Lesson Learned: Emotional Literacy
The Ready, Set, Go! Preschool in Calgary has added an emotional literacy component to its program. It runs from September to June each year. "This has been very effective in reducing incidents, such as hitting, throwing toys and temper tantrums," says Beatrice Bennett.
The goal of the program is to teach personal responsibility - to show children that by understanding how their bodies respond, they can manage their emotions and succeed better in their everyday lives, says Bennett.
Children have a simple polar understanding of their feelings at age three, explains Bennett. "Typically, they will see themselves as being happy or sad. We begin by teaching them to be able to label a wider variety of feelings."
This is done by grouping feelings into two groups: turtle feelings and tornado feelings. Frustration, anger and excitement are, for example, tornado feelings.
"We have a visual to demonstrate this," says Bennett. It is a pop bottle with water, red food colouring and sparkles. The bottle is glued shut and is shaken to help the child visualize tornado feelings. The contents of the bottle will move around violently and gurgle and bubble.
"This is an effective tool because children, at this age, typically feel anger and excitement in their stomach, and often get an upset stomach as a result," explains Bennett. "So we talk about how 'your tummy may feel like this bottle.'"
Staff will then talk to the children about what they want to do when they get that feeling. Typical responses might be to yell or hit something or throw something.
"Then we talk about whether that would be okay and what people feel, and about how that makes other people feel," says Bennett. That perspective gives children an incentive they can understand and value to control these emotions.
Turtle feelings are demonstrated with another bottle, this one containing corn syrup and green food colouring. "When you shake it you get a very different response, says Bennett. "Even if you turn it right upside down, all you get is a bubble that pops very slowly."
The staff have created a special place in the classroom called the green space. Children can go there, sit in a comfortable chair and play with the turtle feelings bottle while they calm themselves down.
Afterwards, a staff member can come and talk to them about how they felt and about the situation that caused it and how they can work through that situation.
The approach can also be made more sophisticated, adds Bennett. "One thing we always emphasize is that there are no bad feelings; everyone has them. It is what you do about them that is important." The greater level of sophistication comes about when children are shown that even emotions that feel very good can be tornado feelings. "For a four-year-old, for example, we might discuss how the excited feeling they had at their birthday party was also a tornado feeling and how that might lead to bad judgments."