Despite multiple studies showing how importance social-emotional intelligence is, even at a young age, parents often struggle with teaching their toddlers emotions, especially during times when it is most critically important. For autistic children, this struggle to self-regulate emotions can be lifelong, as was found [i]n a survey of adults with high-functioning autism or Asperger’s syndrome[.] “Gross, psychology postdoctoral scholar Andrea Samson and University of Fribourg psychology Professor Oswald Huber found that individuals with [autism spectrum disorder] consistently reported using less effective emotion regulation strategies than typically developing individuals.”
Tantrums often result from this inability to regulate and express emotion. Teaching your toddler how to properly identify and express emotion can do wonders for helping a toddler avoid tantrums or to end them early. However, teaching emotions and emotional regulation, especially in the middle of a meltdown, can be a daunting task. Thankfully, I’ve come across several great books and toys to help simplify the process. My boys are currently 2.5, so these suggestions are meant for those with a toddler’s understanding of emotions. In order for these tools to be most effective, it helps if you start using them outside of tantrums and meltdowns. When a child is in the middle of a tantrum, it’s hard to learn new tasks. By putting these building blocks and descriptions of emotions in place before the tantrum occurs, it is easier for the child to use them.
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Calm-Down Time is my absolute favorite book on the subject. One day, Corwin was having trouble sharing when a friend came to visit. While it’s typical for 2 year olds to struggle with sharing when a different child is in what the toddler perceives as his or her turf, Corwin was becoming fixated on the girl’s actions and kept repeating, “Take our turns” over and over again. Sensing that he was agitated, I asked him if he wanted some Calm-Down Time. He said yes, so we went to our special place with soft pillows and our emotion books. I started reading this book to him and, on the first page, when we read the word ‘mad’, I asked him if he was feeling mad. He said, “yes” and I was beside myself with joy. His twin has been expressing his emotions for some time, but that was the first moment that Corwin had. As I read through the book and we came to the part with deep breaths, he started the breathing exercises before I finished reading the page.
After that, he started to ask for Calm-Down Time on his own. Although he still has tantrums, he comes out of them much easier and has started saying, “I’m mad” instead of immediately melting down. This has made a huge difference in our lives and there are now days where he doesn’t have a single tantrum, even though he will experience several things that make him upset.
It was also through this book that I discovered that Corwin loves deep, strong squeezes when he’s going through a difficult time. I like that it gives a lot of different strategies to help kids through their emotions. Alden does not like me to squeeze him when he’s angry, but he does like to give himself a squeeze.
Eggspressions is a tool my mom found. I’m not a big fan of the book – I think it could be much better – but I love the eggs themselves. We play a game of matching the eggs to their stands as well as talk about the faces on their eggs. My son, Alden, loves the angry/mad egg. He tends to get frustrated more easily than his twin and giving voice to his emotions has helped a lot.
These Feelings FLASHCARDS are perfect for toddlers because they are quite heavy and difficult to bend or tear compared to many other options. There are more emotions depicted than many other emotion flashcard series, and I like that the ‘opposite’ emotion is printed on the back of each emotion. I do wish they also had a card for jealous, as that one seems to come up often in my home.
These Feelings Playing Cards are a bit above my boys’ level to use in most games, but we do play matching games with them and the illustrations are simple to identify.
I absolutely love the Duck & Goose series and How Are You Feeling? is a great book that has one emotion attached to an image, so it’s very simple and great for young toddlers that are still learning to put their emotions into words. My boys like talking about the images in details now that they are starting to speak in sentences.
I Am a Rainbow. We got this book free as part of the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, which is a program that distributes books to young children free of charge. The Imagination Library is only available in certain countries and counties, but it has given us many wonderful books. I don’t think this book is the greatest, but both of my boys absolutely love it. It was in this book that Corwin first began pointing out emotions in the characters.
Lots of Feelings has several large pictures of children expressing different emotions. I like the clear images and several examples on each page. Alden absolutely loves to read it and I’ll ask him to make the faces of the various emotions as we read through it, which he finds hilarious.
My Many Colored Days might be confusing for some children because the colors with each emotion are different than in other books. In other books, red is associated with anger, but in this one, it’s associated with being a horse and kicking heals. I supposed the kicking might be considered an angered act, but that’s not very clear. If your children are struggling with emotion or seem to do better with simplistic systems, then I’d skip this one. The art is very pretty though, and I like how it is shown how you can feel many things at once.
Daniel Tiger’s Grr-ific Feelings app available on android, iTunes, and other systems. I know a lot of parents are hesitant to introduce screen time for their toddlers, I’m a big believer in restricting instead of avoiding screen time, as well as using whatever tools work. I prefer to keep electronics out of the Calm-Down Corner, since I like to focus on personal relationships and helping my boys work through their emotions instead of avoiding them, but I think this is a great app for talking about emotions and discussing different strategies of dealing with emotions. It also has a paint feature that, combined with a stylus, can make coloring on the go very easy.
A word of warning, I see some reviews saying that it doesn’t work very well on Nabi. We have it installed on our ipad and samsung tablet and it works well on both of those.
While all of these have been very helpful, I’m always looking to expand my toolkit. I’d love to hear your suggestions for other products and books that help teach emotions and regulations.
