Emotion Coaching
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This page is designed to support professionals to develop their understanding of the Emotion Coaching approach. On this page you will find a range of information and resources to help you to support learners' emotional development and to learn about how you can use the approach in your practice. For more information about our Emotion Coaching training offer for education staff, please visit our Training page by clicking here.
What is Emotion Coaching?
What is Emotion Coaching?
Emotion Coaching is an approach for talking to children about the emotions they are experiencing in a way that supports their self-regulation. It involves listening to the child and talking with them about the emotions they are feeling rather than simply trying to distract or dismiss them. Children are learning how to label and manage the big emotions that they are experiencing, and this can be confusing and scary.
Emotion Coaching is an approach to help children name and understand their emotions, as well as teach them ways to handle these emotions in a positive way. Emotion Coaching conversations help children learn how emotions work and how to react to feelings in healthy ways. These discussions will strengthen your relationship with the child and help them be more prepared for life’s challenges.
A graphic representing the key aspects of the Emotion Coaching approach.
Why do we need Emotion Coaching?
Why do we need Emotion Coaching?
Emotion coaching helps teach children how to cope with and manage their own emotions. Often as adults, we can be guilty of dismissing or denying a young person's emotions when all we want to do is make them feel better. It is important to teach children that all emotions are a normal part of life and make sure they know that it is not a bad thing to feel sad or angry or jealous. If we simply tell a child to 'stop crying' or 'calm down' we are not helping them to build strategies to deal with their emotions. We also run the risk of teaching them that it is not okay to feel that way, which may lead to feelings of shame.
A picture displaying the six core emotions (distress, fear, anger, surprise, disgust, and joy).
Emotions...we all have them. Everything we do and everything we learn is shaped in some way by the way we feel. Feelings are a natural part of who we are. But how do children learn about emotions? How do they learn to understand their sadness or joy? What is appropriate behaviour when these feelings are strong? What can a parent do when a child explodes in anger or hides in fear? Parents and carers spend lots of time teaching children important things such as reading or tying shoes. Taking time to help children learn to understand their feelings is important too.
Research shows that children who understand their feelings and learn about their emotions have these advantages:
They form stronger friendships with other children.
They calm themselves down more quickly when they get upset.
They do better in school.
They handle their moods better and have fewer negative emotions.
They get sick less often.
How do I use Emotion Coaching?
How do I use Emotion Coaching?
Emotion Coaching involves following four steps when talking to children about their emotions. By following these steps, children will learn to understand their emotions and deal with them in healthier ways.
A graphic detailing the four steps of the Emotion Coaching approach.
Classroom Ideas
Emotional Check-ins
Emotional Check-ins
Emotion check-ins with pictures and emotion words are a great way to promote a learner's emotional understanding. Regular check-ins support learners to reflect on how they are feeling and also give teachers insight into their emotions. Making discussions about feelings and emotions a normal part of the school day promotes emotional literacy and also means that discussions about emotions won't seem out of place or new for learners when the stakes are high.
Sometimes learners can struggle with labelling emotions and the 'Blob Tree' is a great tool for pupils who find naming emotions difficult or have limited language skills.
The Blobs are genderless and colourless, and there are no prescribed emotions attached. This makes them very inclusive and allows learners to colour or choose which blob most shows how they are feeling, without demanding they choose an emotion word. Depending upon the learner, this can then allow for a variety of options for further discussion.
High Highs/Low Lows
High Highs/Low Lows
Staff can ask learners once a week (or more often) to share their 'high high' for the day or week, as well as their 'low low' for the day or week. The 'high high' is the best thing that happened to them, or the time they felt the happiest. The 'low low' is the time they felt the saddest, or the worst thing that happened to them. Again, this normalises talking openly about feelings and emotions, including difficult or challenging emotions. This also provides staff with a natural opportunity to show empathy towards learners, for example; “Aww, that sounds frustrating! I’d feel frustrated about that, too."
If a learner is always saying “happy” or never wants to share feelings, this is a clue to staff that this learner may need more social emotional support. 'High Highs/Low Lows' and other daily check-ins can be done as journaling activities. Learners can have a journal where they write or draw their feelings, highs, or lows.
Note: Pupils who do not wish to take part or volunteer their emotions in a larger group, should be allowed to simply observe.
Creating a 'Brain House'
Creating a 'Brain House'
The downstairs brain or limbic region controls our emotional reactions (e.g. our fight, flight or freeze response to anger or fear).
The upstairs brain controls more complex functions such as thinking, reasoning and planning. When the 'upstairs' brain is working well, we are able to regulate and manage our big emotions.
When under threat or stress (real or imagined), our upstairs brain can go offline, and our downstairs brain takes over. Dan Siegel calls this 'flipping our lid' and as our upstairs and downstairs brains are no longer communicating, we can no longer control our reactions to our big emotions.
You can support pupils to engage by having them create their own brain house. Once they have created their own characters, you can use these to create a shared dialogue to support pupils to regulate their big emotions. You can support pupils to come up with a list of strategies that work for them when they are close to flipping their lids. We've got further strategy ideas below.
Please see the Hey Sigmund website for full instructions for this activity.
Image showing the 'Brain House' activity.
Additional Resources
Additional Resources
Image displaying the cover of a book by Dr Daniel Siegel and Dr Tina Payne Bryson called 'The Whole-Brain Child'.
In this video Dan Siegel describes the brain as a house with an upstairs and a downstairs. It can be helpful to use this approach when talking to learners about emotions and how their brain works.
Interested in further training?
Interested in further training?
To find out more about our Emotion Coaching training offer and to access our Taster Session, please visit our Training page by clicking here.
Want to learn more?
Want to learn more?
To find out more about the development of self-regulation and ways to support this, please visit our Self-Regulation Topic page by clicking here.
Please note: You can access our Emotion Coaching page for sharing with parents and carers by clicking here.
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