Emotional Education

         Lately, our class has been focusing on the concept of what it means to live within a community-- treating our environment and others with the utmost respect and kindness.  A large part of cultivating this culture of mindfulness among young children starts with emotional awareness.  Why emotional awareness?  It's important that children learn to process, regulate, and express their emotions in healthy ways so that they can engage with others and their environment in healthy ways as well. 

          Emotional education can take place everywhere.  Here at Lifetime, when conflicts in our classrooms arise, we strive to do more than say, "You shouldn't push other people!"  or "That's not a nice thing to say!" We meet the children where they are at by acknowledging their feelings first, while also bringing awareness to appropriate behaviors.  For example, a child might take another child's material causing the other child to cry.  Instead of approaching the conflict by saying, "Don't take other people's things!" we aim to engage them in what's going on underneath the surface.  For example, I might say: "Wow, Child A, you really, really wanted to work with that material, huh?  I can understand that. Sometimes it's so hard to wait our turn!  It must've felt really frustrating for you to wait for your turn.  But let's look at Child B's face right now.  She looks sad!  Child B, I saw that Child A took your material-- how did that make you feel?  Child A, next time, when you really want to work with something that someone else is working on, what can we do instead?"  Approaching the issue from this angle acknowledges and affirms the feelings and emotions of both children; it also gives them a healthy model of talking through their feelings instead of acting impulsively, which helps them be mindful of others. 

            Here's an article on the subject called, "How to Build Emotional Intelligence in Your Child" by Anna Partridge.  It gives examples of how you can engage your child on an emotional level at home.  As an educator as well as a parent, I am constantly on the lookout for ways I can build up my child and my children in the classroom-- giving them the tools, confidence, and patience necessary to engage with the world in a healthy way.  I'll be trying the 4 points from the article at home as well!

-Firefly Teacher