Exploring Emotions – What’s Behind the Door?

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If you haven’t already seen the movie Inside Out then what on earth are you waiting for?? What I love most about this movie is that it helps open the lines of communication between you and your kid about emotions and how they drive our every move. Whether we be happy, sad, angry, fearful, or disgusted we all have emotions that drive us to do what we do or not to do. It also shapes us to be the person we are and what we grow to love based on what emotions that that activity brings out. So today I am sharing exploring emotions- what’s behind the door?

My daughter is one who is not great about sharing her emotions. She shuts down when she is in a situation that makes her uncomfortable or what have you. She is the one that I most wanted to do this post about because I wanted to find a way to help her find ways to express her feelings without sometimes even having to say a word. So the first thing I did was head to Walmart and get her the Inside Out plush dolls. She had just seen the movie so these character are a pretty useful tool in this process. I also got a white board display to make it easier to have a visual of what I was asking of her.

I took the display board and some cardstock paper in the colors of the characters in the movie. I folded one side of the paper so that I could glue it the board and so that the paper could be folded back. Then I explained to my kids what each of the emotion words mean. What helped was having the Inside Out plush dolls so that they could connect the emotion to something with which they were familiar. We then took some magazines to have them cut out things that make them happy, sad, etc. that they could glue to the board under the color papers. Since my son knows how to write I had him write out things that bring up certain emotions.

For my daughter this was a first way for us to be able to have a physical tool to help her when she shuts down to ask her, does this make you feel like fear, joy, anger??? She has a physical connection with the dolls so the times when she doesn’t want to talk she can pull out a doll then maybe we can get her to open up about how she is feeling and what we can do to either help her or celebrate when she is happy.

Do you have any tips or tricks for helping your kids to express their emotions? Share in the comments below!