Infants as young as 4 months of age have been shown to distinguish between different emotions. By the age of 6 months, you can start teaching children about the difference between emotions, and starting at 18 months, you can teach them to verbalize their feelings. How can you help them identify and express their feelings?

1. Use the Wheel of Emotions:

It’s a great tool that will help you and your children learn a wide variety of emotions. These emotions are felt but rarely labeled; teaching children how to specify and label these emotions is a stepping stone. 

2. Name their Feelings:

Name the feeling that you think your child is feeling at the moment using emotions from the wheel of emotions. For older children try to avoid using general emotions like “sad, happy, angry, or frustrated” and label  strong emotions like “disappointed, lonely, rejected, insignificant, confident...”

3. Model Expression of Emotions:

Lead by example. In certain circumstances, things may not go as planned, like, if you tried opening a jar and failed if you forgot to put the laundry in the washing machine, if you can’t wait for the event you are planning this weekend, you may feel various kinds of emotions. State the emotion you are feeling in front of your children to relate and understand what emotion is felt during these instances.  

4. Read Books:

Whether you are reading a storybook about feelings or any other topic, you can stop and ask the child what s/he thinks the characters are feeling.

5. Use Games, Flashcards, and Activities:

Through games, flashcards, and activities, a child can understand feelings through visuals, which will help a child easily identify the emotions they encounter. 

6. Encouragement through Praise:

When you catch your children expressing themselves, reinforce this with lots of praise. When your children receive praise, they are more likely to repeat that action, encourage them, and teach them that it is okay to talk about feelings.

7. Help Them Find Solutions:

Teach your children different ways to deal with emotions. Allow them to come up with solutions to problems and explain if these solutions are reasonable or not.

8. Recognize  Feelings of Others:

Children should identify the feelings of others in a specific situation or try to specify how someone they

9. Identify what others are feeling at the given moment:

Describing emotions they see around them using words can help children identify them when experiencing them.

One of the most widespread myths about fostering children’s emotional intelligence is that emotionally intelligent children no longer struggle with big emotions. But as many parents who have had to deal with highly emotional kids know, trying to establish what works to calm anxiety or other big emotions is treacherous terrain. The relationship between “emotions” and “coping mechanisms” is not always straightforward. What works today may fail miserably tomorrow, and what your child chose to calm a specific emotion-provoking situation successfully may have strictly no impact in a different case. The good news is that there are numerous resources your children can choose from. The “Emotions Kit” is a great resource filled with multiple age-appropriate tools (cards, games, worksheets, tools, etc.) and is designed to help you communicate with your child about emotions and proposes various coping mechanisms.