Understanding children's thoughts and feelings

Everyone is born with abilities, and an overall core personality type. 

Family and other circumstances they are born into help shape their abilities and personality into who they will grow up to be. 

For example, if they belong to a large, loving family, they will think that having a lot of people around them is normal and they will develop feelings and thoughts about that depending on how they are treated, and what their core personality type is. 

The quiet, introverted personality might seek out quiet spaces - the more extroverted may be a big personality in a big family.

Recognising children's thoughts and feelings takes observation, practice and feedback. 

A strong understanding of child development from birth, and the impact of different experiences really helps develop competency in recognition of how children are travelling emotionally. 

Watching your child's responses to your support, how they behave or respond in new or similar situations will provide clues to your strength in recognising their thoughts and feelings, and the strategies you use to promote their personal growth.

Teachers and carers can assist children firstly to understand 'what are thoughts and feelings' and the interaction with their actions. 

That thoughts, feelings and actions are linked is not an automatic set of knowledge people have. 

When children, teens and adults start to learn how thoughts and feelings impact specifically for them, then they have some avenue to control them. 

For young children, we often help them by providing strategies such as breathing or counting when upset, which gives them time to calm and helps with better choices. 

We all make better decisions when we are calm because we are more able to think through the consequences of each of the options. 

Hopefully, we then choose the better option for each of us.

Remember that children and teens need a lot of experiences to develop these skills, and our consistency, patience and positivity that they are making progress is so very important.

We've provided guidance on helping children deal with their emotions in Twinkl's article - Understanding Children's Feelings and Thoughts. For the full article follow this link.