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Dialogue
How to teach children to recognize emotions?
How to recognize your own emotions and be able to talk about them? That isn’t an easy task for adults, let alone children. The pre-school “Creakids” has found a way how to encourage children to get to know their emotions and talk about them.
To talk about emotions, it is important to understand what is it that we are feeling. That can be a real challenge for a kid. That is why one of the most used things for “Creakids” children is a mirror. A mirror is useful for examining your face and different emotions. Children can try to observe how they look when they are sad, happy, offended, thoughtful, etc. That is how step by step children learn how to differentiate emotions.
The ability to recognize different emotions is important, so keep this in mind:
- Both adults and children feel more comfortable when talking about positive emotions, because negative emotions bring worry. Neither one nor the other should be highlighted.
- Children, who are still learning how to talk properly, can find it very difficult to find the words to express their emotions. Regardless, it is very important to encourage them to talk about it.
- Sometimes it is useful to encourage children to think back to when they last felt a certain emotion and to find a word to characterize it.
- To understand and recognize emotions role playing with dolls cane really useful. That can also show how a child feels in certain circumstances.
- It is important to teach children not to hide their emotions and that can be done by example – naming your own emotions and explaining the reasons why you are happy, sad, angry, etc.
- Every child can feel however they feel, so it important not to encourage the stereotypes of “boys don’t cry”, “girls don’t do these things”, etc.
- It is important to express emotions constructively – explaining that you can’t sit or abuse others, but you can express your anger, for example, by drawing it.