Friends, everybody knows this: it can be hard to talk about our feelings.
And yet, research clearly shows how important it is to identify feelings and share them, rather than bottling them up.
In British Columbia where The Yoga Buggy works we have an annual week devoted to Mental Health awareness which features slogans like, Name it, Don’t Numb it and Get Real: Talk About How You Feel.
But identifying and talking about our feelings is a skill, and skills need to be learned and practiced.
Last week a student in an afterschool yoga class was feeling yucky and declining to participate. Slumped over their mat, they really were not feeling it. Rather than the standard, Are you ok?How are you feeling? I approached them quietly and asked something less intimidating:
Which Emoji are you right now?
They opened one eye and looked up at me curiously. It’s a long list, they said.
Super, I replied.
I am thoughtful emoji, angry emoji, embarrassed emoji, cold emoji and knowledgeable emoji.
Thanks for sharing.
The other kiddos overheard and began clambering to say which emoji(s) they were. Some were only one emoji, some two, some were several. The range of feelings and the extent to which “emojis” gave them vocabulary to express their hearts was pretty cool!
Staying on the Emoji theme, the next class we used this excellent game, Emotional Quadrants, and I created a… you guessed it… Emoji printable for it (see below)! The kiddos loved it.
What about you friends? Which Emoji are you right now? Which social-emotional learning tools are some of your faves? Please let us know in the comments!
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