Emotional Intelligence in Preschool: Teaching Emotions

"Is your child struggling to explain why they are crying or why they feel angry? Recognizing and expressing emotions is just as important for a child's social success as learning the alphabet. In this post, you will find practical ways to introduce emotions through fun activities and develop empathy skills."

Children experience intense emotions but often cannot put a name to them. Materializing concepts like "I'm happy," "I'm sad," "I'm scared," or "I'm surprised" prevents them from becoming frustrated and improves self-regulation skills. Children with high Emotional Intelligence (EQ) are much more successful in making friends and solving problems in school life.

So, how can you teach these abstract concepts? Here are emotion-oriented approaches you can apply at home:

Methods for Materializing and Expressing Emotions

Creating Emotion Faces: On a blank face template, ask them to draw eyebrows and a mouth while asking, "How do you feel today?" Visualizing allows the emotion to be expressed.
The Language of Colors: Associate emotions with colors. For example, yellow for happiness, blue for sadness, and red for anger. The color they choose while coloring can give you clues about their current mood.
Analyzing Story Heroes: When something happens to a character in a short story you are reading, stop and ask: "How do you think the rabbit feels right now? How would you feel?" This develops empathy.
Keeping an Emotion Diary: Marking the dominant emotion of the day every evening with a sticker or a drawing allows the child to become aware of their own inner world.

Motivation and Progress Tracking

Praise your child's effort when they express their feelings in a calm way (e.g., when they say, "I'm sad because my toy is broken right now"). Tracking emotions on a chart provides you with great data to observe your child's social-emotional development.

Support Emotional Development:

To find emotion cards, facial expression drawing templates, and emotional awareness coloring pages that make it easier for children to recognize and express their feelings, visit our Kids & Education section. With Kraken Digital Prints, discovering emotions turns into a game!