Kidsburgh Provides Advice on How to Talk to Children About Big Emotions
Children often have big emotions or feelings and the challenge can sometimes be getting them to say how they’re feeling.
As part of Mental Health Awareness Month, Kidsburgh has provided advice on how to talk about big emotions - whether it’s fear, embarrassment, frustration, or others - with children.
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For many toddlers, who are still trying to figure out how to form sentences, expressing emotions or even just tiredness can be difficult, Kidsburgh writes. The article notes that while it may be tempting to react with discipline or distractions when children act out, the root cause could be something else - such as emotional illiteracy.
Kidsburgh notes that crayons, clay, music, puppets, or other forms of expression might ultimately help parents to build emotional vocabulary, rather than responding to outbursts with punishment or attempting to distract children from their source of bother.
In the article, Dr Aileen Oandasan, an Allegheny Health Network psychiatrist, said that most children begin to learn simple emotion words around age two and this typically grows from ages three to 5. During this span of time, such basic emotions as happy, sad, or mad are “developmentally normal.”
However, Oandasan says, emotional vocabulary depends on a variety of factors, including:
A child’s temperament and development factors
Parental factors, such as social or environmental conditions
Reinforcement of emotional vocabulary by teachers and caregivers
Oandasan goes on to say that art is an important tool for helping children to develop an emotional vocabulary. Suggested projects include feelings collages, creative art projects (painting, sculpting, or drawing), and play acting through the use of puppets or dolls that involve scenarios featuring emotionally provocative situations.
To learn more, read Kidsburgh’s article, “How Do You Feel Today? Advice on Talking Big Emotions with Little Kids.”