Learn why it is important for your child to be able to identify their emotions, and help them build their emotional vocabulary and self-awareness. Help your child to label their feelings and strengthen their ability to self-regulate.
Learn
Why It Is Important for a Child to be Able to Identify their Emotions
When a child has strong self-awareness, they are more able to effectively engage in key foundational activities like:
- Have empathy
- Join a group already engaged in play
- Know what they need and learn to ask for it
- Manage conflict through a process
- Engage in flexible thinking (e.g., do things that feel hard or they may not want to do)
- Respect expectations for group behavior and social norms
- Understand personal space needs (for themselves and others)
- Make responsible decisions
- Adopt a growth mindset
Emotional regulation begins with self-awareness. Children must be aware that they are experiencing an emotion; then it is important for them to label how they are feeling. Having a varied vocabulary to express nuanced feelings is the foundation of emotional intelligence and emotional regulation. Dan Siegel, co-author of The Whole Brain Child, talks about the strategy “Name it to tame it”. Once we give language and a label to something as abstract as an emotion, this provides an anchor for helping a child conceptualize, connect with, and make meaning out of their emotional experience.
Lisa Feldman Barrett, author of How Emotions are Made, asserts that emotions are not hard wired in our brains, but that they are constructed by our experiences. Due to the complexity of people’s experiences, it is not always easy to label emotions. It is a learned skill for a child to be able to label their emotions. It is a skill requiring discernment, specificity, and ’emotional granularity’. A person with high emotional granularity has a varied vocabulary and can use precise and descriptive vocabulary to express an emotional experience.
Just like our thoughts, emotions can be invisible forces that impact our internal states and well-being. Teaching your child to be aware that they are experiencing an emotion, and then helping your child to label their feelings are key steps in developing their emotional regulation and raising an emotionally intelligent child.
If A Child Struggles to Identify their Emotions
Emotions can be confusing, especially to young children. It is not always easy to understand why or how we are feeling the way we do. Emotional awareness within the body requires a skill called interoception. This is your body’s ability to discern feeling states in your body.
Many children have difficulty feeling physical sensations in their bodies as a result of an emotional state. Because they are missing these physical clues, it may be more difficult for them to get to a regulated state.
When children do not understand their internal emotional states, this can lead to a variety of behavioral and relationship challenges, such as: outbursts, internalization and feelings of shame, poor self-image, reduced self-confidence, social isolation, and reduced executive functioning and problem-solving skills.
Over time, if a child’s emotional distress is prolonged, this can lead to more significant mental health and/or physical health problems. Our emotional health is a direct line to our physical well-being. When a child is struggling to identify their emotions, it is critical to provide them with as much support as possible to help them become aware of their feelings and to provide them with a safe, supportive environment to help them recollect their experiences, identify their feelings, and express themselves to the best of their abilities.
Just Remember
- When a child has strong self-awareness, they are more able to effectively engage in key foundational social activities during childhood and may result in fewer behavioral and relationship challenges into adulthood.
- It is a learned skill for a child to be able to label their emotions.
- Interoception is the body’s ability to discern feeling states in the body. Many children have difficulty identifying these physical feeling sensations, and as a result, may find it more difficult to get to a regulated state.
Do
3 Ways to Help Your Child to Identify their Emotions
Core Marbles
- Model for your child your identification of your emotions.
- Help your child to build an emotional vocabulary.
- Teach your child to notice the sensations in their body.
- Model for your child your identification of your emotions – It is important to model what you are feeling to show your child the process of experiencing emotions. When modeling, include these three parts:
- The situation – Talk about the situation that happened, so you are modeling that there is always a context for an emotion.
- Bodily sensations – What were you feeling in your body that gave you clues to how you were feeling? Describe to your child what you notice. For example, did you notice tightness in your back? A clenched jaw? Tension in your neck? Your face felt hot? A nauseating feeling in your stomach?
- Label the emotion – Give your emotional experience a name. You can be descriptive, and compare it to similar but different experiences that you’ve had. When you tell your story about your emotional experiences to your child, you are showing them: i) how to make the abstract concrete; and ii) the importance of taking the time to process your experiences and your emotions.
- Help your child to build an emotional vocabulary – There are different ways to categorize emotional states. The goal is to build and develop your child’s emotional vocabulary in a way that helps them describe varying intensities of emotions, different feeling states, and a diverse way to describe emotional experiences. Some options include:
- Zones of Regulation – Using the Body Engine Checker System, this is one of the most ubiquitous curriculums for educators. This system is based on levels of emotional alertness.
- Mood Meter – Marc Brackett, author of Permission to Feel and Founding Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, developed a Mood Meter based on the level of energy and pleasantness of emotions.
- Create a word wall of feelings – Using index cards or Post-it notes, ask your your child to write feelings or draw faces showing happy, sad, mad, scared, tired, worried, etc. Hang these up in an eye-level, high-traffic place in your home. Check-in spontaneously throughout the day, asking family members to identify how they are feeling. This will normalize the process of attention and awareness.
- Make a glossary or dictionary of feelings – Staple pieces of paper together and ask your child to create their very own book. Each feeling gets its own page and illustration. Is ‘mad’ a red, swirling tornado? Is ‘calm’ a fluffy, blue cloud? Your child decides.
- Teach your child to notice the sensations in their body – Help your child to pay attention to the changes that happen in their bodies when their internal emotional state shifts. These shifts can be slight and almost undetectable until we start paying attention to them. Some ways to teach your child to notice their internal body sensations:
- For a child that is more aware of their internal states, try asking: “What are you noticing in your body? Where is it? What does it feel like?”
- If you can see noticeable changes yourself, you can remark about what you are observing. For example, “I’m noticing that your face is getting red. Are you feeling warm or hot? How does your face feel?” Or, “I’m noticing that your body just seemed to tense up. Do you feel tightness somewhere in your body?”
- For a child that finds it difficult to explain where they feel sensations, ask them to point to the parts of their bodies where they notice sensations.
- Engage your child in high-energy movements to help them feel the sensations of increased blood flow, heart rate and breathing. For example, after one minute of doing jumping jacks with your child, you can help them shift their attention to their bodies by asking, “What do you feel in your body now? Put your hand on your heart. Can you feel it beating? Notice your breath now. Is it different than before? What else do you notice happening in your body?”
- For a child that is more aware of their internal states, try asking: “What are you noticing in your body? Where is it? What does it feel like?”
Everyone experiences emotions differently in their bodies. It is a process of attention, awareness and discovery of how emotions are stored and expressed in our bodies.