What is Emotional Literacy?
Emotional literacy refers to ones ability to recognize, understand and appropriately express emotions. It is the basis for perceiving and communicating emotions. Being emotionally literate is all about being able to handle our own emotions and react appropriately to others.
Many factors impact children's ability to understand emotions including:
- Body Language
- Tone of Voice
- Facial Expressions
- Physiological Response (Crying, sweating, etc)
When children are starting to become emotionally literate, they start simple by telling wether someone is happy, sad, scared, etc. With time, maturity and practice, kids who become emotionally literate are able to understand deeper emotions and the reasoning behind them.
A few basic ways to begin teaching emotional literacy to your students or children is to lead by example and express your own feelings first; allow the child to know that having emotions is normal. Then label the childs feelings, this way when they are feeling this emotion later on, they will know how to express themselves without your help. Singing songs, playing games and reading stories with feelings also helps.
Overall, being emotionally literate means understanding why you or someone else has certain feelings or emotions, knowing the most effective way to express those feelings, then being able to adjust your responses by acting accordingly.
Check out this short video created by youtuber APlaceofOurOwn about emotional literacy in the classroom:
Think you're emotionally literate? Take this short quiz to find out :)
"Emotions influence our thoughts and actions;
they inspire our needs; they affect our
bodies and impact our relationships."
"Emotions influence our thoughts and actions;
they inspire our needs; they affect our
bodies and impact our relationships."