How to Encourage Children to Express Feelings & Emotions

A key part in supporting children’s development is encouraging them to recognise, understand, and express their feelings and emotions. This can have a positive impact on their mental health, behaviour, academic success, and motivation to learn throughout their life.

Behaviour and Feelings

Being unable to express feelings verbally can be one of the causes of challenging behaviour. Children might not have the ability to talk about their emotions due to their age, particularly if they are under five – for example:

• Up to two years old, they will usually be possessive – particularly of people and toys they love – and easily frustrated, which might result in shouting and throwing things.
• At three years old, they might have more language with which to express themselves, but still be prone to sudden mood swings or behaving in extreme ways without necessarily knowing the reason why.

By five years old, children will usually be able to express and manage their feelings some or most of the time, but some children struggle to do this even as they get older. This could be due to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) like Autism Spectrum Disorder, speech, language, and communication needs or social, emotional, and mental health needs (e.g. anxiety). Children with these needs might, instead of talking about their feelings:

• Frequently cry or have tantrums.
• Have aggressive outbursts, including hitting, biting, or throwing things.
• Often feel hurt, misunderstood, or like a victim.
• Worry too much or too long over minor things.
• Be quick to get frustrated and give up.
• Have trouble letting go of things that are upsetting.
• Become overexcited about social activities or events, having a sudden burst of energy.

Teaching children about emotions and encouraging them to express their feelings can have a positive impact on their behaviour, as it gives them the words to talk about how they feel.

Why Might a Child Struggle to Identify Emotions?

Emotional development is a complex process. Identifying emotions in others – and in yourself – involves recognising cues and matching them to the specific emotion, such as tears for sadness or frowning for anger. It also involves understanding which situations might evoke a certain emotion, so that children can identify why someone might be feeling the way they are. 

It takes time for children to build up the ability to do this, and they may also not have the language available to them to describe their – or other people’s – feelings adequately yet. However, with practice, children can learn to identify emotions accurately.

How Can I Help Children to Express Their Feelings?

All adults who work with or care for children have a role in encouraging children to express their feelings. You are their role model as well as their coach – you can demonstrate different emotions and reactions to events, and coping strategies, as well as helping them practise saying their thoughts out loud.

It’s important to do this because children who have high levels of emotional intelligence are more likely to:

• Be empathic and supportive of others.
• Have good mental health and wellbeing (including reduced risk of anxiety).
• Behave appropriately.
• Have positive and stable relationships.
• Perform well at school and in their career.

Having the freedom to express themselves also shows children that you care about them and want to take their feelings into account. They know that you will listen to them, never minimising or dismissing the way they feel.

Ideas for helping children to express their feelings include:

• Role-playing different emotions and how to talk about them – come up with a scenario, explain or ask them to guess what you’re each feeling (talking about the reactions in your body, such as tears or butterflies in your stomach), and work together to find a constructive way of handling it.
• Labelling emotions for them until they can do it themselves, creating a link between the feeling and the word – research has shown that simply labelling a feeling reduces the negative effects it is having on you. For example, you might say: “You look sad – are you sad because you wanted to play with Lily?” Use picture books, photos, and videos to talk about other people’s facial expressions and think about what they might be feeling. In the classroom, you could choose books that spark discussion about emotions during literacy, such as The Day The Crayons Quit, Wonder, The Birds, or Hug Me (also available on CBeebies bedtime stories).
• Drawing, painting, and colouring – some children might benefit from drawing what they think their emotion looks like. This can help them to process it, as well as helping you understand how they’re feeling, reducing frustration on both sides.
• Modelling positive behaviours – show them how to handle challenging situations and disappointment appropriately by doing it yourself. You might tell them how you feel and why, then model coping strategies such as listening to music, taking a bath, or sitting in a calm, quiet area.