The Preschooler

Toddler Emotions

Emotions just happen.  There isn’t any way to stop them from happening, but you can control how you deal with emotions you are having.  However, this comes only with a lot of experience and practice that small children simply haven’t had yet.  One of the biggest challenges for youngsters when it comes to dealing with feelings is that they are still learning what they are and how to identify them.  They are also trying to learn a new set of words to label and describe emotions.  Here are a few things you can do throughout your day to help your child recognize a variety of emotions in himself as well as others.

• While reading books with your child, stop during obvious points in the story, and ask your child how he thinks the character feels.  Follow up this question with, “Why do you think he/she feels that way?”
• The same can be done while watching a television show, although you may not be able to stop and start the program in order to do this.
• Stop throughout the day to help your child label his own emotions.  You may point out how you can identify that emotion in your child by saying such things as, “I can see you are happy because of the smile on your face!” or “I thought you might be sad because you are looking at the floor and their are a few tears in your eyes.” 

Be sure to include less common emotions, instead of just “happy”, “sad”, and “mad”.  Children are able to understand labels such as, delighted, ecstatic, and gloomy if they are used repeatedly.  This also helps to expand their vocabularies and realize that there is more than one way to describe an emotion.

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Written by Laura on June 22, 2011