Identifying emotions and feelings at the right moment and the ability to express them is very much important in the overall cognitive development of children.
Just like how the other subjects are taught in classes, social emotions can also be learned for a smooth social life. Emotional regulations indeed help in right decision making skills and much more.
In certain group therapy sessions emotional exercises, activities and games are introduced so that children can realize the difference between each and other emotions and when to express them in real life situations.
Here are some of the fun emotional games that can be incorporated into group therapies.
Plastic Egg Faces: You can purchase plastic Easter eggs and draw faces in each with eyes on the top part and mouth in the bottom. The mouth can be drawn in different ways like open mouth, frown mouth, flat mouth etc. that represent different emotions. Take each egg and explain the emotion to kids and make them identify it by themselves.
Robot Flashcards: You could bring cute flashcards to the class and show various emotions displayed out for them to understand and speak out. This is surely a fun and captivating activity that certainly ensures learning.
Mood Meter: This encourages students in expressing their moods at each particular moment. It might be difficult for them to put it into words, yet rather easy with a meter dial.
Calm Down Yoga: This activity does not deal with identifying emotions, it's rather about how to deal with overwhelming emotions like anger and frustration. Yoga is one of the best emotion regulation activities to be done by children and adults.
Teach more feeling words: The most common practice is teaching emotions like happiness, madness, sadness etc. There are a wide range of social emotions that have to be implemented in different real life situations. A proper understanding of variants can result in the proper expression of these feelings.
Books about feelings: Therapists could read books about feelings so that children can understand better. A sad book might make them cry, a funny book makes them laugh and have a good feeling at the end etc. Learning through experiencing is a very effective form of understanding.
These are some of the great ways that can be used to teach emotions to the children. A proper understanding of emotions is extremely important for a social life and regulation of excess emotions.
Best group therapy centers in Ajman and others give proper sessions and classes regarding emotions and feelings.
