Teaching Your Child about Feelings – Early Start Neighborhood

Our friends at the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning at Vanderbilt University offer another excellent resource on Teaching Your Child About Feelings. The article outlines developmentally appropriate expectations from birth to 36 months. It offers many strategies parents can incorporate into their everyday routines and activities, including talking about feelings and modeling healthy expressions of strong emotions. The authors suggest specific feeling words to focus on, ways to plan and prepare for inevitable tantrums, and quick and easy activities like peek-a-boo, playing in the mirror, pretending, and singing songs like “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” The article also stresses the important of modeling good self-care as another way to focus on Teaching Your Child About Feelings and taking care of yourself at the same time. Give it a read and feel free to leave a comment.

The ICC-Recommended Early Start Personnel Manual (ESPM) describes core knowledge and role-specific competencies needed for early intervention service provision, incorporating current research and evidence in the field of early intervention. To access the ESPM, click here.

This resource is related to the following ESPM knowledge-level competencies:

Core Knowledge (CK):
- CK2: The role of primary social and emotional relationships as the foundation for early learning.
- CK3: The importance of play as context, method and outcome of learning.
- CK5: The sequences of development and the interrelationships among developmental areas/factors, including:
  - Social development
  - Emotional development and resiliency, including the development of attachment and trust, and self-regulation
Individualized Family Service Plan Development and Review (IFSP-i):
- IFSP-i3 (EIS): Knows generic and specific evidence-based early intervention strategies to support all areas of development.
- IFSP-i6 (EIS): Understands the need for developmentally appropriate strategies (for example, hands-on, experiential, child-centered, play-based activities within daily routines), adaptations, assistive technologies and other supports that maximize the child’s learning opportunities.