Emotional charades can be a good gateway into communication with your children. Here’s how to play:
- Write out on index cards all the emotions you can think of (one emotion per card). Sometimes you can print out the faces from an emotion poster or use your “emoji” keyboard for common emotions.
- Someone picks a card and acts out the emotion while the others guess the emotion.
- Once the emotion is guessed, have everyone answer these questions:
- What does that emotion look like on your face?
- What does that emotion feel like in your body? (What does your body feel like when you have that emotion?)
- How do you communicate that emotion with words? (Practice with the person to your right.)
- What do you do to handle that emotion appropriately? (Give tools and tips for dealing with that emotion.)
- When everyone has answered those questions, then the next person draws a card and acts out the next emotion.
