Child Abuse Prevention Month: Meg Temple

Supporting Children’s Awareness Of Their Feelings

story by Meg Temple, CARE House of the Pee Dee Executive Director

Having worked as a therapist and forensic interviewer in the field of child abuse for over ten years, you may guess this cause is very important to me. I love working with children and families promoting healthy family relationships. Our mission at CARE House of the Pee Dee is to provide help, hope, and healing to child abuse victims and their families through supportive services and prevention. We do this by providing forensic interviews, forensic medical exams, therapy, and advocacy. April is Child Abuse Prevention and Awareness Month and we would always prefer to prevent child abuse instead of treating its victims. Prevention can include increasing communication amongst families and talking about emotions. Family game nights are a perfect way to do this. For a preschooler or younger elementary-aged child, create a Feeling Word Jar. Decorate a jar with your child and write age-appropriate emotion words on popsicle sticks or pieces of colored paper. Each family member can pull a word and share a time they recently felt that emotion. For children under five, age-appropriate words may be happy, mad, sad, frustrated, upset, excited, and loved. For older children, Feeling Word Jenga is a fun way to improve interaction and increase discussions. Add emotion words to Jenga pieces. Each time a block is pulled from the Jenga tower, the family member talks about a time they felt that emotion in the past week or month. Talking about emotions and feelings can help children of all ages because it introduces children to an increased emotional vocabulary, where they can learn to better read other’s emotions and express their own. For parents, I suggest utilizing the captive audience you have while riding in the car or eating dinner together. Ask your child to tell you about something positive that happened today and how they felt when that happened. Steer children away from using the words “good” and “bad” as feeling words. Then ask your child if anything happened they didn’t like. Have them tell you the story from the beginning to the end and ask them how they felt when it happened. Thank your child for telling you. Include this as part of your daily or weekly routine and periodically remind your child that they can talk with you about anything. Lastly, encourage your child to listen to their feelings about others and to share this with you. Feelings games and conversations may appear silly or basic, however, these increase communication and emotional intelligence, and it lays the groundwork to teach children about boundaries. These conversations and skills can help prevent abuse by supporting children’s awareness of their feelings around others and their open communication with you about those feelings.

For more ideas and information, visit THECAREHOUSE.COM & find CARE House of the Pee Dee on Facebook and Instagram.