Identify emotions for kids

Lessons and Activities to Build Self-Awareness – Proud to be Primary

Teaching emotions for kids is easy with these social-emotional learning ideas and activities for the classroom.

Social-emotional learning is a key component in teaching young children. You’ll find that a good part of your day is spent educating your students about how to recognize, manage and express feelings. Because of this, below are engaging ways to teach emotions for kids in your classroom.

Everything You Must Know to Teach Emotions to Kids

Why do students need help learning how to express healthy emotions and feelings?

Students learn healthy emotional habits and ways of expressing their feelings in several ways. They learn at home as well as in their interactions with their family and friends. Children tend to pick these things up naturally. They learn by watching how others respond and mimicking their behavior. Many kids are active in their churches, community centers, sports, and hobbies. In those places, they learn how to interact with friends and neighbors as well.

But, what about the students who don’t have such opportunities?

It’s up to us, as educators, to model, teach, and encourage them to practice healthy emotional responses to everyday situations and events! Helping children to express their feelings and handle difficult situations with calm is our ultimate goal.

1. Helping Kids Identify Different Emotions

Children should be taught the language necessary to label and identify the different emotions they may experience. The reason is, we need to let them know that feeling different emotion is normal. By giving them the vocabulary needed to describe how they’re feeling, you are encouraging them to express themselves productively.

Recognizing Facial Expressions and Body Language: Children need to learn how to identify their own emotions, as well as others. One way to do this is by learning to pay attention to their own body signals, such as a frown and queasy stomach when nervous, or balled fists and tight shoulders when angry. Once they can recognize it in themselves, they can pick up on facial expressions and body language of others and then learn to react accordingly. In your morning meetings, perhaps spend five minutes modeling and discussing different emotional states.

Clip Chart: One way to encourage recognition of feelings is to provide a visual reference for them to use. A clip chart helps students to recognize and identify how they are feeling. They simply place a clip on the chart in the space that shows how they are feeling.

Play Games: One fun way to introduce, teach, and practice the names of emotions is to play an engaging game with students, such as these emoji card games, matching games, and board game.

2. Teaching Kids Healthy Expression of Emotions

We all feel the full range of emotions. Wherever they are on the happy or sad, engaged or bored, proud or embarrassed, ends of the spectrum, we can help them express those emotions in a safe and healthy way. The classroom is a great place to learn and practice!

“I Feel…” Statements: To learn how to express their feelings appropriately, students need to be taught how to use “I feel…” statements. Instead of screaming insults at another child who broke his crayon, little Johnny can say “I feel sad that you broke my crayon”, opening up the communication between the two students. This allows for healthy conflict resolution.
Coping with Extreme Emotions: Sometimes we must step in and help kids deal with the emotional roller coasters they sometimes find themselves on. Their extreme emotions get out of control and they need help finding their way back to calmness. We must realize that addressing the whole brain is key to understanding how to help them best.
Teaching Emotional Rights: It’s important for children to understand and assert their rights when it comes to emotions. This helps them maintain healthy boundaries with their friends and peers, and be respectful to teachers and adults.

3. Connecting Kids to Experiences with Emotions

Children learn to embrace their emotional state by realizing that it is normal and ok to feel the way they do. It’s our job to give them opportunities to label their feelings correctly. Emotional memory is strong! We can harness that power by helping students connect their experiences in the classroom with their emotions. By recognizing and acknowledging their feelings during a learning activity or classroom event, we can increase the chances of it sticking in our students’ long-term memory. You see, that’s why emotions for kids is so important!

Journaling: Encouraging students to journal about their feelings is helpful. They express their feelings by writing about learning tasks, field trips, or school events. For one, we often use this learning method in our classrooms for improving handwriting, spelling, vocabulary, and of course writing skills.
Emotion Sort: Have students sort pictures of children with experiencing different emotions. By doing so, they will gain practice recognizing facial expressions and body language and therefore, feel more confident understanding their own and others feelings.

4. Teaching Kids about Brain Biology and Emotions

The human brain is a fascinating subject, even for the youngest learners. Teach them what the parts of the brain are called, and talk about how different parts of the brain control their emotions and feelings.

Brain Craftivity: Try this fun craft activity that teaches children about the parts of the brain that control the emotions.

Upstairs and Downstairs: To try to explain how the parts of our brain work together, and how the emotions part can sometimes take over, try explaining it in terms they can understand, such as the “upstairs and downstairs.”

5. Encouraging Kids to Have a Positive Mindset

Additionally, add in self-talk and self-motivation skills. Positive and encouraging self-talk will help your students succeed, and create a more positive classroom environment overall. For example, you can teach them ways to feel good and focus on positivity. Here are ways to influence them to have a good attitude at school and teach emotions for kids.

Create a Vision Board: Vision boards are used in all types of professions, from business to graphic design. They can be used in the classroom too! Help children visualize what they desire and what makes them happy. Precisely, when they have an image in their mind of what makes them thrive, they are more likely to reach their own goals, and ultimately succeed in the classroom.

My Heart Map: This creative activity encourages children to thoughtfully consider what makes them happy and depict it on paper. It’s a great way to help them own and recognize their emotions and focus more on having a positive outlook.

Teach Growth Mindset: Any lesson about emotions and feelings can easily be integrated into a growth mindset curriculum plan. The two go together like peas and carrots!

Resources for Teaching Emotions with Kids

Emotions Self-Awareness Unit

The Emotions: Social Emotional Learning Unit includes 5 detailed, research-based lessons to teach emotions for kids. It is filled with hands-on and mindful activities. The curriculum teaches children about how their brain controls their emotions. It also teaches how to identify and express how they are feeling, and ways to encourage a positive mindset.

Emotions Book Companions

This emotional awareness resource includes 5 book companions on popular children’s books that relate to feelings and emotions (The Color Monster; The Feelings Book; Glad Monster, Sad Monster; F is for Feelings; In My Heart).

Children will participate in classroom discussions and book chats, share their feelings in written form, and participate in fun, engaging activities that build emotional awareness and social skills.

This emotions book companion resource includes a detailed lesson plan, guided questions, anchor chart, writing response, and follow-up activities (printable and digital included) for all 5 books. Great for distance learning and remote teaching of social-emotional skills!

FREE Emotions Lesson & Feelings Journal

Help students learn to identify and process their feelings in an emotions journal.

Download a free lesson and activities on identifying and labeling emotions from the Emotions unit by clicking the image below and signing up.

Social-Emotional Learning Curriculum

The mind + heart Social Emotional Learning Curriculum includes 8 units with 5+ detailed, character education, research-based LESSONS filled with TONS of hands-on and mindful ACTIVITIES that encourage children to express themselves and build important emotional and social skills. It includes emotions for kids!

More About Teaching Emotions

Emotional Skills Books and Videos

Self Regulation Strategies, Books & Videos

Empathy Skills Books & Videos

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7 Ways to Help Kids Identify Feelings & Control Emotions

How to help kids identify and express their emotions, and also manage those feelings while controlling their emotions in a healthy, respectful way. Why using emotion picture cards can be a lifesaver!

Helping Kids Identify & Express Their Emotions

When your child is shouting, screaming, throwing a tantrum and exploding with big emotions, it can be a real battle to find ways to teach your children about emotions without losing your own cool.

Parents can struggle to help their children learn about feelings and how to appropriately express their emotions, especially toddlers whose frontal cortex isn’t fully developed yet (also the biological reason behind toddler tantrums.)

The benefits of teaching your children about feelings and helping them develop emotional intelligence aren’t only great for minimizing power struggles and tantrums, but a lifelong skill they’ll reap the rewards of in school, business, personal relationships and friendships.

One big benefit?

Children who learn self-regulation and how to control their emotions are shown to have longer attention spans, understand appropriate dynamics of interacting with others, are less impulsive, more self-aware and better communicators.

Let’s talk about how you can first teach children how to identify and express their emotions respectfully, and then strategies for control emotions especially when they want to burst out in unwelcome ways.

Want Help Supporting Your Child’s Big Emotions? Check Out These Resources:

☑️ Emotions A – Z: From Chaos to Calm Teaching Emotions eCourse

☑️ Emotions Picture Card Set to Help Kids Identify Their Feelings

☑️ Calm Down Picture Cards Set to Help Kids Begin to Self-Regulate

☑️ “How I’m Feeling” Personal Reflection Journal Pages for Kids

Teaching Kids How to Control Emotions

Model Reactions and Emotional Behavior

Children look to their parents to be the prime example of how to act, behave and react.

Basically you are their role model for navigating life.

Children are also exemplary at mimicking the behavior and mannerisms they’re surrounded with, no matter if the behavior is good, bad, appropriate or inappropriate.

It’s important to practice what you preach which means instead of matching your child’s intensity with your own, you must be the rock-steady and calm your child needs.

Your “cool as a cucumber” response will teach your kids a better way to handle challenging situations, disappointment, and adversity than with big, explosive emotions.

The coping strategies you demonstrate will help your children develop their own coping strategies to main control and reel it in.

Talk About Emotions and Feelings with Kids

Children often feel overwhelmed by what they are feeling particularly because they don’t know what it is.

What are emotions?
What are feelings?
What does this feeling I have mean?
What is the emotion that matches this feeling?
Why am I acting this way?

Butterflies in the tummy often equate to nervousness and clenched fists, anger. But does a child automatically know this?

The very simple answer is no they do not.

Children must learn the different kinds of emotions and how they relate to what you feel inside.

The best way to do this is to help name your child’s emotions as it matches their behavior.

Crying = Sad
Throwing a Toy = Anger
Laughing = Joy
Fear, Guilt, Happiness, Excited….

You can help your child identify facial expression in others and by watching themselves in the mirror, to recognize what behavior is saying.

You don’t just want to point out the negative behavior and reactions like being angry, sad, or upset. Also, point out the entire range of emotions including happy, excited, lonely, etc. so they learn all the emotions and can read body language.

Talk about your child’s emotions by having regularly conversations about feelings and using emotion picture cards to help kids identify what they’re feeling.

If your child is unable to name what they feel, help them by describing the emotion and pointing to the picture in the emotion picture card set, until they make the connection.

Identify Feelings of Others

Teaching emotional intelligence isn’t only about your child, it’s about modeling the connection between behavior and feelings for your children in a teachable way.

When you feel frustrated, tell them.
When you are happy, express it.
When you feel angry, explain why you feel this way.

It’s important to help children learn to recognize feelings and emotions in others by reading facial expressions and also identifying body language. The emotion picture cards can help kids identify body language and cues in others too.

When kids can recognize the emotional state of others, they’ll be equipped to understand how to interact with others and communicate with them better.

4.
Praise Behavior Your Want to See Repeated

When you watch your child catch themselves and walk back out of what could have been a tantrum or a big emotion situation, shout your praise from the rooftops!

Praising behavior tells kids the should repeat it because of the positive reinforcement you give them.

It’s like when your children first learn how to walk. When you sit on the sidelines and cheer them on, the more they want to try standing and walking towards you.

Positive praise works just like this to reinforce when your kids make good choices when it comes to behavior, too.

Notice When Environmental Factors Play with Emotions

There are a lot of environmental factors that come into play when a child experiences big emotions.

Help your child identify other reasons why they get off track or preemptively could get off track by looking at their surroundings.

The big four are:

Sleep
Food
Overstimulation
Connection

Most often, poor behavior and misbehavior are the result of being tired, being hungry or overstimulated. This can also be because of a lack of connect the child feels to you or another person they’re close to and acting out is a way to gain your attention.

The more in touch your child is with their feelings, the more connected they’ll be to their body and the instincts to rest, eat, chill out or ask for affection when their tank is on empty.

6. Coping Strategies to Control Emotions

Even if your child has identified triggers to their big emotions, they still need coping strategies to get the emotions under control.

Different coping strategies that are useful are:

Create a calming / quiet retreat in your home when your child can retreat to be alone
Listen to music (and dance if it helps)
Take a bath
Create! Draw, color, paint
Drink a mug of something comforting like warm cocoa or apple cider
Blow bubbles
Squeeze a stress fall or play with fidget toys

Calm Down Resources:

Anger Management: Calm Down Tools Kids Can Use Anywhere
Parents: 5 Steps to Teach Kids How to Manage Big Emotions (Free Printable)
Helping Kids with Transitions: Switching Gears without Tears

Be His Safe Spot Before & After Big Emotions

While the wave of big emotions rains down, the one thing your child needs is to know you are there and that you still love him.

Even if your child doesn’t want affection or your presence at the time, being there for your child gives him safety and lets him know you’re on his team. It also tells him you’re a safe place to share his feelings with once the meltdown has passed.

Match your child’s force with calm reassurance, and counter fury with empathy and gentleness.

If you match his intensity with your own, you can’t provide the safety net he depends upon you for. Whereas, if he feels helpless, out of control, exhausted and distraught, but you gently respond with empathy and understanding, he’ll be able to pull himself together after a good cry versus keeping the tantrum raging on long after it could have ended.

Soon, your child will become the master of his big feelings and emotions and the chaos will be evened out with more calm.

Use Calm Down Cards to Ease Big Emotions

Calm Down cards are a great tool to give kids options about how they can calm down, and when they have the choice of what they want to do, it’ll help them calm down even faster!

Print this set of calm down cards, laminate if you can, and let your child shuffle through the 45 cards until they find a solution they’re comfortable with.

There are 45 kid-tested methods that will help them cool off when big emotions take hold!

The best part?

With consistent practice of using the calm down card set, kids will turn to their set of calm down cards without any prompting from an adult and begin to self-manage their big feelings all on their own!

Additional Resource: 10 Fun games to help teach kids self-regulation skills

Need a little extra handling your child’s big emotions? Here’s a FREE Parenting Course to help you both turn things around.

Additional Calm Down Resources

Create a Quiet Spot at Home For Your Child to Calm Down
Helping Kids with Transitions: Switching Gears without Tears
Navigating the After-School Meltdown: How to Help Your Child
Anger Management: Calm Down Tools for Kids to Use Anywhere
Help Your Children Understand Emotions and Develop the Emotional Intelligence They Need

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

learn more

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

Try for free

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

Start training

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?

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.