Sometimes children can find it hard to tell you how they are feeling when they are experiencing strong emotions or getting angry. Using a mood thermometer can be a helpful way for them to identify how they are feeling, in the moment, and also helps to build emotional literacy more generally. Pop it somewhere accessible and encourage your child to identify the emotions that they experience, whether they are positive or negative.
Anger is a normal emotion. However, when anger turns into aggression or translates into violence, the causes of it, and strategies for managing it, need to be closely explored. We are joined by clinical psychologist, Dr Anna Colton, who helps us to understand anger better and provides tips on how to support our children and teens more effectively when they feel angry.
Join Dr Weston as she chats to criminologist Joanna Foster, expert on children who set fires. This fascinating discussion covers the causes of fire setting, risk-taking and trauma.
Join Dr Weston and Gareth Thomas from Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School for the second instalment in our Tooled Up Book Club, as they discuss a special issue of the Eton Journal for Innovation and Research in Education, which focuses on character education.
Helping children to reframe challenges is an important part of building their resilience. When they come up against a difficult situation,
they might focus on the negatives and feel despondent, sad or angry. This quick and simple activity can help them to acknowledge how they feel, whilst encouraging them to look for any positives and consider the proactive things that they could do to make themselves feel happier. Ask them how they feel after they have done it. Has it made them feel a little better?
When a pupil leaves a lesson unexpectedly, it’s important to understand why. This short activity, designed with older teens in mind, can encourage them to consider what made them leave and help staff and pupils work together to establish some strategies that could help in the future.
When a pupil leaves a lesson unexpectedly, it’s important to understand why. This short activity, designed with younger pupils in mind, can encourage them to consider what made them leave and help staff and pupils work together to establish some strategies that could help in the future.
Kindness and empathy have far-reaching psychological and social consequences. Being kind and empathetic are skills that can be taught and reading has been found to help with their development. Here’s a list of books to build empathy for children of all ages.
Aporia is a feeling of confusion and perplexity, traditionally experienced through doing philosophy. However, it is a useful term for capturing a host of emotions and experiences that children may go through at school or at home, in their learning. Download our poster and use it at home or in the classroom to help young people name the different emotions they might feel when thinking about complex ideas and expand their emotional vocabulary. Use the space at the bottom to add your own.
We’ve teamed up with The Philosophy Foundation, experts at bringing philosophy to young people. In this resource, we explore the philosophical concept of ‘aporia’; feelings of confusion and perplexity, which many children may go through at school, or at home, in their learning. These are often emotions that get overlooked or are considered to be negative. But aporia is actually an essential experience on the way to insight and understanding, especially with regard to new knowledge. These top tips on how to help children recognise and work through these feelings come straight from those in the know!
