Key Insights

• Many children, including adults, struggle to recognise and express their emotions. 
• Teaching children to notice how emotions feel in their bodies, such as nervous butterflies in their stomach, can help them understand their feelings better.
• Dr. Dan Siegel’s concept of “Name it to Tame it” highlights the powerful role that naming our emotions plays in helping children manage their emotions.
• Visual tools, such as feelings thermometers, can help children to recognise and express their emotions.

How Feelings Charts and Emotional Vocabulary Support Self-Regulation

Recognising and labelling emotions can be difficult, even for adults. For children, it can be especially challenging to find the words to express what they’re feeling inside. Visual tools, such as feelings charts, can give children and young people the vocabulary needed to name their feelings and connect these to bodily sensations. This connection, in turn, helps children better understand their emotional responses and start to develop more effective self-calming strategies.

By learning to notice and label emotions as they’re happening, children build self-awareness, improve their ability to communicate feelings, and gain confidence in using coping strategies that work for them.

Dr. Dan Siegel’s concept of “Name it to Tame it” highlights the powerful role that naming our emotions plays in helping children and adults to manage their emotions. When a child accurately labels what they’re feeling, it activates the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for executive functions such as impulse control and emotional regulation. The simple act of putting feelings into words helps the prefrontal cortex to calm emotional areas of the brain like the amygdala, which triggers the fight-or-flight response. This also promotes the release of calming neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and dopamine. By naming their emotions, children get to regain a sense of control and become better equipped to understand and express their feelings.

 

9 Activities to Help Kids Understand Emotions

Here are 9 activities designed to help children notice, label, and regulate their emotions.

1. Feelings Thermometer

A feelings thermometer can help children gauge their emotions on a scale ranging from calm at the bottom to dysregulated at the top. Not only can it be used to identify the intensity of their feelings, but it can also be used to connect emotions with appropriate coping strategies. A key goal of the feelings thermometer is to teach children to catch difficult emotions early so that they can use effecting calming strategies before they become overwhelmed. To begin with, you may find yourself doing a lot of the work, such as naming emotions and how these appear, but over time, the child will begin to recognise their emotions earlier and use effective self-calming strategies.

 

2. Feelings Check-in

Asking children to point to where they feel an emotion, or using a feelings check-in worksheet, helps them to make connections between feelings and bodily sensations and improves their emotional self-regulation skills. Naming the child’s emotions for them, for example, commenting “I can see your fists are clenched. It wonder if you're like you’re angry?” helps to highlight the fact that we give off signs that let other people know how we’re feeling. When helping children to manage their emotions, it’s important to validate, and not judge, the emotion. Try this activity together and notice how your child’s awareness grows.

 

3. How I Act and Feel Worksheet

It’s important to teach children that emotions are often expressed through their behaviour as well as words. The How I Act and Feel worksheet can help children to connect their emotions and behaviours. This activity can also be paired with discussions about appropriate and inappropriate ways to express big emotions, for example, helping children to understand that whilst anger is a valid emotion, responding with aggression is not an acceptable behaviour.

 

4. Feelings List

Expanding a child’s emotional vocabulary is vital for helping them to find the exact words to describe how they feel. Feelings lists that group feelings into core categories are especially useful, as they can teach children how similar emotions, such as frustrated and annoyed, relate to one another. This also helps children develop a richer emotional vocabulary and express their feleings more clearly. For example, psychologist Paul Ekman’s six core emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust) can serve as foundational categories for building a rich emotional vocabulary.

 

5. Feelings Wheel

A feelings wheel is similar to a feelings list, but some children may find its circular design easier to navigate. It can also help children to see how emotions in different categories relate to one another and vary in intensity.

 

6. Self-Regulation Flashcards with Coping Strategies

Self-regulation flashcards are another effective tool for helping children identify what is happening in their bodies and how to respond appropriately. Their small size makes them easy to carry around, so they’re always on hand when you’re out and about. I’d highly recommend laminating the cards and attaching them to a keyring for added durability.

 

7. Anxiety Thermometer with Coping Skills

The anxiety thermometer focuses specifically on worry and anxiety. It helps children gauge their anxiety on a scale ranging from calm to overwhelmed, whilst offering a list of potential self-calming strategies at each level. Anxiety thermometers can be particularly helpful for children with generalised anxiety, social worries, or school-related stress.

8. Anger Thermometer

The anger thermometer can help children understand different levels of anger, from mild irritation to fury, and how each level feels slightly different and impacts their behaviour. One key benefit of this tool is that it helps children to spot early warning signs that they’re starting to move up the levels, which gives them a chance to either self-calm or seek help or co-regulation from an adult before they become dysregulated and flip their lid.

 

9. Mindfulness Breathing Exercises

Finger tracing mindfulness breathing cards can be a simple but powerful tool to help children to manage their emotions, improve focus, and develop self-regulation skills. Slowly tracing a finger along a pattern while taking deep, controlled breaths, can help calm children and anchor them in the present moment. This engaging and multi-sensory approach also makes mindfulness more accessible for young learners who may struggle with still meditation.

Mood tracker and Emotional Journaling

In addition to the above printables, emotion journals, such as the HappySelf Kids Journal, and mood trackers can be a powerful tools for helping children build emotional awareness and self-regulation skills. By regularly recording how they feel and what may have caused those emotions, children can begin to notice patterns in their mood, recognise specific emotional triggers, and reflect on what coping strategies worked best for them. This approach encourages self-reflection and can contribute to improved mental health and overall wellbeing.

Using colour-coded charts, emojis, or simple drawings can make the experience more engaging and accessible for children. It also allows them to personal their journals or trackers and take ownership of their emotional learning. 

Helping children to notice and express their feelings takes practice, but with these tools, you’re already setting them up for success.

  

Related product: Feelings and Emotions Bundle

Explore out collection of feelings worksheets designed to support your child’s development.

 

Photo by Jena Backus: https://www.pexels.com/photo/girl-drawing-on-brown-wooden-table-1001675/

References and Further Reading

Siegel, D. J., & Bryson, T. P. (2010). The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind. Delacorte Press.

Brukner, L. (2017). A Kids' Guide to Staying Awesome and In Control: Simple Stuff to Help Children Regulate Their Emotions and Senses. Magination Press.

Kuypers, L. M. (2011). The Zones of Regulation: A Curriculum Designed to Foster Self-Regulation and Emotional Control. Social Thinking Publishing.