Activities to Increase Emotional Vocabulary

Vocabulary is a collection of all the words and the way they are pronounced. Another similar concept is emotional vocabulary, but sadly not many people are aware of what it is. Emotional vocabulary can be stated as the collection of words that a child uses for expressing feelings in the right way and to react in any particular situation.

This might be a new concept for many people reading but children must have a strong and vast emotional vocabulary so they can give the right expression to their feelings and present whatever they have in mind in an accurate manner.

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Considering the importance of emotional vocabulary, we have listed some activities that can contribute to increasing the emotional vocabulary of kids. Here are these activities that you must indulge in:

1. List down the feelings

Get along with your kids, grab a notebook and start writing all the feelings and emotions which humans encounter in their daily lives. The list may include the feelings which kids are aware of along with some feelings which are new to them. This is where it can be learning practice to be aware of all feelings and emotions so kids can also understand the difference in each feeling and find the right expression to it.

2. Read books

Literacy and knowledge are a way to enlightenment, not only in terms of mind but also to make us emotionally sound. A habit of reading books can go a long way for your kids and could help them understand the right words related to kinds of feelings. Reading storybooks can be a way to explore emotions and realize feelings in every situation of the story. You can read books together and help the kids understand the emotions which the characters of the story are going through.

3. Keep a journal

One of the great ways to recognize and express feelings is to keep a journal. You should help your kids to make a habit to keep regularly writing in a journal. This will help the kids to always have a way to write down their feelings, even about those things which they might not feel comfortable sharing with anyone else.

Having a journal will give the kids the room to open their hearts. There can be times when the kids need someone to talk to but don’t feel confident enough to speak what’s in their hearts. Writing down such feelings would help them release everything in a healthy way.

4. Add sounds to every feeling

Picturing the feelings is one thing but adding sound to it can enhance the clarity of the expression. Kids should know the right sound to accompany any feeling when they are trying to express any of their views or feelings. For example, a child might not know what is worried about it, but he may listen to the word “uh-oh” and can understand that something is not right with the person who spoke it.

Help your kids relate each feeling with a sound or word that can help them understand the emotion and also make them capable of using the same sounds when they look for the right expression to speak what they have in their heart.

5. Play emotional charades

While expressing emotions in the right way is important, you can also help kids understand their emotional vocabulary in a fun way. It can be done in the form of a game that parents can play with their kids. To play this, one amongst you will pick a feeling and have to convey the same to the other. And to do that, they can’t speak but only use the expression on their face or act using their body.

The other person will have to guess the feelings by understanding the expressions. This can be a great way for kids to understand the right expressions for each feeling. You can even hand over a mirror to them to see their face when they put expression for any feeling.

Following all these activities could help children understand each feeling separately and will help them understand how they can open up whenever they are going through any of these feelings. Building their emotional vocabulary can be considered as the first step to giving them a way to express their feelings, emotions, and thoughts.