Thank you so much for visiting this website. Developing and nurturing children's emotional literacy skills is one of the most important and helpful things we can do as parents, carers and educators. Children who have good emotional literacy skills are more likely to have higher self esteem, to suceed academically and socially, and they are less likely to develop mental health challenges.

 

Based on a idea that has evolved over time I hope I have been able to develop some new books to help promote positive discussions and exploration of emotions between adults and children. In my experience I have found that the earlier you start teaching children the vocabulary of emotion the more embedded it becomes as a normal way of communicating their emotions and needs more clearly. This means as parents and carers we are able to address the emotional need of the child rather than reacting to the secondary behaviours children (and adults) often use to communicate their feelings. I have worked with children as young as 2 years old who have been able to learn and use the word frustrated when having what is frequently referred to as a 'temper tantrum'. It has been amazing to see how differently we as adults can respond to an emotional need being expressed in a different way to the behaviour thats is trying to communicate that need less explicitly.

 

It all started when I was teaching children in Year 2 and I used to ask them to answer the register using a word to describe how they felt. I realised that some children used very generic terms and weren't always accuarate. So we used to spend time discussing and challenging the choice of words we could use, and learning new ones for the feeling they were experiencing. In doing this I found myself defining and describing words, such as apprehensive, in a way children could understand. What I discovered was not only were children capable of understanding more challenging vocabulary they actually felt empowered in being able to accurately describe how they felt. I even had parents telling me they were talking about their feelings more at home. It has been lovely and so inspiring to see how much this has beneifted children and adults I work with and my family and myself ! so hopefully you will find some benefit by using them too.