Helping Toddlers with Emotions Decreases Future Behavioral Challenges

Toddlers are somewhat notorious for their emotional extremes – they can be gloriously happy one minute and over-the-top upset the next.  Much of this has to do with all of the change that their little brains are undergoing in those early years, coupled with the fact that toddlers don’t have the life experience, context, or vocabulary just yet to be able to identify and express all of those emotions.  So it makes sense that helping toddlers understand and articulate their emotions could significantly reduce emotional outbursts and upset.

Researchers at Michigan State University found that a simple parenting strategy, called “emotion bridging,” can do just that – help toddlers understand and even label, all of those powerful feelings, with the end result being fewer behavioral problems.

emotion bridging and the power of music

Emotion bridging is a straightforward, three-step process:

  • labeling the emotion
    • sad, happy, upset, mad, etc.
  • putting it into context
    • feeling this because of that
  • making a relevant connection
    • “Remember when you felt [emotion] because of [situation/experience]?”

It’s important to note that while the process is simple, it does happen over time, with lots and lots of short conversations about feelings and emotions.  It is through these many conversations that toddlers develop the depth of experience and a wider vocabulary for understanding and expressing their feelings, needs, and emotions through words, rather than through outbursts.

Another wonderful tool for helping toddlers identify and deal with their emotions is music.  Music can be used as an emotion bridging tool by giving an opportunity for talking about emotions or for expressing those feelings through song, dance, or rhyme.

Six ways to use music as an emotion bridging tool:

  • Sing a lullaby to your toddler as you cuddle and rock together.  Talk about breathing deeply and feeling calm.
  • Dance to some upbeat, feel-good music with your child.  Label all of the different ways to move and show how happy you feel.
  • Do a slow waltz around the room together.  Ask your child how dancing like this makes him/her feel.  Tell them how it makes you feel to dance together.
  • Substitute other words for “happy” in the song “If you’re happy and you know it…”  Have fun making faces that match the word.
  • Sing a favorite song with a sad face, and then sing it again with a happy face.  Repeat the same song with a mad face, then a calm face.  Continue with other emotional opposites.
  • As you listen to different kinds of music, talk about the songs in emotional terms – happy, silly, crazy, sad, calm, etc.  (You might even create a specific playlist for purposes of this discussion.)

Graphic-Learning-Domain-Icons-single-social-emotional-144x144-144x144
Visit a Kindermusik class and experience firsthand how to use music to support a child’s emotional development.

 

Contributed by Theresa Case who loves welcoming toddlers – big emotions and all! – into her award-winning Kindermusik program at Piano Central Studios in beautiful Greenville, South Carolina.

Music Can Navigate Kids’ Emotion Headquarters

On Friday afternoon, our family watched the new Pixar movie, Inside Out. I must ask: Did any other parent cry over Bing Bong or shed a tear when witnessing Riley’s first memory? I did.

DISNEY

Well, I don’t know about you, but I would love to gain access to my kids’ Emotions’ Headquarters. It would make this parenting thing a whole lot easier if we could more readily identify the emotion our children are trying to express and then in turn help them label that feeling and respond appropriately. Plus, it is always helpful to pick up on the visual clues our children give off right before a meltdown. Unfortunately, their heads don’t actually start steaming, like the character Anger. We do know that Joy often sounds like laughter!

Young Children and Emotional Intelligence

While Inside Out is obviously fictional, emotional intelligence DOES begin developing in infancy, just like the character Riley, and includes recognizing and managing feelings, self-awareness, and responding appropriately towards others. In the movie, we saw this whenever a specific emotion (Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust) took over the controls in Riley’s Emotions’ Headquarters.

As parents or early childhood teachers (or both!), young children often mirror our actions and reactions and the words we say in our best moments—and sometimes our not-so-best moments. They can even mimic our likes and dislikes. Eventually, as they become more self aware, children begin to express their own preferences for things, like wearing pajamas everywhere (Not a bad idea!) or eating ice cream for breakfast (Not a good idea!).

Mom and son

 

Music classes can support children’s growing self-awareness, which includes identifying feelings, and a parent’s unique role in it. For example, each week in a Kindermusik class, we include activities that not only encourage children’s personal choices but we actually incorporate them into the lesson. By including each child’s favorite way to say “Hello” at the beginning of class or movement idea during the “Monkey Dance,” we place value on each child’s ideas and preferences. In doing so, children learn to not only recognize and share ideas in a meaningful way but also to celebrate the differences of others. Activities like Kindermusik that incorporate children’s ideas help them learn that their thoughts, feelings, and ideas are valued.

Girl with orange shirt

 

 

Quick Tip for Using Music to Help Kids Navigate Their Emotional Headquarters

Listen to music that expresses different emotions, like joy, sadness, anger, or fear. Dance with children based on the emotion and help children label the emotion. Not only does this activity develop children’s vocabulary; it also helps them to identify—and even to manage—their own emotions.

Find a local Kindermusik class.

Contributed by Lisa Camino Rowell, a freelance writer in the Atlanta area. She freely admits that she cried while watching Inside Out. Her 9-year-old Kindermusik graduate responded with equal emotion: embarrassment. 

 

Singing when you’re happy (and you know it!) builds kids’ social-emotional skills

Young children (and parents of young children) instantly recognize the “Happy” song by Pharrell Williams. We feel happy and can’t help but “clap along.” We love this version:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ4diEohODE[/youtube]
You clapped along, too, didn’t you? It’s easy for adults to acknowledge the “feeling” of happy in the song. However, young children must learn to identify feelings such as happy, sad, angry, scared, surprised, etc. In fact, being able to recognize and label feelings contributes to social-emotional development.

Kindermusik@Home Activity to Help Young Children Identify Feelings

Learning to relate facial expressions with emotions is important just before and during the early school years. For example, when a friend is feeling angry, her face might scrunch up or her eyes might close. When a friend is feeling sad, he might cry or put his head down. If children are going to learn empathy for others, they need to first learn to identify how other people are feeling. Try this sample activity, “How Do You Feel?” from Kindermusik@Home:
Social-emotional Activity for young children_Kindermusik

Singing Together and Social-Emotional Development

Research shows that when children actively participate in group music and movement activities it supports development in all seven areas of social-emotional development, including communication, relatedness, and cooperativeness.

Learn more Kindermusik at www.kindermusik.com.

Contributed by Lisa Camino Rowell, a freelance writer in the Atlanta area.

FOL Fridays: The Power of Imagination

Preschoolers and imaginative play
Imaginative play in childhood prepares the child to think creatively in later adult settings.

Using the imagination helps a child develop the ability to think abstractly, to use language to describe things others cannot see, and to empathize with other people.

Comment below on ways your child loves to experience imaginative play!

Tips for parents:

Give your child plenty of time for unstructured, undistracted play every day.  You can fuel your child’s imagination with music, good books, simple toys, or box for dressing up like a favorite princess or storybook hero.  For fun, you might enjoy making one of these simple no-sew capes to inspire a little more imaginative play.

– Contributed by Theresa Case, whose Greenville, SC program, Kindermusik at Piano Central Studios, is proudly among the top 1% of Kindermusik programs worldwide.