When I taught third grade in a public school, I learned that many children didn’t understand their own emotions. I saw this play out every day in the classroom, and read research to support it. At a staff meeting, I learned that the majority of third-graders could only identify happy and sad emotions. Children need to be able to identify their emotions in order to deal with them properly. A child’s mental health can affect their social and cognitive development, which is why educating children about their emotions during the early years is so important.
Related: The Complete Charlotte Mason Preschool Guide
Why Teaching About Emotions is Important
When we can identify our emotions, then we know how to better deal with them. For example, some people eat out of boredom. Identifying that the feeling you’re experiencing is boredom and not physical hunger can prevent emotional eating and preserve your health.
Charlotte Mason said:
In Educating the Feelings we Modify the Character– But our feelings, as our thoughts, depend upon what we are; we feel in all things as ’tis our nature to,’ and the point to be noticed is that our feelings are educable, and that in educating the feelings we modify the character. A pressing danger of our day is that the delicate task of educating shall be exchanged for the much simpler one of blunting the feelings.” (Parents and Children)
We all feel emotions differently, and that is in our nature. How we handle them builds our character. It might be easier to teach children to distract themselves from uncomfortable feelings, but it’s important to teach them how to appropriately manage them.
Related: Why my Kids are Out of Control
Identifying Emotions
With young children, modeling this art of identifying our emotions is the best place to start. I often say, “I’m feeling overwhelmed. I need to go have some quiet for a little bit.” When one of my children is experiencing a strong emotions, I say, “It seems like you’re feeling overwhelmed. What are you feeling?” They begin to learn the names for different emotions that they might experience.
While reading books, we often stop and identify how the main character might be feeling. Not only does this teach them how to identify emotions, but it teaches empathy, too.
Setting Boundaries
I think the best way to teach children how to manage their emotions is to set boundaries. Forcing them to stop feeling or stop reacting only teaches them to blunt their emotions. Instead, we can give them parameters. Here are some examples:
- It’s okay to be angry, but it’s not okay to hit. How else can you use your body when you’re angry?
- I understand that your frustrated, but your toy did nothing wrong. How can we solve this problem together?
- You are in a super silly mood right now! Let’s go get our wiggles out so we can sit nicely.
- I’m so sorry that you’re feeling sad. You’re welcome to cry, but it is not going to change my decision.
Building Character
Once we understand our own emotions, how we react to them is what will build our character. Charlotte Mason said that,
The habits of the child produce the character of the man.”
Over time, how we learn to react to our emotions becomes habit. We learn to explode when we’re angry or zone out when we’re sad. OR, we learn to take a walk when we’re angry and talk about it when we’re sad. When we seem to be swimming in our children’s big emotions, we need to remember to stick with them and help them navigate through whatever it is, rather than grabbing the iPad and running to the closet (it’s tempting.)
Stoicism in the Victorian Era
What surprises me the most about the passage above is that stoicism was a dominating virtue in the Victorian Era, when Charlotte Mason lived. People were taught to not react emotionally. The Poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling is a good example of this attitude. Throughout Charlotte Mason’s volumes, we see reflections of Victorian Era stoicism. In Home Education, she urges mothers or nurses not to react when children are hurt:
A baby falls, gets a bad bump, and cries piteously. The experienced nurse does not “kiss the place to make it well,” or show any pity for the child’s trouble- that would make matters worse; the more she pities, the more the child sobs. She hastens to ‘change his thoughts’, so she says; she carries him to the window to see the horses, gives him his pet picture-book, his dearest toy, and the child pulls himself up in the middle of a sob, though he is really badly hurt.”
To me, this seems like it is “blunting the emotions,” by withholding emotional support when it is needed. When reading her volumes, I think it’s important to understand that we might see traces of stoicism, but with what we know now, sticking to the advice of “educating the emotions” is the healthiest modern approach.
Related: Charlotte Mason’s 20 Principles
, page 51
is the book to read during your child’s early years. This has helped us tame toddler temper tantrums, and establish boundaries for our children- and for us as parents. 
focuses on older children, but there is value in reading it even when your children are young.
When Miss H was about 15 months old, I took her to a restaurant to have breakfast with a friend. I have to tell you- Miss H has always been an excellent restaurant patron. In general, she just has a sweet disposition (of course, she has her moments, too!) This particular morning, I ordered a bowl of fruit for my little toddler. When she caught sight of the juicy berries that were delivered to her, she shook with excitement. She reached out in front of her, and caught the edge of the porcelain ramekin, sending red and blue berries flying through the air. The bowl crashed to the ground and shattered into hundreds of pieces. The fellow restaurant-goers fell silent. I fell to my knees, and quickly scooped up the berries and shattered bowl. Then the server came over to help. Flustered, I tried to explain what happened. “It’s okay.” He said. “You can’t control kids all of the time.” Did he just call my sweet daughter out of control? This bothered me then, but it wasn’t until I kept learning about
, Susan Shaeffer Macaulay talks about sending a child inside to do chores when he has a problem playing peacefully outside. Instead of saying, “If you are mean to your sister, you have to go do chores!” a gentle explanation of, “Since you’re having a hard time getting along, you can go be helpful inside. Here are some chores for you to do.” One of these natural consequences that Charlotte Mason describes is that a child might get a plum (or the modern day equivalent- a cookie?!) after he or she eats the entire dinner. Again, there’s a difference in giving a plum and saying, “You’d better eat your vegetables or you can’t have a plum!” These rewards and motivations are all around us, and it’s hard to completely avoid them. I find it challenging to completely avoid them in our home! But once again, I find myself soaking in Charlotte Mason’s wisdom and saying, “That makes so much sense!” If you’d like to read about how modern research lines up with this idea, please read my post 
