Help your kids recognise their emotions #31DaysOfLearning

We are offering a printable again in the 31 Days of Learning event today; courtesy of Kori at Home. Part of growing up is learning how to relate to others and how to become more-self aware. These things go hand-in-hand and for most children, it’s one of those things that unfolds as they get older. To have kids recognise their emotions isn’t always easy. Some children may struggle a bit.

How can parents help younger children with recognising emotions?

And it’s at this time that we as parents want to help. But how can we do this? It’s not very realistic to expect for your toddler or preschooler to understand all of the big words associated with emotions. And it may just be difficult for them to put their feelings into words. We also want to make sure that our children are able to recognize and identify their emotions because it helps with protecting their emotional well-being.

But, just because they don’t have the words for them doesn’t mean that they don’t experience them.

It may even come across differently because they lack expressive vocabulary.

So, what can we really do?

When you make it fun and interactive, the lesson sticks.

Seems pretty simple, right?

I’m taking it a step further and we’re really going to make it into a game with this Make an Emotional Face printable pack.

How to use the make an emotional face printable

There are several ways that you can do this, but I would recommend:

Using the provided face pieces and corresponding emotional elements
Using playdough to make the face
Encouraging your child to make the face or expression after they’ve made the representation

Repetition, for any child, is key. And when it’s through play? They often don’t realize that they’re learning. Even if it’s something that may seem more complex like putting a name to these big emotions.

What’s included in the make an emotional face printable

You get the following elements:

Blank faces (boy & girl, black and white plus skin tone variations), and
Emotion faces for: angry, annoyed, embarrassed, excited, frustrated, happy, sad, scared, shy, surprised

As mentioned above, you don’t have to use the provided face elements – you could just as easily use play dough, crayons, or markers.

When you give your children the tools to identify, you are empowering them and elevating them to a level of self-awareness that sets them up for success.

We hope you like this printable and the advice we have given here to help your kids recognise their emotions. We do have other resources for kids, specifically focused on emotions, and anxiety on the site, so do take a look at these too:

Emotions and anxiety resources for kids

Here are some other tools for exploring emotions and anxiety with your kids on the site.

Encouraging kids self-esteem: Be Happy to be You baby bird colouring sheets

How to help kids with their self-esteem; Be happy to be you is a great book for this, and we have some of their colouring sheets to enable you to start the conversation with your kids.

Free Happiness Planner for kids

Happiness can be difficult for some children - so this happiness planner should definitely help.

Free worry tree to help ease your kids fears

If your kids have worries, sometimes being able to visualise them can help. This worry tree can be a great tool for this.

Anxiety in kids: Download these tools today to help your kids to talk

We have some more tools to help tackle anxiety in kids here as well.

5 ways to use reading to help anxiety in kids: Includes FREE friendship bookmarks and book bundle giveaway #TimeToRead

Finally - how can reading and these free bookmarks help with anxiety. Check this out to find out.

Come back and visit us again soon won’t you?

Helen

Helen

Helen is a mum to two, social media consultant, and website editor; and this site is (we think) the only Social Enterprise parenting magazine!Since giving up being a business analyst when juggling travel, work and kids proved too complicated, she founded KiddyCharts so she could be with her kids, and use those grey cells at the same time.KiddyCharts has reach of over 1.1million across social and the site. The blog works with big family brands (including travel) to help promote their services, as well as offering free resources to parents of kids under 10.It gives 51%+ profits to Reverence for Life, who fund a number of important initiatives in Africa, including bringing running water and basic equipment to a school in Tanzania.Helen has worked as a digital marketing consultant (IDM qualified) with various organisations, including Channel Mum, Truprint, Talk to Mums, and Micro Scooters. She loves to be creative in the brand campaigns she works on.Get in touch TODAY!