Let’s rewind a little – all of us have (as babies) struggled to turn on our tummies, right? And maybe our mom said,” Is that frustrating?” When your child looks at you before walking into a dark room, you may have said, ” Are you feeling scared”?
While we provide words for the strong and common emotions children feel, like happiness, sadness, and anger, we sometimes overlook the fact that there’s a large and varied vocabulary of emotions. (By the way, there are over 200 words in the dictionary of emotions!)
So here’s what we do today to equip ourselves and our children with some (emotional) vocabulary:
- Make a big list of Feelings: Grab a bunch of chits and a pen and sit down with your kids to brainstorm all the feelings you can think of.
- Your list may include emotions your child doesn’t recognize, but that’s okay. Let’s see how many you get!
- Now fold the chits and put them in a bowl. It’s time for some fun with emotions….Pick up any chit, and narrate a situation pertaining to the given emotion while the youngsters guess what emotion it is.
- And when it is the child’s turn, they try to enact the emotion like the game of Dumb Charades and you guess the emotion! This game is bound to generate lots of laughter while serving its purpose.
Go ahead, and oh, by the way, how are you feeling today?
