Learning About Emotions Through Play

Your child will be happier and cope better with problems, knowing how to recognize and understand his/her own emotions.   This is a gradual process as children develop.

When your children are grown enough to recognize, understand, and talk about strong and complex emotions like excitement, frustration, anger, or disappointment, they would be less likely to express these emotions through challenging behavior, like tantrums.

Being able to recognize and understand how other people are feeling can help your child get along with others too. 

What you need to help your child learn about emotions

You can do this activity anywhere and anytime you play with your child. You just need your face! Encourage your child in a fun, playful way to first imitate your facial expressions and name different feelings.

How to help your child learn about emotions

This activity gives your child practice with naming emotions in a fun, playful way.

• Choose an emotion.  With younger preschoolers, start with basic ones – for example, "sad", “happy”, and “afraid” and with older children try "confused" or "excited."
• Talk with your child about a time you felt that emotion and when she might feel it too – for example, ‘I get excited when it is my birthday. When do you get excited?’
• Show your child the emotion with your face and body. For example, show your child an excited face, clap your hands, jump up and down, and so on.
• You can take turns showing and guessing different emotions and talking about times when you felt those emotions. 

Other ideas for learning about emotions

If you have been talking about an emotion, see if you and your child can find an example in a book you are reading.  "Look at the picture of the boy.  Does he look sad, or happy?  Why? What do you think?"

Try drawing emotional faces and guessing what they represent.  Your older preschooler can draw with you.

Use favorite puppets or toys to act out emotions and then talk about the emotions the toys are ‘feeling’. For example, a toy might be feeling too scared to play or feeling excited about a party.

Adapting those games according to child’s age

Keep the emotions and emotion words quite simple for your younger child. 

Your older child will be able to understand and learn words for more complex emotions, like ‘confused’ or ‘jealous’. He/she will find it easier to connect the names of emotions with his own experiences.