As mentioned in Jenn Yim-Rodier’s blog post “Building Your Child’s Emotional Vocabulary”, it is important to expand your child’s emotional vocabulary so that they can better communicate and engage with other’s how they are feeling. Another way to build our child’s emotional vocabulary is through reading books about emotions.

These books can provide:

• Labels for different emotions
• Situations to why the character is feeling that way
• Characteristics of that emotion- how our body feels, what we might think or say
• Strategies or ways to calm down if we are feeling mad or sad

Here is a list of our favourite emotion-based books:

• Colour Monster by Anna Llenas
• The Way I Feel by Janan Cain
• The Unbudgeable Curmudgeon by Matthew Burgess
• My Mixed Emotions by DK
• Listening to My Body by Gabi Garcia
• The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
• Bear and Friends (Series) by Karma Wilson

It is important to relate new emotions back to your child while reading the story. “Have you ever felt nervous, like the character did? The character was nervous for their first day of school, their tummy felt funny when they felt nervous. Did you feel that way on your first day? Yes? You probably felt nervous. It’s okay to be nervous!” This will help your child make new connections to the emotions and situations in the story. It will also encourage your child to identify new emotions in themselves!

Check out Jenn’s blog post for ways to increase your child’s emotional vocabulary!

Witten by Morgan Gabriel, Speech-Language Pathologist