As adults we understand that our feelings change. One moment we are filled with happiness and than something can happen and that emotion can be changed to sadness or fear. But with life experience we have learned where these feelings come from and what may cause them. Imagine being a small child where you have had someone fly to your every need as soon as an emotion was felt. But as you start to grow these emotions become more personal…and someone else trying to ease them becomes harder. Emotions are a hard part of childhood, they are real and they should be allowed to be felt…every single one of them! If we don’t allow our child to understand a reaction to a feeling they have than we are stealing their life lessons.

Today in class we played a game called “flip flop faces”. We had 4 bowls. Each bowl had a different expression of an emotion on it. The bowls had matching beanbags. The object of the game was to throw the bean bag to hit the side of the bowl which would flip the bowl over and cover the bean bag and show the emotion.

The kids paired of in groups and started throwing the bean bags. First emotion that came was frustration because they were throwing to hard. They tried again. Second, came sadness because they were missing the bowl and nothing was happening. Next came anger because no one was sharing and taking turns. Than suddenly came excitement…. Someone made the first flip….and the bowl covered the beanbag.  All the kids cheered together.

Emotions flip flopped all over during the game. The kids kept saying proudly the emotion they were feeling as they played. We continued to talk about how our emotions can change all the time but we can “flip” to a new emotion when we want.

Just like kids our emotions flip all over the place. Our kids look to us to see how we react to the world around us.  Once they learn that emotions have a place and a time and we can can all learn that sometimes we just need a little flip every now and than .