Handling Strong Feelings

Handling Strong Feelings

Feelings can overwhelm the best of us. When my daughter was 4, I swear I could see the steam coming from her ears when she was upset. When she was angry we all knew it. Her face was red, her voice was loud, and she would use her body to express this very strong emotion. However, if you asked her if she was mad she would scream "NO".

Learning how to recognize feelings in our body is an essential skill for all children. Some children can go from calm to angry in a matter of seconds. This often leaves the adults scratching our heads trying to figure out what happened. Often, the trigger to these strong feelings are internal and can be very scary for the child too.

One way to help children manage strong feelings is to help them become more aware of what their body experiences when these feelings come. This can help children to become better at recognizing the feeling and slowing it down.

How to Teach:
1. Pick 1-2 feelings to discuss
2. Have children think about a time they felt this feeling
3. Have children label how that feeling was experienced by the body
4. Have child practice being aware of these sensations during role plays

Teach with Books

One of my favorite ways to teach children how to handle strong feelings is by using the book:
The Way I Feel by Janan Cain

The Way I Feel by Janan Cain

Why this book?
This book does a wonderful job exploring different emotions. It introduces the feelings of silly, happy, disappointed, scared, etc. The book is vibrant in color and the children remain engaged the whole time. While I read the book, I stop at any of the feelings we have discussed before and have them make connections with it. We also think about how our bodies feel for each feeling.

If you don't have access to the book or you have children that really like using media to explore these concepts, you can view the online version. Sometimes I read the book and then we watch the video to see if we missed anything. Children tend to love the repetition.

No Prep Social Emotional Learning

To make it easy to teach this to your children, this lesson plan and activities can easily guide you through the process.

Click here to view the lesson plan

Freebie

Click here to download this resource

This worksheet helps students to put body labels to their feelings. They can begin by cutting out the feelings listed here but they can also come up with their own descriptions. It is a great way to get insight into how the child experiences the feelings. 

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