How to Teach Your Child to Manage Emotions
Emotions play such a huge role in people's lives, but what even ARE emotions? Most of us know the three most popular ones:
Happy
Sad
Mad
These three are called Primary Emotions. As a parent we know it is our job that our child knows these emotions and how this may be feeling. But… these are JUST our Primary Emotions! Emotions are like colors. We know there are so many more colors than the primary colors we learned in grade school.
As Occupational Therapists we try to teach so many more emotions! This looks like not just happy, mad and sad. There is also:
Frustrated
Tired (big one!)
Disappointed
Hangry
Joy
Nervous
Excited
Scared
Each emotion goes a little bit deeper and could feel differently for each person. Before we can teach our littles to understand what emotions are, they need to know what emotions are coming up for them. Are they feeling a ton of joy? Or maybe scared and nervous? All so important for you as a parent and for your child to understand!
A few ways we may be able to teach these emotions can be role playing with silly faces that look like emotions and being able to state the emotion with the face. Reading books is also a great way to teach emotions! Seeing a REAL kid show their emotions can help your little so much.
