I wanted to mention a couple of other things related to my last post on exploring feelings with children.
I forgot to include another fun activity that helps to open up dialogue related to feelings and emotions. Ed Emberley has a great book called the Fingerprint Drawing Book that has a section on feelings. In the book he demonstrates how to combine thumbprints with a few simple lines to successfully create a variety of different faces, depicting a wide variety of emotions. The girls loved it! We spent an entire morning creating a whole cast of characters, all the while, discussing who was friends with who and why.
I am also excited to share that we received our copy of the Feeleez game yesterday and it did not disappoint. There are quite a few ways you can play. We started out by spreading all of the cards out, and then each of us picked the picture that best represented the way we were feeling. The parent guide that comes with the game also suggests doing the same thing to help resolve conflicts. Each person can choose the card that best portrays how they are feeling, and then a conversation can follow, which helps the participants to understand the perspective of the other. After identifying how we were feeling, we decided to pick a card and mimic the face that was shown. Then we discussed how it felt and what we could say to a person who was feeling the same way. Playing Feeleez was a wonderful way to spend a rainy afternoon. I also just discovered these great coloring sheets on their Web site. The girls really connected with the characters in the game and will love being able to color them in!