Talking to Children About Emotions

Erin and Deneal over at Laugh Learn Love has a theme every month on which they try to share ideas on how to teach our children. This month their theme is emotions! I just wanted to share a couple of my favorite books that I have, that we like to read when we are talking about emotions.I love this book. It's illustrations do a wonderful job on portraying the diffrent emotions. They are bright and fun to look at. This book covers silly, scared, happy, sad, angry, excited, and proud. The author, Janan Cain offers several suggestions in the back of the book, that you can do with your children.

1. Ask your children what circumstances make him or her feel happy, sad, jealous, etc.
2. Discuss how to deal with emotions.
3. Talk about what you can do to change the circumstances leading to a feeling your child doesn't like.
4. Practice noticing and naming feelings throughout the day.

My favorite part of the book is the last page, where it says; Feelings come and feelings go. I never know what they'll be. Silly or angry, happy or sad-They're all a part of me.

I think it's important to teach children that it's okay to be angry or sad. It's okay to get excited and to be happy, but how to portray these feelings in an appropriate way.

We also love this book. What Are You So Grumpy About? It makes me giggle. Sometimes we just have a rotten day, and we have to let kids know that sometimes that is going to happen. Another book we love is Alexander and The Horrible, No Good, Bad Day! Life happens, but kids need to know how to get over their grumpiness and how to be happy. KIDS ARE MEANT TO BE HAPPY!! Nothing beats the sound of a giggling child!