Narrator: Students often experience very complex emotions as they explore the world around them, but understanding where emotions come from, how they can develop in our thinking brains, and ultimately how they can be managed takes time and lots of practice. By teaching the skills of emotional literacy, educators can give students a set of tools they can use throughout their lives to calm themselves, navigate interpersonal conflicts, and keep themselves focused and on task when they need to.

Narrator: Feeling frustrated is different from feeling angry, anxious, or overwhelmed. A limited emotional vocabulary means that students miss out on nuances that express feelings in all of their complexity. For younger students, experiment with feelings charts or picture books that incorporate a broad range of emotions accompanied by illustrations of facial expressions. For older kids, try brainstorming emotions. Can they find 20 different words for happy or sad? Post the words in the classroom, and ask students to incorporate them into their own writing and conversations. Or use them to express how they’re feeling in the moment.

Narrator: Emotions and cognition work in tandem, affecting focused attention and working memory. Consider teaching students about the limbic system, the brain structures responsible for emotional and behavioral responses, and the role of executive functions. Learning the neuroscience of emotion helps normalize emotional responses while empowering students with the science of why we have big feelings, how they can happen in the brain, and what could be done to assert control and regain focus.

Narrator: As students mature, new emotional challenges arise. They continue to need plenty of opportunities to practice expressing their feelings. Try a quick rose-and-thorn check-in where kids share one positive and one negative thing happening for them. They can choose what and how much they’d like to share day to day. Or you can ask older students to do a daily dedication where they talk about someone who has inspired them, living or dead, fictional or real, in 30 to 60 seconds. That sends the message that being vulnerable by sharing emotions is encouraged, which in turn fosters a sense of community and belonging.

Narrator: Once students feel comfortable identifying and expressing their emotions, consider introducing some strategies to positively shift their feelings in a social context. Try a mindfulness exercise where students can take deep breaths and tune in to how they’re feeling as they get ready to learn. Or help students reflect by letting them take turns sharing an appreciation, an apology, or an aha moment with the class. As students apply emotional literacy to real-life situations, they learn to deeply connect with their emotions and respond to others with intentionality and compassion.