different emotion is the feeling of happiness, success, absolute satisfaction.
. Life becomes more pleasant, you enjoy spending time waiting.
Sound familiar? This emotion is called anticipation: nothing happened, but you planned a good event and imagine what it will be like.
A person who is in anticipation becomes more energetic, smiles more often; the opposite of anticipation is hopelessness.
Pleasure
A positive emotion that makes us smile, laugh, feel short-term happiness.
Occurs when a person achieves a goal (not even a very important one) — you can get pleasure from a portion of ice cream, buying a gadget.
Unlike joy, pleasure is not a deep emotion. It's easier to get, but it disappears quickly. Joy pleases with its presence much longer.
Moreover, pleasure is more often associated with sensations that we receive with the help of the senses: for example, a pleasant smell, a feeling of coolness on a hot day, a soft pillow, etc.
The opposite is inconvenience, suffering.
Grief
This is an unpleasant emotion that occurs when contacting people, the outside world. Its opposite is joy.
When upset, the corners of the lips go down, the person looks sad.
Disappointment is born from our dissatisfaction: you and your friends dreamed of going to a cafe, but when you arrived, it turned out that it was already closed.
The emotion of grief does not torment us for a long time: a person is upset, but quickly realizes that the problem is not very serious. Grief is not such a painful emotion as grief, sadness.
Anger
Anger is an emotion directed at a person or phenomenon. A state of irritation, rage, hostility. The opposite is kindness, calmness.
When angry, people frown, cannot sit still, speak loudly.
People feel angry during a violent fight, wanting to hit the opponent; at the moment of humiliation, insult.
You can be angry with yourself: this is how a person shows that he is dissatisfied.
For example, a broken leg is angry with himself for inattention and frivolity.
Humiliation
Every person has a sense of dignity. It is a feeling of value: "I exist, I deserve love and respect, my thoughts and desires have meaning."
When we are in a group (class, group of friends, family), people can put us down. They utter words that make you think: what if I'm bad, stupid, ugly, inept?
At the moment of humiliation, a person hides his gaze, may blush. Sometimes behavior changes: for example, after an evil mockery, a sociable classmate becomes quiet, withdrawn.
Emotion, the opposite of humiliation - veneration, support.
Fright
Fear appears when an unexpected and at the same time unpleasant situation arises; is the antonym of peace.
The man started to cross the road, but did not notice the car coming around the corner. I had to react quickly so as not to get under the wheels. The threat to life caused a strong fright.
Outwardly, fright manifests itself as follows: the heart beats faster, arms and legs may tremble, eyes become round, the person shudders.
Envy
Complicated emotion that destroys good mood and confidence. The opposite of friendliness.
Occurs when we compare ourselves with other people: for example, a classmate seems smarter and more beautiful. We regret that we do not have the same sharp mind, long hair.
Envy causes heaviness in the soul: a frown, lack of a smile. An envious person lives with pain, does not know how to get rid of it.
Emotion is often used for the right purposes — envy makes one develop, learn. But anger towards a person whom we envy will not bring any benefit.
Emotion recognition games
You need to be able to recognize other people's emotions, correctly assess the behavior of others. There are many games and exercises to practice the skill.
"Mirror"
The most popular game for developing the emotional intelligence of a child.
You can play alone or in a group.
The host thinks of an emotion, depicts it with the help of facial expressions, gestures, posture. The task of the participants is to name the emotion and repeat it. Another option is for participants to guess the emotion, but portray the opposite.
“Name an emotion”
Open photos of people, cartoon characters, fairy tales, games on the big screen. The child needs to describe what emotions each of them experiences.
Picture books are helpful: as you read aloud, pay attention to the illustrations: "How does the character feel and why?" An additional exercise makes the plot more interesting, develops imagination.
“Imagine…”
Make a list of situations that can cause conflicting emotions, positive and negative.
The task of the players is to tell what emotions visit them.
For example: “Imagine that you were going to wish your friend a happy birthday, but found out that he decided not to invite you to the party”, “Imagine that your jacket was torn at school because they wanted to harm”.
"Tell me about yourself"
The players stand in a circle. The host stands in the center with the ball, chooses a participant, throws the ball to him, asks the question: “What makes you happy?”, “What makes you angry?” The participant thinks, answers the question, passes the ball to another.
The game develops the skill of recognizing emotions, introspection. Participants react quickly, observe the emotional state of other players.
Theoretical training is not enough to quickly understand the shades of human emotions. Regular training in the form of a game, practical exercises are required. The emotionality of parents helps the child to begin to navigate in the world of emotions. It is necessary to discuss emotional responses to life events, to take time to discuss feelings and emotions.
Emotional intelligence for children
We introduce children to the types of emotions, how to manage them and how to show themselves in teamwork, through situational games
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Emotions for children - we study feelings and emotions with children simply and visually
We will introduce the child to the variety of human emotions, teach them to express their feelings and recognize the emotions of other people through exciting story games
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Why should a child study emotions?
Better understand yourself
It is sometimes difficult for a child to even realize, and even more so to formulate what he wants now, what he feels, why he suddenly became uncomfortable.
And most importantly, understand what to do with it. Knowing the emotion "in the face", the child will not be at a loss in front of her.
Manage your emotions
Emotions arise uncontrollably, but how to dispose of them is up to us. Even a brave person can be frightened, but at the same time one will cry and hide, while the other will look fear in the face and defeat it. And this is exactly what you should learn from childhood - otherwise you won’t become successful.
Communicate more effectively with people
For productive communication, it is important to be able not only to recognize the emotions of others, but also to correctly express your own. Many will prefer to deal with a calm, friendly interlocutor, and not with a closed beech or a person who expresses his feelings too violently.
Protect yourself from manipulation
Each of us hides our true emotions in some situations.
Sometimes it's a matter of etiquette. But sometimes people can pretend to benefit at our expense and even harm us on purpose. This is where basic knowledge of human emotions comes in handy.
What should a child know about emotions?
What are emotions and how they arise
The child should learn that emotions are a reaction to what happens to him. They help us to be aware of our attitudes to people and events, regulate behavior and better understand others. Emotions can arise spontaneously, but there is no need to be afraid of this - they can and should be controlled.
How to visually distinguish one or another emotion
People don't often talk about their feelings and emotions directly. How do you know if a person is scared or sad? Is he happy or nervous? Surprised or interested? Is he sincere? You can distinguish the emotions of other people based on their facial expressions, facial expressions, actions.
How to control your own emotions
Those who do not know how to cope with their emotions are perceived as ill-bred and unpleasant people. Children are usually forgiven for inappropriate expressions of emotions, but the sooner the child learns to take control of them, the better he will get along with people and the more he will achieve in the future.
How to introduce a child to emotions and feelings?
Be sincere with children
Parents who believe that the manifestation of emotions is a weakness and it is better to ignore them altogether will grow up unhappy, socially unadapted children. Feel free to express your feelings in front of a child: angry, laughing out loud, sad. Let him understand that different emotions are normal.
Draw the child's attention to his emotions
If you see that the child, for example, is sad, turn to him: “You are sad.
What's happened? And what do you think to do with it? It is important that he understands: he will not be punished for what he feels, you are ready to analyze his feelings with him - and you will always tell you how to express them, what to direct them to.
Expand your child's emotional vocabulary
Psychologists have noticed a connection between emotional vocabulary and communication and introspection skills. Use at home more synonyms for words denoting sensations. Address the shades of emotions. For example, the general “evil” may mean “irritated”, “angry”.
Read and analyze literature together
The ability to empathize is formed when a person imagines himself in the place of another. Invite the child to imagine how he would feel if he were in the place of one or another literary hero. What would you do with these emotions? Would you express them or hide them? How would you proceed from them?
Learning emotions with children in an interactive
game format
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Explore the interactive play activities your child will have with Umnaziah's Introducing Emotions course.
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The structure of the course "Emotions for children"
10 THEMED LESSON GAMES 30-40 MINUTES EVERY
Each lesson is dedicated to one of the situations or emotions. The theory for the lesson is presented in the format of short stories and interactive tasks designed for children aged 6-13.
40 FUN CHALLENGES BUILT INTO THE LESSON SCENARIO
Each lesson contains 5-7 tasks to consolidate the material covered. All tasks have a plot and bright illustrations or are presented in the form of a game.
UNLIMITED ACCESS TO ALL COURSE MATERIALS
The child will be able to take the course as many times as he needs. You buy the course once and can return to it even after 5 years.
INTERACTIVE KNOWLEDGE QUIZ GAME
The course ends with an interactive quiz game, for the successful completion of which the child receives a certificate.
You will be confident in his knowledge!
What topics do we study in the course "Emotions for Children"?
Galaxy of Emotions
Joy and Sadness
Fear and Anger
Interest and Surprise
Trust and Aversion
Complex emotions
What is empathy?
Dating Cloak
Control helmet
Find yourself
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Examples of tasks for the study of emotions
Explore the other steps of the Emotional Intelligence for Kids course
"Introducing Emotions" is the first of four steps in the Emotional Intelligence course for children from Umnaziah.
See what topics our students are studying in other levels.
Getting to know emotions
In this course, we will introduce the child to the spectrum of human emotions, try to understand their own feelings, and learn to recognize and recognize the emotions of others. How are curiosity and surprise related? Is it possible to stop worrying at the blackboard and is fear so terrible?
Personality types
The main objective of this course is to show the child the diversity of human characters. We are all different in some ways, but similar in some ways. Why do some guys easily make new acquaintances, while others are reluctant to make contact, and how do different people make decisions?
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Teamwork
The course is designed for children 9-13 years old and introduces the child to the basic principles of teamwork, teaches to identify and take into account the strengths of each team member and give constructive
feedback.
