Young people—even infants and toddlers—are keen observers of people and environments, and they notice and react to stress in their parents and peers and community members.
They are likely to be curious about what is happening now or what will happen in the future and may behave differently in reaction to strong feelings like fear, worry, sadness, anger about the pandemic and other conditions.
A key asset for emotional well-being is to enable children to be able to identify and recognize their emotions.
So, let’s play the emotions game – make chits as many as you want. In each chit, write down a situation. Make sure you make a combination of everyday situations to crisis situations. For example:!
- How do you feel when your favorite dish is cooked at home?
- How do you feel when Dad goes out to buy something during the lockdown?
- How would you feel if there were no groceries in the shops?
- How would you feel if you can’t meet your friends for another month?
In turns, everyone picks up a chit, reads it aloud, and then mimes the emotion – no talking! Let the others guess what the emotion is, and then everyone together names the emotion – happy, sad, confused, upset, etc.
