Learn & Grow
Self-Awareness
Helping Your Four-Year-Old Understand and Manage Emotions
Helping Your Four-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." Four-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 talk about how specific events cause them to feel happy, sad, excited and scared.