4 Ways to Develop Children's Emotional Literacy

In this blog post, I discuss ways to support children with developing their emotional literacy.

Over the last seven years, I have worked with children from a range of backgrounds to support them with their social and emotional learning.

Do you talk about emotions with the children in your life?

It can be challenging for children to know how to express their feelings and emotions.

Often they don't have the awareness of how to verbalise these emotions and it manifests through their behaviour and actions.

While working with children, I noticed that their actions and behaviour were often a result of suppressing their emotions.

The behaviours displayed were mainly rooted in feelings and emotions relating to worry, anger, loneliness, powerlessness and sadness.

It mostly wasn't until I was speaking to the child individually that they began to open up about how they were feeling.

This didn't always happen the first time I met with them. Usually it was a gradual process through social and emotional based activities.

I have 4 strategies to support children to with developing their emotional literacy, which are:

• Allow time

• Connecting activity

• Mindfully listen

• Invitational/open language

Let's dive into each one…

Allow Time

Allow time for children to share how they are feeling.

Some children speak about their emotions straight away and are very open. For others this can take varied lengths of time over different timescales.

Knowing that each child is unique, allow the child space and time to share how they feel. This means not putting pressure on the child to tell you straight away how they are feeling.

Building a relationship with them over time (if they aren't your own child) will help build their trust and confidence to share with you.

Connecting Activity

Sharing an activity that the child is interested in and enjoys doing, while exploring the topic of emotions, is a useful way to help the child feel at ease.

Some children start sharing how they are feeling while doing an activity such as playing with Lego.

For some non-verbal (and verbal) children, who like art, they might draw a picture or doodle something that has happened in the past or an imaginative picture. From looking at their art work you might be able to see the emotions they have recently felt or that they are experiencing in that moment. This could be from their facial expressions while drawing or from the characters/people they draw in the pictures.

You can additionally observe their body language and non-verbal communication/cues while they are doing the activity.

Mindfully Listen

When exploring emotions with children it is important that you give your full attention to what the child is sharing with you. When your mind begins to wander off in a tangent, see if you can bring your attention back to the child.

If appropriate, you could take brief notes of what they tell you. You can also try repeating what they have shared by rephrasing it and/or asking open ended questions. Such as “How did you feel in your body when you were excited [insert any other emotion]?”

Open and Invitational Language

Using open and invitational language can help ease the pressure that a child might feel to talk about their feelings.

To help them with connecting their thoughts and emotions to their physical sensations, you can try asking them questions such as “where can you feel that emotion in your body?” or “how does your body feel when you feel [insert emotion]?”

Using the term ‘if you would like to’ or similar wording can help children know that they have a choice in what they would like to share with you.

Expressing Emotions

Emotions are something that you as an adult and all children experience.

Although you will experience an emotion differently to your child/a child you are working with, and similarly displaying this emotion will be different, having an open conversation with them helps build awareness of each other's inner world.

How often do you feel an emotion but you aren't able to express it and instead suppress it?

Children express their emotions through actions and behaviour more often than explicitly telling someone that they “feel angry just now”.

As adults it can sometimes feel easier to ignore or hide the emotion. However, this makes the emotion stay bubbling under the surface and can cause physical and mental stress.

When children and adults practice techniques such as mindfulness, it can help develop an awareness of emotions and any patterns of emotions that they're feeling.

To Conclude

Exploring emotions with children is a beneficial way to help support their social and emotional learning.

Try different ways to explore emotions with children and remember to make it interactive and fun for them.

Do you have a child in your life who would benefit from exploring their emotions?

My next book, Slow Down Sammy, helps children develop tools to manage worries. I'm excited for it's release next month!

This picture book explores how using mindfulness can alleviate anxious and worried feelings.

You can find out more about Slow Down Sammy and pre-order your signed copy here.