Simple Ways to Teach Kids About Their Emotions

When I first started working with children, the most common phrase we were taught to say when a child was escalating was, "Use your words." Which sounds like a wonderful thing to encourage when a child is about to throttle another. But using your words is also something kids need to learn over time through careful and conscious parenting and modeling. And the same goes for emotional literacy.

We sometimes forget that not only do kids struggle to find words when they're in the grips of big emotions, but they may not even be able to articulate what those feelings are. Instead, it can all feel like one big tangled ball of feelings they haven't yet learned how to peel apart.

So before we can expect kids to "use their words," we have to help them develop the words in the first place.

Make feelings part of everyday conversation

One of the easiest ways to help children develop an emotional vocabulary is to make feelings part of everyday conversation. This can be as simple as getting ready for the day and giving your child a chance to tell you what their emotional weather looks like. Is it sunny and calm? Cloudy with a chance of grumpiness? Or is there a full-blown thunderstorm brewing?

Feelings charts can also give kids a place to start, particularly when they're still learning the language. You can keep one on the refrigerator, let them point to a face that looks like how they feel, or even make your own together. The point isn't to turn every morning into an emotional check-in exercise. It's simply to create easy, low-pressure opportunities for kids to notice what they're feeling and practice putting words to it.

Children also often learn how to name their feelings based on the grownups around them. If we want kids to have the right words, it's really important for us, as the big humans in their lives, to talk openly about our own feelings. And you can model this anywhere.

For example, if you're sitting in traffic, you could say, "It's really hard to wait for the cars to move. I'm so frustrated! And you know where I feel this in my body? In my hands. I really want to punch the steering wheel."

Or, if you're getting ready for a night out, you might say, "I'm so excited! I feel like I want to jump and run around at the same time."

And please don't get me wrong. You don't have to narrate your entire emotional life to your child. We don't want our kids feeling like they have to carry our emotional weight. But when they hear the adults around them talk comfortably about a range of emotions, we're modeling something important: feelings aren't scary, shameful or something we need to hide.

We're also giving them language they can eventually use to understand themselves.

Help them connect feelings to their bodies

We can all think of a time when we were too nervous to eat. Maybe it started with a tightness in our chest that traveled down to our stomach, forming a knot that developed into a full-blown wave of nausea. Or a time when we were so happy that our heads felt light, our hearts pounded in our ears, and we could hardly sleep.

These are just some of the ways our emotions are felt inside our bodies, and this is a crucial connection we need to teach our children. Because feelings aren't abstract mental gymnastics. They're experiences that happen throughout our bodies, and learning to recognize those physical signals can help kids begin to understand what they're feeling.

Kids have these physical experiences all the time, but they don't necessarily understand what they mean. Helping them notice what's happening in their bodies gives them another way to begin untangling that ball of feelings. You might say, "I noticed your hands got really tight when I said it was time to leave." Or, "You got very quiet when your friend said that."

From there, we can get curious rather than telling them what they're feeling. "I wonder if you're disappointed?" leaves room for your child to say, "No! I'm MAD!"

And that's a win. Your child has just identified and articulated their own emotional experience.

For some children, having something visual in front of them can make this process easier. It's one of the reasons I created Milo's Big Feelings Toolbox. Sometimes pointing to a face, a feeling word or something happening in the body is a whole lot easier than trying to come up with the words from scratch when you're already overwhelmed.

Resist the urge to make it better

We've all been there. This beautiful, wonderful, adorable child that you LOVE with every fiber of your being comes home from school and they're devastated. Maybe they were humiliated by a friend group, weren't invited to a party other kids were invited to, or received a failing grade on a test they studied really hard for. Whatever the cause, your child is hurt and you want to FIX IT.

Of course you do. When someone we love is hurting, it's almost instinctive to start searching for a way to make that hurt go away. We remind them about all the friends who do love them. We explain that one bad grade isn't the end of the world. We start making plans for something fun to do instead of the party they weren't invited to.

But here's the problem: when we rush to make our kids feel better, we can inadvertently send the message that whatever they're feeling right now is something that needs to go away. And we can also send the message that we have the answers to their emotional turmoil. Instead of teaching them how to navigate their own inner landscape by sitting with their emotions and giving themselves space to feel them, we make their pain about us and our own discomfort.

Ultimately, our kids don't need us to make it better; they just need us to sit beside them while it hurts.

So what does that mean? Well, it might sound like, "I know how badly you wanted to be invited to that party. That really hurts." Or, "You worked so hard for that test. I can understand why you're disappointed."

Essentially, what we're doing is letting them know that whatever they're feeling right now is okay for them to feel.

Help them figure out what works

When it comes to building emotional literacy, or emotional ABCs, as I like to call it, our first step is always helping kids learn to identify their emotions. The second is helping them figure out how to move those emotions through their bodies, process them and eventually release them. But what that looks like can be incredibly different depending on the child, the emotion and the situation.

One child might need to run around the backyard when they're angry, while another might need to curl up somewhere quiet. Sometimes drawing helps. Sometimes squeezing or pushing against something helps. Sometimes they need to cry, stomp their feet, cuddle a stuffed animal or just sit next to you for a while. And here's the tricky part: what works for your child on Tuesday may do absolutely nothing for them on Friday.

This is where we can start giving kids some agency by asking questions instead of immediately offering solutions. "What do you think your body needs right now?" Or, "Do you want me to help you think of some things that might help?"

Because we're not trying to teach kids that there's one correct way to handle an emotion.

We're helping them build a toolbox of things they can try while also learning to pay attention to themselves. Over time, they begin to figure out which tools work for them, which ones don't, and what they might need in a particular moment.

In fact, this is one of the reasons I created Milo's Big Feelings Toolbox. I wanted kids to have different ways to explore what they're feeling and what might help, rather than another grownup telling them how they're supposed to feel or what they're supposed to do about it.

Because ultimately, the goal isn't to raise a child who never falls apart. Sometimes falling apart helps us accept our imperfections, slow down long enough to find a new way of seeing a situation, and gives us permission to be messy. Emotional literacy doesn't prevent the messy human experience; it helps us navigate it more gracefully, if we're lucky.

And it gives kids the language they need to understand what's happening inside of them, recognize what their bodies are telling them and, over time, develop more confidence in their ability to navigate those feelings.

Which brings me back to where we started: "Use your words."

We can't expect kids to use words they don't have. We have to help them build the language first, and then give them hundreds of opportunities to practice using it, in the car, at breakfast, when they're disappointed, when they're excited and, yes, sometimes when they're about to throttle their sibling.

Because that's really how emotional literacy develops. Not from one conversation about feelings, but by making feelings something we're allowed to talk about in the first place.