Teaching Little Minds About Big Emotions

Preschoolers have big feelings. Upset and tantrums can crop up seemingly out of nowhere, making parents feel powerless.

Our Head Start teachers look at big emotions as teaching opportunities. This is why we work to build self-regulation, or management of one’s own emotions. Our biggest resource is our Conscious Discipline curriculum and two major tools are Feeling Buddies and the Safe Place.

Feeling Buddies go beyond being cute little dolls that depict different emotions through facial expressions. They are not used to help a child to recognize feelings, but instead to help a child write his or her own “inner speech” by assisting the buddy in regulating its emotion. In other words, the buddy is not a toy, but instead a valuable tool.

Sample language as a child uses a buddy is this:

“Hello, angry. Your mouth is like this (demonstrate) and your eyes are like this (demonstrate). Breathe with me (take 3 deep breaths). You’re safe. It’s ok for you to feel angry. You can handle it.”

By using this language, your child will begin to write his inner monologue that can be used in moments of anger, sadness or other big emotions.

The Safe Place is part of self-regulation because it teaches your child to go somewhere to calm down and to work through their feelings. It’s not a time-out spot, instead it is a designated space to actively use in management of big feelings.

Every Head Start classroom has a Safe Place, and they don’t all look the same. Teachers are encouraged to have the students help set up this space so they will feel a sense of ownership.

If you want to learn more about these and more Conscious Discipline tools, be sure to attend our Parenting Toolbox sessions on March 17th and April 14th or attend a monthly parent meeting.

Details for these and more resources are always available on ClassTag or by contacting your classroom teacher.

All LCCAA Head Start classrooms are equipped with Feeling Buddies and unique Safe Spaces the children help design. The Spaces may contain pillows or other items in addition to the Feeling Buddies.