Talking about feelings

What this activity is for:

• To get children and young people used to talking about their feelings
• To encourage empathy and understanding of other people's feelings
• To explore the impact that bullying may have

What you need

A collection of cards showing simple drawings of faces, showing emotions. You could make these yourself, or use ready made cards.

Introduction

Ask the group how they are feeling today. Allow young people to answer if they want to, but it is not a good idea to force young people to talk about their feelings, especially in front of the group.

Activity One

Sit in a circle, either on the floor or round a table, and lay down the emotion cards in the middle. Go through the cards one by one and ask the group to suggest what feeling each of the cards represents.

Activity Two - How would you feel?

Ask the group a question- "how would you feel if...?" Go round the circle one by one, and ask each young person to pick up the emotion card that shows how they would feel.

You can make this activity as in-depth or as trivial as you like. The questions could range from "How would you feel if your sister took the last strawberry yoghurt?" to "How would you feel if you won the lottery?"

Some children may choose to pick up the card and say nothing more, others will give an explanation. The important thing is that the young people imagine how they would feel in an abstract situation.

Activity Three

If the group you are working with do not have learning disabilities, you could try talking about the same situations and asking "how would a person with a learning disability feel?" There are no right or wrong answers- generally children should understand that people with learning disabilities have the same feelings as everyone else, but they may find some situations where a person with a learning disability may find things more difficult to understand.

Activity Four - cartoons about bullying

View Cartoon full-size

Read through the cartoon, either as a group, individually or in pairs.

Discuss how you think each of the characters would feel. You can use the emotion cards if you want to. Remember that people often have more than one feeling.

Activity Five - Working from pictures

Go through the pictures and ask the young people to suggest how the person in the picture is feeling (with or without using the emotion cards). How do you know?

Try to think of what may have happened to make the person feel that way. Ask the group to tell the story that led to the feeling either:

• by writing a story
• by drawing a cartoon strip
• by acting out a short play