Children can have difficulties understanding what emotions they are feeling in the moment and how they can put them into words. All children react differently to different situations and how they should express this. Knowing which emotions are allowed to come out, and when they should come out, can sometimes be difficult to understand.
How do we communicate with children about emotions that can be difficult to put into words?
This spring, I’ve been working with students with neuropsychiatric disorders in a study on how we can use images to help express emotions in a school environment. With the help of interviews with special needs education teachers and art teachers, this has resulted in an excerpt from a children’s book in which pictures are used to express emotions for different situations. It is an interactive children’s book that is intended to be read with the child in order to spark curiosity about how we can understand emotions when there aren’t enough words.
