Simple Activities to Help Kids Cope with Big Feelings

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Try these simple activities from a licensed mental health counselor to help kids cope with big feelings related to COVID-19 and the coronavirus pandemic.

COVID-19 continues to alter our lives, causing waves of grief and trauma. We are feeling sadness, anger, shock, denial, and fear. Your children are feeling these waves of emotion too, and they need your help to cope with these very BIG feelings. In this article, I’ve included several tips on how to help kids cope with big feelings, or complex emotions..

What Are Complex Emotions?

Complex emotions occur when we feel two or more things at the same time, which is common in grief and/or trauma. For example, your child may be happy that she gets to spend more time with you, and sad that her birthday party was canceled.

Helpful resource: Daniel Tiger has a great song about mixed feelings that could be helpful to you.

Simple activities from a licensed counselor to help kids cope with big emotions

Try these simple steps to help kids cope with big emotions.

Step One: Check in With Yourself First

What complex emotions have YOU been feeling?

Do this mindfulness activity.

Bring your attention to your body, beginning with your head and slowly working down to your toes. When you find a point of tightness or tension, pause, and be curious about that sensation.

What is the emotion: sadness, anger, fear?

Attempt to neutralize the sensation by focusing on a different part of your body that feels calm. If you can’t neutralize it, that’s okay, and to be expected during a time like this.

Acknowledge the feeling by naming it, and tell yourself it’s okay to feel that way. Praise yourself for increasing your own awareness about your emotions. It will help you hold the space for your child’s emotions.

Step Two: Follow Their Lead

Your kids might not have the vocabulary to tell you in detail how they are feeling during this time of crisis. However, children communicate through play.

My first tip is to simply “lean in” to their play or activities. Sit with your children wherever they are playing and simply observe them. Their play might tell you how they are feeling.

Normalize it: “I noticed you got frustrated while you were playing today. That’s okay.”

If they are a bit older, they can probably have a conversation with you about it. You might ask “What do you think you were feeling? Where are you feeling that in your body?”

If they struggle to answer these questions, that’s okay. If they don’t want to answer your questions, tell them that’s okay too! Let them come to you.

Giving them the option NOT to do these therapeutic activities is a MUST right now. It communicates emotional safety.

If they want to do an activity, perhaps they can draw an outline of their body, either on big paper or a mini version.

Ask them to color in the parts of their body that feel “funny” or “different” right now.

Then ask them what they want to do with this drawing. Do they want to hang it up or rip it up? The point is to get the emotion out, not to analyze their artwork.

PRO TIP: When observing your child drawing, a great question to ask is “I’d love to know more about your drawing. Do you want to tell me?” instead of “I see you used red, you must be very angry!” The latter is an assumption.

Challenge them to tell you in their own words by using an open-ended question instead of a statement. Point to certain areas on the drawing and say, “Tell me about this part.”

If they don’t want to answer, then they probably need space. Say, “I can tell you don’t want to talk about it, and that’s okay.”

Involve the Whole Family

Print out a feelings chart and have it accessible to the whole family. Encourage all members to pick a feeling on the chart and share how they are feeling that day.

Helpful resource: There is a free printable set of feelings cards available in this play dough mat set here.

Then ask: “How do you know that’s what you’re feeling?” This is excellent modeling for your child. It communicates that adults have complex emotions too, and that it’s okay to talk about them together.

If an adult or teen doesn’t want to share their feelings, give them permission to just listen, and thank them for their presence; this is modeling appropriate boundaries and emotional safety.

A feelings chart activity teaches children how to recognize what they are feeling, and normalizes that everyone (parents, siblings, grandparents, etc.) is struggling with new emotions too.

PRO TIP: If you force your children and family members to do this activity, it will probably not go well. Giving people the option to not participate is very therapeutic.

Step Three: Externalize the Emotion

Begin by obtaining your child’s permission to do an activity about BIG feelings. Then, help them give their emotions a name, a color, an animal, etc.

You can have your child draw it or simply talk about it with them.

For example, you can say to your child “If your sadness was an animal or mythical creature, what would it be? What’s its name? What color would it be? How big would it be? How would it move? What would it eat?”

Continue to ask open-ended questions to illicit more details until the picture (either a drawing, or a picture in their head) of this externalized emotion is very clear.

Then say to your child, “This emotion is very important, and I’m so glad we talked about it. Where can [emotion’s name] stay for a while so that we can focus on schoolwork?”

Then have your child pick a location or draw an imaginary location. If it’s a scary emotion/animal, ask your child if they are afraid of it. If they are, then where can we store it so that we know we’re all going to be safe?

PRO TIP: As you may have learned from Mr. Rogers, feelings become much less overwhelming when we get to know them in activities like this one. It’s rare that children are afraid of their externalized emotions. It’s more common that the parent is very uncomfortable with the child’s BIG feeling. That discomfort gets indirectly communicated back to the child, who then learns “It’s not okay to have BIG feelings.” You can avoid this by truly allowing every feeling to be okay. It’s NOT your job to fix it, and it’s not your fault that they are feeling BIG feelings.

Simple activities to help kids cope with big emotions

Calm Down Together

By now you’ve both identified your complex emotions, sat with them for a while, and stored them away for later.

It’s time to unwind.

Help your child calm down by calming yourself down first.

Take some deep breaths, making sure your exhale is longer than your inhale; this activates your parasympathetic nervous system to calm you down.

Ask your child to breathe with you. If they’re very young, make it into an activity. Lay down on your back, place a stuffed animal on your belly, and watch the stuffed animal go up and down like it’s on an elevator. Make sure the stuffed animal goes up faster than it goes down.

Deep-breathing is the most effective way to calm down.

Other Calm-Down Tips:

In addition to deep-breathing, you can do these activities, repeating them until you both feel calm or neutral.

Toss an object back and forth. Count how many times it goes back and forth before one of you drops it. Start again and try to set a new record.
Go on a scavenger hunt around the house finding 10 blue objects, 10 green objects, etc.
Go outside and place your bare feet in the grass. Pretend you are a tree and stand tall and still, arms out like branches. Whoever moves first loses and must start again.
Do an activity that you both enjoy, and let them take the lead (baking, playing with Legos, coloring, hide and seek, etc.)

I hope these tips have been useful in helping you and your child through this challenging time. These activities are therapeutic in nature, and remember, you are not a trained therapist, but you are their parent! Be kind to yourself as you introduce these activities.

Disclaimer: I believe these activities are simple enough to do at home. However, I do not know your specific situation. These activities may not be appropriate for severe cases of grief and trauma. If you are or your child get overwhelmed to the point of not being able to calm down, then it is time to seek out a licensed therapist. Ask your primary care physician or insurance provider for a referral. Most therapists are providing telehealth sessions and are available.

Written by: Holly Golden, MA, LMFT, LMHC {Read more about Holly here.}