5 Simple Activities To Talk About Big Feelings
I find myself reaching for creative ways to get the conversation going to help me to support my children through this time where I’m sure they’re wrestling with huge emotions – fear, disappointments, worry, uncertainty in all the changes, helplessness, out of control.
Written by Cathy Porter
Covid-19 has stirred up some big feelings. What is happening in our own communities and around the world is so very unexpected and unusual it is difficult to work through the emotions that have come along with all this change. Talking about feelings, naming them and acknowledging them together can be incredibly helpful at times like this. But where can we begin?
Knowing where something hurts, or what emotion is being felt doesn’t come instinctively to some members of my family and I find myself reaching for creative ways to get the conversation going to help me to support my children through this time where I’m sure they’re wrestling with huge emotions – fear, disappointments, worry, uncertainty in all the changes, helplessness, out of control. Talking together gives a chance to bring myself alongside and support more closely, and for us helps us to pray more specifically having talked about how we’re doing.
Here are 5 simple activities to help us talk about big feelings:
Out of control get a large piece of card or paper and draw a big circle in the middle. Using old magazines to tear out words and pictures, and pens to draw and write fill the circle with things you can control and outside the circle with things out of our control. Picking one of the things in our control that we could act on can even bring some relief to the big feelings.
Body mapping – make gingerbread cookies talking about what each part of your child’s body might be feeling like right now. While they’re cooking maybe draw round the cookie cutter and mark the parts of the body that feel different (like butterfly tummy, or aching head) and be detectives together to work out what emotion might be making our body feel that way.
Playdough faces – use Playdough to make faces with different expressions. Make one for how you are feeling today.
Color– Get out some paint and paint those feelings – what kind of character are they, what do they look like, what color are they?
·Charades– play emotion charades, taking turns to act out and guess emotions. Have a good laugh together and then chat about which one each of us have felt recently.
I hope these ideas are as useful to you as they have been to us. These are unsettling times for us and our children and anything that can help me to stay closely alongside, ready to help and support seems to be a worthwhile thing – I guess chatting with them about their big feelings is inside my circle of control!
Written by Cathy Porter
Cathy Porter is a disciple of Jesus, a mum, ordained and a vicar's wife (in the Church of England), a writer, a creative, a blogger.
Cathy and her husband, Andrew, have 3 children. Her two girls both a diagnosis of ASC. You can follow the ups and downs of family life & faith on her blog: www.clearlynurturing.wordpress.com.
It is Cathy’s heart to encourage families to share in the adventure of faith together, especially families beautifully shaped by ASC. She loves to write stories that make the reader think, ask questions about what we believe, and help the reader to discover what the Bible has to say about God and friendship with him.
Beauty In The Ordinary
It never ceases to amaze me just how tiring and intense our family life can be, especially if I’m honest when school term is over and everyone has time off. All around us friends and family are heading off excitedly on holidays together – and we also head off, but perhaps with a more complex set of emotions than simple excitement. Written by Cathy Porter
It never ceases to amaze me just how tiring and intense our family life can be, especially if I’m honest when school term is over and everyone has time off. All around us friends and family are heading off excitedly on holidays together – and we also head off, but perhaps with a more complex set of emotions than simple excitement.
Out of routine children in unfamiliar places can be a challenge! Just thinking about the extra energy needed to get us there, and survive the experience makes me tired in itself! You know how it is.
We have just had to be spontaneous (I know, not one of our family strengths) and come home earlier than planned because a weather front plus camping at a Christian festival might not have been the most sensible plan. Its upset all the known plans, and caused anxiety all round but before we left I was sitting in a seminar surrounded by other carers and parents who find hope in Jesus like me, and I was reminded by one who commented that her way of self-care in the midst of caring for others was to notice the beauty in the ordinary.
It struck me, and I have brought that thought home with me. If the weather behaves for us I will pack that thought and take it with us to our next week of camping with my sister and her kids by the coast.
Seeing the beauty in the ordinary, such a simple thing.
And as I think about it, such a transforming thing.
Simply taking time to notice beauty; in an unexpected smile; a flower growing through the pavement cracks; the pattern of the sun bouncing and dancing off the sequins of my daughters T-shirt in the car. There is beauty everywhere we turn, when we notice. But how easy to miss it when we are feeling tired and overwhelmed. Somehow we find ourselves using our energy to anticipate the negatives and the problems round every corner, and forgetting to note the beauty in each other and the world around us.
I am reminded of Jesus’ words to a crowd of worried parents,
“Will all your worries add a single moment to your life? For example why worry about clothes? Look how the wild flowers grow. They don’t work hard to make their clothes. But I tell you that Solomon with all his wealth wasn’t as well clothed as one of them. - have you ever seen colour and design quite like it?” (Matthew 6:27-29)
When we stop and notice beauty, pause just for a moment to take it in, we can’t help but see intricate detail and design, amazing extravagant colours and shapes. They remind me of a Creator who takes care in the details – all the small things, even the things so many of us walk past. He sees them, they make Him smile, they delight Him. He has knit beauty into His world at every turn and every hidden corner, nothing is too small for His attention and care.
I am reminded again that nothing in my life, or in my family is too small for His attention and care either.
He has knit beauty in and through us too. We make Him smile, we delight Him! There is nothing about us, even in our most awkward and ordinary moments that He walks past without noticing. He sees. He smiles.
So, today waking up unexpectedly at home and faced with piles of washing, suitcases everywhere hurriedly packed, the kitchen piled high with shopping done for camping that needs sorting and tidying – perhaps today is a good day to put this into practice! Where is the beauty in all of that? I need to take those moments just to notice and take it in. I need reminding that my God sees, and smiles. He sees the beauty in the ordinary- every time!
Written by Cathy Porter
