Emotional well-being is a key component in weathering stressful and unexpected situations. For our kids, learning to recognize their own emotions and practicing making good decisions in upsetting situations are skills that need guidance and practice, just like any others. Arm your kids with these invaluable skills by incorporating emotional intelligence practice into your family’s routine.
Developing a strong bond where sharing current moods is encouraged can help establish open communication about complex current (and future) topics. For kids of various ages, these five digital apps can help open the door to easy and consistent communication about emotional intelligence, mood variations, and the importance of assessing our own feelings. If you’d like to add more emotion-communication to your family’s repertoire this year, check these out!
Emotions and Feelings Chart
Best for the youngest kids, this Apple app is a great way to introduce emotion-tracking to your children. You can create a profile for each family member and track how everyone has felt over time. The bold icons that represent a large range of emotions are easy for young kids to see and interpret themselves – they’ll have ownership over their feelings when they’re the ones who choose the button every day.
Stop, Breathe & Think
Designed for kids ages 5-10, this app pairs mood tracking with mindfulness techniques. Upon opening the app, kids choose how they feel today from various emotion icons; the program then takes them through an appropriate mini-adventure based on that emotion and its associated calming techniques. With 15 adventures in all (and more released periodically), your kids will have fun collecting stickers to show their mastery of various mindfulness tools. As a parent, you can check in and see what adventure your child took today and what emotion prompted it. This is a fun way to track emotions while also learning to stop, breathe, and think before acting out.
Photo: milkos via 123RF
Zones of Regulation: Exploring Emotions App
If you have elementary-aged kids, the Zones of Regulation program is one of the best ways to teach emotional intelligence. While you’ll find an entire curriculum on the program’s website, their Exploring Emotions App is the highlight for its ease of use and kid-friendly features. As your children navigate various social scenarios that require emotional intelligence, they’ll learn about “zones” of emotion; this technique will allow them to easily assess their own feelings on a daily basis and develop coping strategies. For example, the app helps them learn that when a “red” emotion (such as anger) triggers unsafe or inappropriate actions, they should use transition skills to move to the yellow zone instead. The app comes with lots of parent instructions and suggestions for checking in with your kids as you monitor their progress through the games and notice their daily zone color.
Me: A Kid’s Diary
If you’d like something that goes beyond just emotions for your kids, try this digital diary appropriate for ages 8+ (due to reading requirements). After your child creates an avatar, the journal will give daily prompts that your child can respond to through writing, drawing, photos, voice recording – the possibilities are endless! Although the prompts don’t always ask for identifying today’s emotional state, you could create a family expectation that every journal entry also includes an emotion sticker in the corner. With thorough privacy features and family-app-sharing enabled, you can let each child create their own journal and check in from your device to learn about their world. This diary also opens the door to discussions about digital privacy and choosing what to put in public versus private spaces.
Daylio
A great option for older kids who want to add a little more detail to their entries, Daylio offers a streamlined mood journal for all devices with built-in privacy options. After choosing today’s mood, kids can track what activities they’ve engaged in and any other relevant information. Daylio’s biggest resource is its array of statistics and ways to look back on your past entries. Older kids and parents will find insights into mood patterns when looking through all of Daylio’s easy-to-read information. As a bonus, there’s a built-in goal tracker that’s also easy to use.
Helping kids learn to track their emotions is a powerful way to build their emotional intelligence while also creating a strong family connection. Try these digital options today!
