Ideas for Teaching Yor Child about Emotions

 

Stick with the basic emotions: happy, sad and mad.

 

• echo what he seems to be thinking and feeling back to him:

  • "You want the truck."

• When your child is mad, sad… validate his feelings by saying “your mad!” or “I know you are sad.” Or “It is ok to be mad but it is not ok to hit your brother.

• When you are mad, sad, happy… let your child know by saying “I am mad.

  • The above 2 points can be accompanied with simple pictures of the emotion. Say “your mad” and show your child the mad picture

• Play emotions memory

  • Make cards with pictures of the 3 basic emotions (happy, sad, mad). Turn them over and take turns flipping them over to find pairs (like memory)

• When reading books discuss how the character looks (happy, sad, mad)

• Look at pictures of people in magazines

• Practice making different emotions while looking in a mirror

• Make a social story

  • Page 1: Luke is happy when…

  • Page 2: Luke gets mad when… (Alyssa takes his toy)

  • You can do more than one page per emotion.

  • Use pictures of your child for each page if possible, if not, a simple picture depicting the emotion and scene will work.