Learn & Grow
Self-Awareness
Helping Your Three-Year-Old Understand and Manage Emotions
Helping Your Three-Year-Old Understand and Manage Emotions
Emotional self-awareness involves identifying and understanding one's emotions ― including "big feelings" that can sometimes overwhelm us. As Fred Rogers reminds us: "When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary." Most three-year-olds can use simple emotion words — such as "happy," "sad," "excited" and "scared" ― to describe how they are feeling either during or after an emotional reaction. They can also begin to recognize concrete events that cause them to feel happy, sad, excited, and scared.