Emotional Literacy
What is it?
Emotional Literacy is the ability to understand and express feelings. Emotional Literacy involves having self-awareness and recognition of your own feelings and knowing how to manage them, such as the ability to stay calm when angered or to reassure oneself when in doubt. Young people must be taught to identify and regulate their emotions. A lack of emotional literacy can affect everything from a student's attitude to his or her social skills and academic performance.
Developing emotional literacy aids a child’s mental health and also physical well-being. Healthy emotional development helps them express their own emotions effectively while also developing positive social interactions with others in society.
In addition to being able to understand their own emotions, emotional literacy helps them to develop the skills to listen to others, to develop empathy, which can help to improve their relationships.
Top Tips for Developing Emotional Literacy
Accept the child’s emotions and their emotional responses. Don’t immediately judge but simply name the emotion e.g: ‘Oh, that sounds really frustrating,’ or, ‘How lovely, I can tell how excited you are.’
Label their emotions with them. Doing so helps young people feel understood. For example, say, ‘You sound upset,’ or, ‘You look worried.’
Encourage the young person child to talk about their feelings. Create an environment where it’s safe to talk openly about feelings and emotions free from judgement, criticism or finger-pointing. Say things like: ‘You sound really fed up. Shall we have a chat?’ and, ‘How did that make you feel?’
Help them to recognise the signs about how others may be feeling. In stories, books or TV programmes, ask open-ended questions to help the young person understand how others' might feel e.g: ‘How do you think that made him feel?’ or, ‘How would you feel if that happened to you?’
Teach them how to calm down and press their imaginary ‘pause button’. Encourage them to take three deep breaths and say a simple mantra of, ‘I can feel calm inside.’ After that, encourage them to go and do something they find calming and relaxing.
Teach young people alternative ways of expressing their frustrations. Ask the young person an open-ended, empowering question to help them feel that they have choices. For example, say, ‘How could you explain how you feel using your words rather than hitting?’ or ‘Can you think of a different way to let him know how angry you are?’
Model how to remain calm and in control when you are tired, angry or fed up. Say, ‘I’ve had a tough day at work – can we talk about this later when I’ve had a chance to relax?’
Encourage co-operation with others. Listening to them, taking turns, learning to say sorry, asking to join in, giving a compliment etc.