Feelings Identification Activities for Children

Feeling Words During Play

• Pretend play and games provide an opportunity for parents to teach children about feelings. Provide descriptive comments about a child's play and offer some feeling words. For example, say, "That girl feels sad because her brother hit her." Offer observations about the child as well. When a child is struggling with a hard task, make comments such as "looks like you feel frustrated that this is not working out yet." Providing children with examples of feeling words helps them to gain more understanding.

Books and Television

• Reading books or watching television provides an opportunity to discuss feeling words. Ask the child how she thinks a particular character might feel in various circumstances. Discuss how a character may have more than one feeling at a time. Also discuss how different characters might have different reactions to the same circumstance. Normalize feelings that each character might experience and discuss steps the character could take to feel better.

Modeling

• Parents can model how to verbalize feelings. Talk with children about experiences throughout the day and include statements about feelings. For example, a parent could say, "I felt really angry today when someone stepped in front of me in line at the store." When with the child, verbalize various feelings in ways the child understands. Show the child that feeling sad, happy, angry or frustrated at different times throughout the day is normal.

Feeling Charts

• Feeling charts provide children with visual representations of moods. For young children, a simple chart with faces that represent happy, sad and mad help them to learn the basics. For older children, more complex charts include words such as jealous, frustrated, nervous and excited. Ask the child at various times throughout the day to point out his feelings on the chart. Then discuss the reasons why the child might be feeling that way and praise the child for sharing about his feelings.