Six ways you can start a conversation with a young child about their emotions

This year’s Children’s Mental Health Week focuses on equipping children and young people with self-awareness, exploring what it means to them.

A part of self-awareness is understanding emotions, what they are, how to talk about them, and knowing that it’s okay to feel a range of different emotions. Starting to talk to your child about emotions from a young age can be a good way to help them to understand, normalise and validate how they feel.

We’ve put together six tips for parents and carers to help support conversations with children about their emotions:

1. Create a supportive and safe space for them to open up

It’s important to think about the space you’re in to help your child feel relaxed and at ease. Are you somewhere that’s familiar to them, is there a favourite toy that they can cuddle or play with while you talk? Opening up about how they feel can be overwhelming and they might not have the right words to express their feelings, but starting with a safe environment where they feel comfortable can help to put them at ease.

2. Pick the right moment

If your child is tired or hungry, they will need those physical needs met first. There’s no point in trying to talk to them if they’re not in the right frame of mind to do so. Meal times can be a great way to start a conversation about feelings. Sitting down together at the table for meals, without digital devices is a great opportunity to have conversations about how everyone's day has unfolded. This then becomes a place and a time within the family where both children and adults share their experiences and their emotions.

3. Try using a book or drawings to help them express themselves

Lots of books use pictures to help show emotions and facial expressions. Reading these to your child from a young age and acting out the emotions can help them learn that all emotions are okay and that there is a range of different emotions that we all feel on a daily basis.

4. Teach coping skills and strategies

Sometimes if a child is feeling angry, overwhelmed, sad or frustrated, it can be scary to them. They don’t always know or understand how to regulate their emotions. While it’s important for them to express their emotions and get them out, there are safe ways this can be done. For example, if your child is angry and tends to throw things or lash out, you can try modelling some things they can do to feel calmer such as taking deep breaths, blowing some bubbles, stomping their feet or screwing up some paper. Older children might benefit from mindfulness and gratitude exercises such as saying three things they’re grateful for as they go to bed. You could use this as a time to connect with your child and tell them three things you’re grateful for too.

5. Let them know it’s okay and validate their feelings

Like all of us, children will experience a range of emotions in a day. If they’re at nursery or school, a lot of the time we aren’t there to see what has happened to upset them that day. If they’re open to talking and sharing what’s happened, we can validate them and treat them with compassion by saying things such as ‘I understand it’s upsetting when you don’t get to play with the toy you wanted, what else do you think you can play with instead?’ or ‘It sounds like you’re upset that you didn’t get to take a turn in that game today.’

6. Be kind to yourself, too

Being a parent or carer is hard, and it’s important to remember that you won’t always get everything right, especially in the moment when you are also regulating your own emotions.. That’s okay. You can model the behaviour for your children by reminding them that you get frustrated too, and tell them what you do to help regulate your emotions as well, such as taking a few deep breaths or getting a drink of water.