Children and emotions: How to teach children about the importance of expressing their feelings?

Expressing feelings can often be difficult for us adults, imagine teaching them to children? The best way for children to learn about emotions is to talk about them. So here are some tips on how to help you with this type of conversation.

Teaching about feelings through cartoon characters and movies:

Discuss how the various characters from cartoons, books and movies might be feeling. Pause to ask, “How do you think he feels now?”

Create opportunities to talk about feelings:

Every day, ask your child, “How are you today?” Show them that it’s okay to feel what they feel. You can help your child acknowledge feelings by sharing how you are feeling. Say, “I feel sad that you are not obeying me when I speak to you.”

Practice what you want to teach your child:

If you ask your child to use words to express their feelings while he is angry, but he testifies that you yell to express yours, your words will not be effective. Now, if you instead of shouting, indicate that you are angry and take a deep breath, your child will learn to recognize the skills you use when you are upset.

How has this daily practice been with your child?

The importance and power of naming emotions

Emotions are intense. They can strenghten or weaken us if we don’t understand the power they have. The truth is that we cannot change what we do not perceive. Denying or avoiding emotions will not make feelings disappear, on the contrary, they will outgrow and consume all of our vital energy.

Children do not always have the vocabulary of emotions. In schools they aren’t usually taught and at home if us, parents, don’t understand the importance of it, will teach them either. Science explains that naming emotions initiates a process of self-knowledge and understanding about what a person is feeling, and the is the first step towards developing our social and emotional intelligence.

When someone asks, “How are you?”, we often answer if we are fine or not. Being good or not being well, are not emotions, they are moods. So with this, we see that defining emotions is not only a problem for children, but also for us adults.

If we understand emotions as a “moving energy” that always seeks to be expressed in some way, we understand how naming them gives us the opportunity to take a step forward. Only then, we are able to welcome what we are feeling and make conscious choices about how we are going to react to it.

What are emotions?

The word “emotion” comes from the Latin emovere, which means “energy in motion” (e = energy and movere = movement). All emotion, even the ones seen as a bad feeling, exists to make us move, that is, move on and change what is out of balance.

Have you ever stopped to think that in our society it is more common to show our happiness rather than our sadness ? When a feeling of sadness comes, we tend to avoid and hide it from ourselves, as if it were wrong to feel that way. We avoid talking about it.

Girls are predisposed to express their emotions more often because they belong to a more “sensitive”, “emotional” gender. Boys grow up without knowing what emotions are, judging what they feel only as bad feelings, as they are educated to always be strong. No wonder we hear the expression “boys don’t cry”. –

The truth is that emotions, whether good or bad, must always be expressed. “When we don’t let our emotions flow, it’s as if we are filling ourselves with cement. We are so filled with sadness, anger, guilt, fear and shame that there is no room for anything else. The heavier we get, the lower our vibrational level becomes – the connection with others, with life and joy. Dealing better with all the emotions within us, the lighter we become, and that reflects in the ability to attract more abundance, health, love and depth into our lives.” –

Excerpt from the book “The identity of the soul” by author Panache Desai. In this book all emotions talk to you. The dialogue is worthwhile.

Image source: freepik