Jeux pour aider l'enfant à contrôler ses émotions

May 01, 2021

Games to help children control their emotions

of reading - words

Childhood is the best time to have fun and play abundantly. However, it's also from a young age that social skills should be developed and emotions learned to be mastered. What would you say about helping your children through super interesting games? While many schools already include specific sequences in their curriculum to help little ones manage their emotions, get along with their surroundings, and set goals, you can also prioritize social-emotional learning at home. On this subject, there are many simple games they can engage in with your company.

If you're looking for ways to help your children through social-emotional learning, you'll find in this article a handful of activities perfectly suited to daily routines.

Social-Emotional Learning Activities: What Are They?

Social-emotional learning involves teaching through low-tech games. Rather than requiring specific techniques or gadgets, these social-emotional games are based on very simple actions. They can take place at home, on the road, or in amusement parks. Their goal is to allow your little one to have fun while channeling their emotions and cultivating skills useful for their integration into society.

You can choose learning activities based on the goals you want to achieve, in other words, the skills you would like your child to acquire.

Self-Awareness

To help your child know themselves better, you can opt for the activities: "Starfish and Tornado" and "Who Am I Now?". The first game aims to make them aware of all their internal energy so they can calm down either by their own strength or by seeking help from a trusted adult. As for the second formula, it allows them to identify their potential; your child will thus be capable of making better decisions and better understanding the opinions of others.

Being a Good Observer

The social-emotional learning game "The Hour and the Turtle" is designed to cultivate your child's sense of observation and maximize their concentration level. By perceiving certain social signals, your children will be able to respond to their needs and understand others.

Taking into Account the Opinions and Feelings of Others

If you plan to help your kid consider the point of view of people around them, the activity "Taking Turns in Charge" is recommended. This activity is also useful for cultivating good self-awareness and facilitating their decision-making. On the other hand, the game "Let's Make a Deal" is ideal because it teaches your children to see things while considering the needs of others. Since what their surroundings think now matters, your child will no longer have any trouble making compromises.

Social-Emotional Games: How to Go About It?

The organization and progression of a social-emotional learning activity vary not only depending on the type of leisure chosen but also on the setting.

Starfish and Tornado

This game unfolds as follows:

Represent the image of a thermometer.
Draw a tornado at the top and a starfish at the bottom.
Ask if your child feels serene and peaceful like a starfish or excited like a tornado.
When they feel overexcited like a tornado, think together about what needs to be done so they feel calm like a starfish. For example, bounce a ball to help them release some of that overflowing energy.

This learning activity should be repeated several times a day. Thanks to this pastime, you can teach your children to express their energy levels through certain actions: running five laps around the yard, sitting on the couch, watching a cartoon series, etc.

Who Am I Now?

To conduct this social-emotional learning activity, you must:

Create cards and use them to draw pictures representing your child performing positive actions.
Think about other cards your child could make. To this end, you can regularly note and comment on their strengths as soon as you notice them. For example, it could be the fact that they rock their little sister while telling her a story. If you discuss these moments with them, they can easily find or mature ideas themselves.

Regarding the cards, you have the choice between buying them at a store or online or letting your children make them themselves. They would be delighted to do so.

The Hour and the Turtle

This game, also called "I spy with my little eye," should take place in places like a recreation area. It consists of:

Carefully observing everything happening within the environment where you and your child are, exactly as a turtle would have done. However, there's no need to simulate the turtle.
Taking all the time you want without any moderation, because that's the goal of the exercise.
Sharing all the elements that captured attention and swapping roles after each round. To be more precise, while one player spots and describes the social interactions taking place in the play area, the second tries to discover the object of attention. This can involve, for example, the slides (the line is quite short) or the swings (no swings are free anymore).

Taking Turns in Charge

In this game, it's about:

Establishing a tradition where you and your child or the whole family take turns during recreational evenings planned in advance.
Proposing a theme, a meal, a movie, or a game yourself or leaving the free choice to another family member.
Creating diagrams or charts titled: "keeping my calm while doing what I'm told despite myself," "waiting my turn,"...

At the end of this activity, let everyone self-evaluate and then conclude by specifying what worked and the points to improve.

Let's Make a Deal Game

This game is very simple and perfectly indicated in case of differing opinions between you and your child. You simply need to:

Hum these few words: "You want this and I want that, how can we both get what we want?"
Think together to find solutions.
Choose the best idea at the moment. For example, if your child asks you to prepare cookies very early, suggest they wait half an hour.

The difficulty of this activity lies in the fact that your child might cling to an idea at all costs. In this case, it would be interesting to ask them to make proposals and select the best ones you can keep preciously in a box exclusively dedicated to that. These could well serve you the next time you're in this situation.

Succeeding in Your Social-Affective Games: Some Tips

If it's so important that your game sessions are a success, it's notably because of their positive effect on your children's development. Through these games, they cultivate, among other things, self-awareness and self-regulation. Self-regulation means mastery of one's internal energy. In short, even though very young, your children are capable of managing their emotions and bodily movements even when the situation is most unfavorable. This facilitates their learning, as they manage to be attentive observers.

Consequently, to fully benefit from social-emotional learning games, you must:

Get rid of anything that could blur your vision, especially during the activity: "The Hour and the Turtle."
Encourage your child to react promptly according to what they observe. For example, when all the swings are occupied, they should have the reflex to go to another play area like the slides.
Highlight such and such a good attitude of your child. It's true that many families focus more on bad behaviors to make little ones understand they must be rejected. Nevertheless, to truly inspire your little one with the will to improve, don't hold back from praising them.

In summary, to help your children thrive on a personal and relational level, opt for social-emotional learning games. Fun and very easy to do, they allow them to know themselves better and develop sufficient skills. The self-regulation that is part of it allows little ones to master their emotions and balance all their bodily movements. But in addition to playing with them, don't forget to congratulate them when they make progress, as this motivates them to do more. Are you willing to learn more about emotional education? You'll discover its benefits for your children's development according to their age.