Helping Kids to identify and express their feelings

Sometimes our children have big feelings and it is difficult to know how to respond as parents. Big feeling are often expressed as behaviour that can be best described as challenging!  As a parent you have an important role to play in developing your child’s emotional skills and helping them to learn healthy ways to express their feelings. We know that children who learn to cope with and express their feelings are more likely to have good mental health and wellbeing, be more resilient and able to cope with change and setbacks, display less behavioural problems and be more confident and have a positive sense of self. So the earlier we can build a child’s ability to identify their feelings and implement healthy coping strategies the better!

Here are some great tips from the Kids Helpline that can help your child to learn about expressing their feelings:

• Tune into cues - Sometimes feelings can be hard to identify. Tune into your child’s feelings by looking at their body language, listening to what they’re saying and observing their behaviour. Figuring out what they feel and why means you can help them identify, express and manage those feelings better.
• Behind every behaviour is a feeling - Try to understand the meaning and feeling behind your child’s behaviour. You can help your child find other ways to express that feeling once you know what is driving the behaviour.
• Name the feeling - Help your child name their feelings by giving them a label. Naming feelings is the first step in helping kids learn to identify them. It allows your child to develop an emotional vocabulary so they can talk about their feelings.
• Identify feelings in others – Provide lots of opportunities to identify feelings in others. You might ask your child to reflect on what someone else may be feeling. Cartoons or picture books are a great way discuss feelings and helps kids learn how to recognise other people’s feelings through facial expressions.
• Be a role model - Kids learn about feelings and how to express them appropriately by watching others. Show your child how you’re feeling about different situations and how you deal with those feelings.
• Encourage with praise - Praise your child when they talk about their feelings or express them in an appropriate way. Not only does it show that feelings are normal and it’s ok to talk about them, it reinforces the behaviour so they are likely to repeat it.
• Listen to your child’s feelings - Stay present and resist the urge to make your child’s bad feelings go away. Support your child to identify and express their feelings so they are heard. When feelings are minimised or dismissed, they will often be expressed in unhealthy ways.

For more information please visit Kids Helpline website for additional resources or contact Bron or Ryoko, your school counsellors if you have concerns about your child’s ability to express their emotions or you need support to develop healthy coping strategies.

https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/helping-kids-identify-and-express-feelings

Counselling Services at MTS

Mother Teresa  School is provided with the services of a school counsellor from Catholic Care. This year Bronwyn Whyatt and Ryoko Koyasu will be working in the school.  Either Bronwyn or Ryoko will be available on a Wednesday, Thursday or Friday.  Their work is supported by our Student Welfare Officer and our Defence Service Mentor.

Parents who feel their child would benefit from seeing the school counsellor need to fill out a referral form which is available by clicking on the link at the bottom of the page.  

The work of the counsellor is also supported by the school’s student wellbeing team which runs programs such as Kool Kids, Seasons for Growth and organises activities linked to our Mental Health Week every year.

Link for online referral:

https://catholiccare.force.com/housing/s/school-referral-form

The Link is also available via a QR code