Solving problems together

Feeling words

Give you child lots of words to name their feelings. Show your child lots of pictures of people with different emotional expressions – see if they can name all the different types of emotions. The ‘big six’ emotions are: Happy, Surprised, Angry, Afraid, Sad and Disgusted. Then you have: amazed, astonished, bored, confused, cross, delighted, distracted, enchanted, envious, fascinated, furious, glad, grumpy, hurt, interested, insulted, jealous, joyful, lonely, nervous, optimistic, pleased, relieved, shocked, surprised, suspicious, trusting, upset, worried etc.

Connect before you re-direct

Try and connect with your child emotionally before you try and ‘solve the problem’ together at a logical level.

Listen to your child

Let your child talk and really listen to them. If an experience has upset your child let them talk about the event. This will help them to make sense of it.

Draw to thaw

Children may prefer to draw a picture of something or someone who is bothering them rather than talk about it. They might also like to write about an incident and you can encourage them to do this if appropriate.