It is hard being a kid. Emotions can be high because we are excited to see someone, or go somewhere, and then suddenly, things do quite go as planned and our kids can feel pretty low about it. How to help your child deal with ups and downs as a parent is pretty tough. It IS important to show our children though that this roller coaster of emotions is actually completely normal. We have an activity from It’ll be OK today to help teach our kids a little more about their feelings, and to help them deal with the highs and lows associated with them too.
From experiences as an adult, and during counselling training, it is difficult to really truly embrace joy when you haven’t experienced the lows that sadness and emotional pain or disappointment can bring. Junior school children are a little young to understand this, and even some adults struggle. What we can teach them is that the extremes of emotions are OK, and give them some tools and ways of dealing with them. At the very least, we can help them learn to talk about them.
The activity today is based on a roller coaster, showing the ups and downs of emotions as that roller coaster ride that all our children are familiar with.
Roller coaster activity sheet
We are asking your children to think back to what they have done recently, and to remember some of the feelings that they have had:
- When do you feel really up and happy?
- What did you do to feel like this?
- What happened to make you feel down?
- How did you deal with this emotion? How long did it last?
- Were you able to acknowledge the “down feeling”, and talk to someone about it if you needed to?
The activity sheet takes the trip on a roller coaster, and gets children to write their emotions on those ups and downs on the track.
This is a simple but really effective way of relating our emotions to something that our children will know and understand.
To download the activity sheet – you need to click on the round image below and you will be able to access the document.
As always – we really hope that you like this activity, and do check out the book that this comes from as well….
It’ll be OK
This is the Upside Down Books publication that we have taken this activity from – beautifully illustrated by Josephine Dellow. This has over 100 stickers for kids to have fun with. The activities are designed to help children understand and name the emotions they are feeling so that they can deal with them just that little bit better too.
To download the activity, you need to click the round image below, and it should provide you with the sheet you need. Any problems, do drop us a line.
Take a moment to check out some of the other Mindfulness resources for kids that we have on the site too.
Mindfulness activity sheets for kids
We have a few activity sheets from Upside Down Books on the site - take a look at these, but search Mindfulness on KiddyCharts, or choose the heading from the Menu above to explore more.
How to help kids understand life better - mindfulness activity
A simple little activity to help children to understand their life and therefore help deal with it just that little bit better.
Complete the mandala mindful activity for kids
Getting our kids to focus and be more mindful by asking them to complete a Mandala and then colouring it in. Such a relaxing and focused activity.
Mindful mantras for kids free printables
Positive thoughts for kids to use to start the day - some mindful mantras for positive thinking.
How to calm kids with a present moment wheel
Using a present moment wheel to help calm children's thoughts and feelings.
And there are other great ideas available beyond KiddyCharts of course too.
Mindful activities for kids from other sites
Here are a few more ideas for you about mindful activities that your kids can do today.
50 Mindful Journal Prompts for Teens
Some prompts for the journal that you might now have from Upside Down Books - or just some general journaling ideas for your kids.
Tip To Encourage Mindful Sibling Relationships
Ideas for encouraging mindful sibling relationships - something that we struggle with a little in our family...so perhaps some of you do to?
Inspiring Your Child to Love Themselves
Helping your kids with their self-esteem is a great way to encourage them to be more mindful too. Why not check out this advice to help them?
Do stick around and sign up to our newsletter as we love giving you great resources for the kids; learning, colouring, mindfulness, you name it, we hope we’ve got it.
Thanks for coming,
Helen
Helen
Helen is a mum to two, social media consultant, and website editor; and this site is (we think) the only Social Enterprise parenting magazine! Since giving up being a business analyst when juggling travel, work and kids proved too complicated, she founded KiddyCharts so she could be with her kids, and use those grey cells at the same time. KiddyCharts has reach of over 1.1million across social and the site. The blog works with big family brands (including travel) to help promote their services, as well as offering free resources to parents of kids under 10. It gives 51%+ profits to Reverence for Life, who fund a number of important initiatives in Africa, including bringing running water and basic equipment to a school in Tanzania. Helen has worked as a digital marketing consultant (IDM qualified) with various organisations, including Channel Mum, Truprint, Talk to Mums, and Micro Scooters. She loves to be creative in the brand campaigns she works on. Get in touch TODAY!