The number one topic I covered in my practice as a children’s mental health therapist, was feelings identification. Many children these days do not have a good working knowledge of feelings and are often told that the tough emotions (sadness, anger, loneliness, etc.) are bad. Children are often told that crying is not ok, or that it’s not ok to be angry.
However, these feelings are normal and we should be teaching our children that it’s ok to feel these feelings. It’s what you do with the emotions that matters.
- It’s ok to be mad…it’s not ok to hit.
- It’s ok to be sad…it’s not ok to call someone a bad name.
I’ve been talking about emotions with J since birth by saying things like “oh, I see you’re sad”, “wow, you think that’s really frustrating!”, “I’m so sorry that you are sad”. I’m constantly reflecting his feelings back to him so that he can learn the name for the feeling he’s feeling.
Recently, I put together and emotion book for J to help show him what the different emotions look like. I found these emotions cards here.
I folded each card in the middle, punched holes in them, stacked them together, added binder rings, and now I have an emotion book!
This book is also great for talking about the difference between gender, race, and age. We talk about hair color, eye color, and the different parts of the face. 
J really likes this book, and we look at it a lot around here!
Excuse the blurry, cropped off picture. I just loved his facial expression too much to not include it!
What a lovely post Amanda and really timely for me! Great idea and i love that cheeky face in the last pic!!
Thanks Jode! It was really simple and J loves it…as you can tell from the picture. I hope that you find it helpful for your girls.
What a great idea. All little ones love faces, the emotional component is great.
I love this! Have your heard of Conscious Discipline?
This ties in with what I just blogged about.
I am so happy to be your newest follower and I would love for you to come visit me and read about Conscious Discipline. =)
Heather
Heather’s Heart
I have not heard of that, but I’ll absolutly look into it! I’ve been looking for better discipline strategies. Thanks for your blog link. I looked a bit on my phone yesterday and it looked reallly interesting. I plan on spending some time there through during nap time today!
This is a great post Amanda. I’d love if you linked up to my Oh Baby! linky party:
http://trainupachildlearnaswego.blogspot.com/2012/03/oh-baby-baby-play-linky-party.html
What a fun book idea! my daughter has a board book with pictures of emotions, and she LOVES to look at all the babies.
This is a good idea! I never worked on emotions with the kids much other than drawings but noticed that (when I was working) that my daughter would come home from daycare and would act them out- so I know they were working on them. It is important for them to be able to express themselves- 🙂
Very cute idea!
Beth (TGIF)
I love this. I also really love the photos you used – they are perfect for toddler age. I think I am going to extend the rock emotion idea with this activity – thanks a mil for the idea!
What a cute idea! Great for so many ages! Thanks for sharing!
Scribble Doodle and Draw
I hope you don’t mind but I featured this post on my blog this week!
I am working on emotions with my autistic ECH classroom and would love to get these cards? The link no longer exists. Any idea where I could find them?